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Question on being sensitive
I've just got home for christmas and am helping to tidy up before putting up the decorations. Anyway, I'm noticing lots that whilst the house is definitely habitable, it is definitely not being looked after as well as it could. There are loads of cracks in the plaster, lots of little DIY jobs that need doing, and like cobwebs in the corners of rooms and loads of dust in rooms that don't get used very much.
Basically, a 4 storey Victorian terrace with 5 bedrooms, 3 reception rooms, 2 bathrooms and an open plan kitchen/dining room is far far too big for just my dad and my sister to be living in. And it's such a nice house and I'm really worried that's it's going to become really dilapidated or whatever.
But everytime I mention this to my dad, he gets really over sensitive and makes it sound like a personal insult, when really I'm just trying to explain that a house like this is too much a man in his mid-50s who works full time and a really really really messy 16 year old girl to look after. And I really want to encourage him to downsize, or work out a way to look after the house better without upsetting him. What do I do?
(and before anyone says that this is a "look at how rich you are!" thread - the house cost £69,000 because it was structurally unsound - and probably still is - and that is why the cracks in the plaster particularly worry me...)