I live in California and I have been caring for a wheel chair bound, 95 year old woman with dementia for 3 years, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week . I cant leave her for a second by herself. I tried getting help, because I am burnt out. The girl I hired quit after 2 months of working without pay. (The ladies son wouldnt pay her). Since i live rent free, does that count as my pay for caring for the lady? Should I be getting paid also? If so how much is the weekly minimum pay for 24 hour care 7 days a week in california?
If, however, you do not agree that this is a fair wage, ...because it is “at will” employment, you can leave any time. If the family is failing to meet legal obligations (paying workers) l, this is not a secure position.
I am going to assume that son will say you are not an employee but a "volunteer caregiver."
So in your case, California has a domestic caregiver coalition. Here is the link:
https://www.cadomesticworkers.org/
It tells you wages of your area, etc. If I were you, I would reach out to them for assistance.
Did you have permission to hire the other person? If you did, why wasn’t she paid? Do you want to remain there as an employee? It doesn’t sound like a feasible option to me. What else do they provide? Food?
This is a confusing posting. Can you please give more details so people can respond. There is absolutely no way that you can keep up this pace. Sleep deprecation is brutal. Plus, how can you properly care for someone if you aren’t caring for yourself?
Contact the state labor board and see if you have any kind of case. Absent an actual employment contract, you might be hard-pressed to get that kind of money from the son, but I have a feeling you can put together some kind of case using receipts, witnesses, and recreating time cards to account for the time you've been there.