Most families write a house sheet once, in a hurry, and then forget about it. Months later the thermostat has a new setting, the trash day has moved, and the neighbor who checked the back porch has moved away. The sheet still sits on the counter, looking official, and it is wrong.
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.
What belongs on the sheet
Keep the sheet to what a helper needs to walk into the house and do the day's work safely. Include where the water shutoff and the fuse box are, how the thermostat works, which door to use, where the phone charger is kept, the trash and recycling days, the nearest neighbor who knows the household, and the phone numbers for the family and the doctor's office. Leave out anything the daily work does not need.
Give the sheet one owner
A sheet with several owners has none. Name a single person who updates it, and tell the office who that person is. When a helper asks a question the sheet does not answer, the owner adds the answer that same day.
Know what makes it go stale
Some changes always need a new line: a new helper, a new neighbor, a changed locking habit, a new trash day, a new phone number for the doctor's office, or a new routine for meals or bedtime. Write each routine in short, plain steps. As memory changes shift, an old routine may stop working, and the sheet should show the routine that works now.
Keep the paper in one place
Put the printed copy where the helper will look first, and keep a second copy in a folder the family can find in the dark. Replace the old copy as soon as the new one is printed. Two versions floating around the house are how the wrong one gets used.
Check it with the office
Once a month, ask the office to read the sheet back to you and to tell you what its own copy says. Gaps show up quickly this way, and they are much easier to fix before a helper stumbles on them.
For ideas on keeping a daily routine steady while things change, see the page on keeping routine as memory slips. Nothing on this page is medical advice, and health questions go to the family's doctor.