Most houses with someone at home on hospice have a short list of small fixes nobody planned for. A bulb goes out in the hall at night. A cabinet hinge lets go. The bathroom faucet starts to drip, and the drip is loud in a quiet house. None of these is a crisis. Each one still needs an owner, and the question of who owns it tends to get left until the day it is urgent.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Make the list before the first call
Walk the house once with a notepad and write down every repair you can see, plus the ones you have been putting off. Include the smoke alarms, the carbon monoxide detector if the house has one, the handrail on the steps, the door that sticks in wet weather, and any light fixture you cannot reach without a chair. Mark each item as one of three things: a job you can do with the tools already in the garage, a job that needs a second person or a ladder, or a job that needs a licensed trade. That sorting is most of the decision.
Check the alarms first
Smoke alarms are the one item on the list that should not wait for a free weekend. Press the test button on each unit. Look at the date printed on the back, since alarms carry a manufacturer's service life, and replace any that are past it. If a bedroom or hallway is out of earshot of the others, decide who checks that room, and on which day. Write the day on the calendar. This is work you can do yourself with a step stool and a fresh battery, and nothing else on the list is more worth doing by hand.
Set your own limit before the repair
Decide in advance what you will do yourself, not in the middle of the job when the wall is already open. A reasonable line for many families is anything that stays at or below a step stool, uses a tool you already own, and can be undone if it goes wrong. Work on the gas line, the electrical panel, a water heater, the roof, or any wall that might hold a wire or a pipe goes to a professional. Those are not judgments about your skill. They are judgments about what a mistake costs in a house where the person in the bed cannot leave the room.
What to ask before you hire
When you call someone for the work, ask four things and write the answers down. Ask whether they are licensed or registered for the kind of work you need, and ask who issued the license. Ask whether they carry liability insurance and whether they will show you the certificate. Ask for a written estimate that lists parts and labor separately and says what happens if the job turns out to need more. Ask when they can come and whether a rescheduled visit costs you anything. A repair that cannot start for a long time is a different repair from one that can start this week, and the difference matters when the house is busy.
Missouri and St. Louis County have their own rules for some kinds of contracting work. Ask the contractor who pulls any required permit, and check with the county before you assume the answer is no one. The Sources page lists where the rules we point to come from, and Local Help for Hospice Families covers the west county offices and services families most often ask about.
Keep the paper in one place
Keep the estimate, the receipt, the warranty, and the name and phone number of the person who did the work in the same folder as the house papers. You will want them when the same drip returns months later, and you will want them when someone new asks what has already been done. Put the folder where the rest of the family can find it without calling you.
The house will keep producing small repairs for as long as it stands. The point of the list is not to get ahead of every one of them. It is to know, before the next one shows up, who picks it up.