[john70t]

I've got a 'simple' relative who is set in his ways unfortunately.
He's always been quite welcoming and an incredibly good person at the core, great to visit, but the house has always been a problem.
He's been dealing with various health problems over the years and breathing is one of them.

Being somewhat experienced in basic real estate and engineering, I've tried over the years to help him have a better place to enjoy in his later years.
Subtly or overtly...none of my suggestions seems to work.

The one-story on-slab is located at the bottom of a hill so his back yard receives all the surface water from above.
The screened-in back porch floods. It is unusable and has been abandoned.
That porch could be a nice place to sit outside in the summertime.
The last time we visited there was a 4" deep by 5' wide pond right in front of the back door step where his dog goes in and out throughout the day.
This includes the winter.

The inside of the place has always smelled a little 'musty'. Especially with 30-40year old original carpet/furniture/everything, a dog, plus never having been cleaned in the last decade. I bought him a HEPA vacuum cleaner, a dehumidifier and an air purifier which have all helped tremendously when they are used (when I visit). The amount of initial dirt and hair extracted from everywhere was..um..substantial. But those are just band-aids.

Besides monthly cleaning what he really needs is landscape grading:
1). A mini-excavator would make quick work of the grading where the yard is higher than the house.
2). A perimeter trench drain would help pull extra surface water.
3). A sump pump would keep the water table low enough that there would never be an issue again.
4). $5-10 grand to fix everything permanently is what I'd guess. A week max for a competent company.

But when I bring it up, the subject is always quickly changed.
Suffering seems to be his preferred method of slow dying.