My neighbor almost burned down our building

I wasn't sure how to title this post in a way that expresses how scared and nervous I am for our elderly neighbor...

My neighbor across the hall is a sweet, lonely old woman. The truth is, I don't know how old she is. She could be a poorly aging 50s or in her 70s. It's hard to tell. She's very kind and has only the nicest things to say about my kids.

That being said. I can't stand talking to her. It's sad to admit this, but when I have crying babies or am on the phone the last thing I want to do is chat about my cats, or her depression, or how she is getting so old that she can't remember certain things.

Todd and I are always willing to help. Yes. Sometimes we do it reluctantly because her house is literally an episode of Hoarders and it feels dirty to experience her home. It's sad to see someone you know deteriorate over time like that.

My point is this: twice, she has come to us regarding an unfortunate stove accident. The first was a while back. I can't remember if we'd had Jack yet. For some reason she pulled all the knobs off of her stove and they were put back on the wrong posts. She had her oven and a burner swapped. She claims she never did that, but someone had to. Either way, she couldn't figure out why one of her burners was on. Surprisingly, we went over that time to check on her television, which wasn't working because she'd flipped the breaker to turn off the stove (our condos weren't wired the smartest...)

Today, she knocked on our door frantically asking if Todd could look at her stove because it was smoking. You could smell the burning before I even opened my door. She innocently told me that maybe it was her oven, she didn't know because she doesn't use it. After opening the oven door and being assaulted by plumes of smoke and the smell of burnt plastic I fished out a box of Ziplock storage bags that had melted and burned. There were also a few different colored puddles, which I'm assuming were plastic bowls of some sort. She also had a spare burner in the oven. She claimed the cleaning lady must store them there.

A couple of things were wrong in both situations. Her stove was not cleared off. There were plastic bags, dishes, plastic and paper packages all over the burners. After the first stove episode, Todd and I discussed the dangers of her being on her own, but really, what could we do about it?

I still don't know. I now have the phone number of her sister. A while back she'd mentioned a sister but they didn't seem to be very close. I'm not sure how much help she could be here. My other option would be to call social services. I worry about the latter because I'm afraid they'd put her somewhere where she'd have to surrender her cat. Silly, yes, but I've seen firsthand the improvement of her cognitive well being the cat brings her. She had to put her previous cat to sleep and I was worried about her mental state.

I just don't know where to go from here. I worry about what would happen if Todd or I weren't home. I worry that I'll drive up one day to fire trucks, or worse, that she'd start a fire while we are all still home. I can't imagine wrangling both kids and three cats out of a burning building. I know if it came to it, I'd have to let the cats go, but even thinking of making that decision kills me.

I wish we could afford to sell. I wish our mortgage weren't under water and we had more options. Maybe I should start playing the lotto. We don't need much, just enough to pay off to be able to sell. At this point, we don't even want to make money off the stupid place, we just want to be able to get out.