Caretel Inns of Lakeland

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My father was a resident prior to his death at 93. The staff was wonderful to him. Very kind, considerate, and always helpful, from the nurses to the CNAs. The facility was clean and homey. My only suggestion would be some kind of formal orientation for the family. We kind of floundered around for the first couple of days til we figured it out on our own. Very pleased overall

I am giving this place 0 stars



(1) Its the most miserable place I have ever worked. The quality of maintenance at this place is beyond poor, but not because of the maintenance department. The Director of nursing who was in charge of maintenance and had NO CLUE how the maintenance department works or what is needed to keep this place going or to turn a room over for occupancy or run this facility like a well oiled machine. NONE of the scheduled maintenance was ever done because of "special" projects its nursing director had me doing, like picking up her dogs crap in the courtyard, (she brought her dog with her to work) or planting flowers to make Caretel "LOOK good". It a big victorian mansion looking place and it COULD have been fabulous. As it is though, it has been ruined by mismanagement for decades. Even the residents talked about Sharon and I never heard 1 single kind word from them, about her. I was supposed to have 5 maintenance workers under me at all times to maintain this facility and never had even 1 decent worker. "ALL" of the work was expected to get done regardless. That was appalling, mis-management, and the very worst management I have ever had the unfortunate experience with "anywhere", period. Now I have this "BAD" experience on my resume' and no way to tell anyone "hey wait a minute it was not my fault"



BUT, it gets worse,...much worse,..



(2) I specifically remember a resident who had lung cancer and would spit his phlegm on the walls and it would dry and make crusty green formations on the walls. Disgusting right? NOTHING was ever done to clean it up before the next resident was placed in the same bed in the same room against the maintenance supervisors (me) advice. Sharon was her name and she was micro managing moron. She never left her office unless corporate showed up and then because she had been sedentary and lazy and never left her office for so many years she could barely walk when they did show up. After decades of this kind of mis-managment I really have to wonder what kind of shape this building really IS in now. The plumbing backs up all the time massively flooding entire wings of rooms. Black mold abounds I have personally seen it while working on a walls. There were numerous roof leaks. There was 1 leak in the roof above a door way that was attended to, buy placing a cardboard mat under the roof leak, some time in the past" to soak up the rain that would run down. The room directly under the leak always had a black mold problem, and that is just one example, there were many others. I am sure that room still has black mold today, because of lack of attention Maintenance duties and the importance of "looking good' taking precedence over solving the problem. The first job I did when hired here was fix a ceiling that collapsed from a roof leak. The leak eventually took out the ceiling again. This was in a dining room.



(3) There frequently was never any repair, painting, or any other maintenance allowed to be done on a vacant rooms before the next resident came, the Director of Nursing always saw to pushing occupancy near 100% by the millionaire owner, Horace of course. I can't stress this enough, don't put your loved one in this place! It may look good on the outside but I know different, there are hidden things there you really don't want your loved one exposed to.



(4) And the Cost, GEEZ REALLY!?!?, I don't know how Horace the previous owner could sleep at night knowing he was ripping off old people for massive amounts of money to make a living. Rooms at Caretel started at 3800 a month. Horace was this aloof millionaire who made his fortune owning these appauling places and charging an arm and a leg to live there. Million,aire? I don't think so, he is nothing but a million dollar-thief and a pompous one at that.