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Sister out of house, what rights do we have with her stuff?
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<blockquote data-quote="hamsterdance" data-source="post: 714629" data-attributes="member: 22048"><p>Yeah, I guess I spent so much time dumping emotionally I didn't give enough facts... </p><p></p><p>We live in United States, Texas.</p><p></p><p>My brother and I have been in rental situations for the past 20 years (with me renting rooms for about 5 years of that time in the past), which is why both of our first thought is "uh... what's the legal repercussions of all this?"</p><p></p><p>Having spoken with co-workers over the years we also know that having an adult child come home to live with you can turn into a "Roach Motel" situation... it's easy to get them in ("yeah, sure, you can come stay with us until you get back on your feet") then you can't get them out ("you need an eviction notice, talk to a court about this and that, and they get to stay and you can't just kick them out"... that kind of stuff which flabbergasts parents when they realize how hard it is to get an adult child to move out when essentially it feels like the child has all the rights to live at the place and the parents feel like they have no rights over their own domicile anymore to just "get this person out.". Kind of like trying to get rid of a squatter.)</p><p></p><p>As I said, my sister is in her 40's and can be considered an adult child that moved back in ... for... 20 years...(sigh)</p><p></p><p>She wasn't paying rent, there was no lease agreement... but I'm pretty sure she's still in some kind of implied landlord / tenant situation that laws cover. So, my dad (landlord) can't just claim all of the tenant's stuff and start selling it off.</p><p></p><p>He had to work with a lawyer for another situation (crazy passive-aggressive neighbor lady that does a bunch of stuff to neighbors to try to get them to act out against her so she can sue them). I'll see if he's up to contacting that guy again and see if we can get a run-down of rights.</p><p></p><p>Worse comes to worse, I'll head down to their local police station to see if I can talk to the police and get some advice on her rights, or get pointed to a mental health counselor that can explain it... or see if my dad has the phone number of the mental health worker my sister was seeing before all of this.</p><p></p><p>The problem I'm having is I'm back in college full time after exiting work-force of 15 years (just graduated with Bach, but now going into a Masters program). So, I don't exactly have thousands of dollars to throw at lawyer consultations right now. My brother works, but his budget is tight, too... My dad and mom are retired, living off my dad's gov't pension. I'm not sure they have thousands or dollars to throw at a lawyer, and my dad being in the mind-set he's in just thinks "this is my house, I'll do whatever I want to do". So, I doubt he's inclined to want to go seek legal advice over something he's "positive" he has all the rights on.</p><p></p><p>My mom and dad are just in full-on "mom and dad" mode. They view this situation as "we're the parents, you're the child, you were living under our roof, so you have no rights and everything under our roof is ours".</p><p></p><p>And my brother and I are like "no... you're adults... and she's an adult... and this is a legal situation that you need to keep from mucking up by making rash decisions."</p><p></p><p>But... I totally get where my mom and dad are coming from ... They've spent 20 years dealing with this, watching it go down hill as my sister's mental health declines while their physical health declines. They are just done. They want to clean the room out and move on with life. I get that. </p><p></p><p>But, the way they handled it... just the over-whelming'ness of it all. They think it's just a matter of us coming over, take 30 minutes to take whatever you want, and they'll just dump the rest. In their minds, they're so detached from the situation now... they didn't seem to realize how overwhelming her two rooms are.</p><p></p><p>Like I said.. there is SO MUCH STUFF.. like an episode of Hoarders. There is literally no room to put anything on any shelves or tables. There is a pathway that leads in the door, and splits off over to a chair to sit down in front of a computer tv and the other path goes to the bathroom and into the other bedroom where she slept.. and in that bedroom there is a path near the bed and the rest of the room has stuff everywhere.</p><p></p><p>It's insane.</p><p></p><p>I finally told my dad there's too much stuff in here to go through in 30 min or an hour, so them pushing us to "just go in and take what you want and we'll get rid of the rest" was not how we needed to handle this. I told him this was at least a WEEK-LONG PROJECT sifting through this stuff ... what's trash, goodwill, keep/sell. And then I told him I would come over every day of the week to be the impartial third-party that sifts through her stuff... trying to figure out what was theirs and what was hers... and to organize and clean it all.</p><p></p><p>That wasn't the answer he wanted to hear, because he just turned around, turned the lights off and walked out of the room while I was still in it. He just wants to be done.</p><p></p><p>They have medical things going on during the week, but I'm going over Tues & Wed.</p><p></p><p>I think right now I'll go over and just sit them down and tell them to put a freeze on things until we get the legalities of this worked out.</p><p></p><p>The phone call from my mom that day (which turned into us going over there) literally started with "we're redecorating the house!"... which turned out to be "we're getting rid of all of her stuff, wiping the slate clean, and paving over to act like none of this ever happened (my sister must have really shaken my mom up with something, because my mom used to dote on my sister a lot... so for my mom to just completely turn her back on her like this is just... well...)</p><p></p><p>I think right now I need to just go over there and talk to them both, perhaps each one in private... and just let them talk and vent and discuss things and blow up and do whatever they need to to handle things right now.</p><p></p><p>But, make it clear we need to keep my sister's stuff.</p><p></p><p>I mean... my mom wants to redecorate the WHOLE house...!</p><p></p><p>My dad got busy remodelling the bathrooms.. he's been wanting to do that since they moved in, and sort of half-started in his own bathroom. When I went over there he showed me how he had torn out the tile, stripped wall paper ... my dad is throwing himself into a remodelling project... which means he's pretty shaken up over all this and is just looking for some kind of positive thing to do to take his mind off things.</p><p></p><p>I just need to get them to take a step back and talk about things and look at it from a legal perspective.</p><p></p><p>Talk to the lawyer or police or mental care provider... get some perspective on things before they jump the gun and try to wipe the slate clean.</p><p></p><p>They are just literally done with my sister this time, though. My dad told me how he went to visit her at the place she's at.. and she's happy and healthy. Which is ironic.. they've got her back on medication, so her mood is good and she's doing structured activities ... so, the irony seems to be how she's the cause of a lot of stress in our family... but she's medicated into bliss and happy and healthy.. while the the rest of us are torn up over the situation and dealing with depression or issues from it.</p><p></p><p>But, he told her that she's not coming home this time. Said she said "ok" but didn't seem to react or really understand what that meant. I guess in her mind she's just sitting at that place to "cool off a bit" until she's going home.</p><p></p><p>This was her life off-and-on.. she screw up or piss my dad off, so he'd kick her (adult) butt out of the house (she had been living with them since her 20's). Then she'd call my mom and my mom would take pity on her and within a week or two she'd be back at home.</p><p></p><p>I remember when I was a teen she'd blow up at my dad and go "I'm moving out!" She'd find a friend to move in with. Well... we all got stuck having to move her junk to the new place.</p><p></p><p>Then her friend was either crazy or something upset her about her friend's place... and we'd get that phone call like in teh middle of the night "mom, I don't like it here I want to come home!"... and my dad would just look at me and my brother and before we knew it we were standing around at 1am loading her crap back into the car and trailer for her and hauling it home for her.</p><p></p><p>So... she's had great conditining over the years that she can just blow up, leave the house or get kicked out.. then just expect to be let back in.</p><p></p><p>I'm kind of wondering if she thinks that's the case this time, too... she hasn't has that "moment of clarity" yet to realize that she's not just at some summer camp / day camp for a bit to have fun before coming home... this is it. This is her life going forward. She's done.</p><p></p><p>I cried last night thinking about this. It's like feeling like you lost a sibling...like they died. But, I don't think she's realized her situation yet. And maybe she's too medicated now to do so... or maybe she will and she's too medicated for it to really sink in... or,... I don't know.</p><p></p><p>It's like everyone around her is having a moment of clarity except her.</p><p></p><p>So, she's medicated and doing fine... and the rest of us are busted up over this trying to deal with the pieces left over. It's just ironic how the person that seems to be the keystone to all the issues in our family is doing "fine" while the rest of us are not. It's like some kind of sick joke.</p><p></p><p>Anyways...I'm typing another novel here. I'm the one typing this, because I'm basically going behind my parents back to seek advice / counsel.. because they never will.</p><p></p><p>My brother and I are trying to have a more grounded response to all of this, and want to reel our parents in to make sure they don't do something rash.</p><p></p><p>I appreciate all of the responses people have given me. I guess I'm being rash to by just going "someone give me legal advice!" when I knew deep down I need to just contact a professonal or such.</p><p></p><p>It's just odd the side things you have to deal with form situations like this... I mean.. there's the big "omg, we need to call the cops on her because she's fighting".. but then the after-math stuff just seems to have head-scratching, embarassing stuff like "um... mom and dad are trying to get rid of her stuff... is that legal?"</p><p></p><p>You'd think it'd be easier to get answers for this ... like there would be a mental health web-site that would clearly state answers for after-math stuff. But, I googled around and found a whole lot of nothing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hamsterdance, post: 714629, member: 22048"] Yeah, I guess I spent so much time dumping emotionally I didn't give enough facts... We live in United States, Texas. My brother and I have been in rental situations for the past 20 years (with me renting rooms for about 5 years of that time in the past), which is why both of our first thought is "uh... what's the legal repercussions of all this?" Having spoken with co-workers over the years we also know that having an adult child come home to live with you can turn into a "Roach Motel" situation... it's easy to get them in ("yeah, sure, you can come stay with us until you get back on your feet") then you can't get them out ("you need an eviction notice, talk to a court about this and that, and they get to stay and you can't just kick them out"... that kind of stuff which flabbergasts parents when they realize how hard it is to get an adult child to move out when essentially it feels like the child has all the rights to live at the place and the parents feel like they have no rights over their own domicile anymore to just "get this person out.". Kind of like trying to get rid of a squatter.) As I said, my sister is in her 40's and can be considered an adult child that moved back in ... for... 20 years...(sigh) She wasn't paying rent, there was no lease agreement... but I'm pretty sure she's still in some kind of implied landlord / tenant situation that laws cover. So, my dad (landlord) can't just claim all of the tenant's stuff and start selling it off. He had to work with a lawyer for another situation (crazy passive-aggressive neighbor lady that does a bunch of stuff to neighbors to try to get them to act out against her so she can sue them). I'll see if he's up to contacting that guy again and see if we can get a run-down of rights. Worse comes to worse, I'll head down to their local police station to see if I can talk to the police and get some advice on her rights, or get pointed to a mental health counselor that can explain it... or see if my dad has the phone number of the mental health worker my sister was seeing before all of this. The problem I'm having is I'm back in college full time after exiting work-force of 15 years (just graduated with Bach, but now going into a Masters program). So, I don't exactly have thousands of dollars to throw at lawyer consultations right now. My brother works, but his budget is tight, too... My dad and mom are retired, living off my dad's gov't pension. I'm not sure they have thousands or dollars to throw at a lawyer, and my dad being in the mind-set he's in just thinks "this is my house, I'll do whatever I want to do". So, I doubt he's inclined to want to go seek legal advice over something he's "positive" he has all the rights on. My mom and dad are just in full-on "mom and dad" mode. They view this situation as "we're the parents, you're the child, you were living under our roof, so you have no rights and everything under our roof is ours". And my brother and I are like "no... you're adults... and she's an adult... and this is a legal situation that you need to keep from mucking up by making rash decisions." But... I totally get where my mom and dad are coming from ... They've spent 20 years dealing with this, watching it go down hill as my sister's mental health declines while their physical health declines. They are just done. They want to clean the room out and move on with life. I get that. But, the way they handled it... just the over-whelming'ness of it all. They think it's just a matter of us coming over, take 30 minutes to take whatever you want, and they'll just dump the rest. In their minds, they're so detached from the situation now... they didn't seem to realize how overwhelming her two rooms are. Like I said.. there is SO MUCH STUFF.. like an episode of Hoarders. There is literally no room to put anything on any shelves or tables. There is a pathway that leads in the door, and splits off over to a chair to sit down in front of a computer tv and the other path goes to the bathroom and into the other bedroom where she slept.. and in that bedroom there is a path near the bed and the rest of the room has stuff everywhere. It's insane. I finally told my dad there's too much stuff in here to go through in 30 min or an hour, so them pushing us to "just go in and take what you want and we'll get rid of the rest" was not how we needed to handle this. I told him this was at least a WEEK-LONG PROJECT sifting through this stuff ... what's trash, goodwill, keep/sell. And then I told him I would come over every day of the week to be the impartial third-party that sifts through her stuff... trying to figure out what was theirs and what was hers... and to organize and clean it all. That wasn't the answer he wanted to hear, because he just turned around, turned the lights off and walked out of the room while I was still in it. He just wants to be done. They have medical things going on during the week, but I'm going over Tues & Wed. I think right now I'll go over and just sit them down and tell them to put a freeze on things until we get the legalities of this worked out. The phone call from my mom that day (which turned into us going over there) literally started with "we're redecorating the house!"... which turned out to be "we're getting rid of all of her stuff, wiping the slate clean, and paving over to act like none of this ever happened (my sister must have really shaken my mom up with something, because my mom used to dote on my sister a lot... so for my mom to just completely turn her back on her like this is just... well...) I think right now I need to just go over there and talk to them both, perhaps each one in private... and just let them talk and vent and discuss things and blow up and do whatever they need to to handle things right now. But, make it clear we need to keep my sister's stuff. I mean... my mom wants to redecorate the WHOLE house...! My dad got busy remodelling the bathrooms.. he's been wanting to do that since they moved in, and sort of half-started in his own bathroom. When I went over there he showed me how he had torn out the tile, stripped wall paper ... my dad is throwing himself into a remodelling project... which means he's pretty shaken up over all this and is just looking for some kind of positive thing to do to take his mind off things. I just need to get them to take a step back and talk about things and look at it from a legal perspective. Talk to the lawyer or police or mental care provider... get some perspective on things before they jump the gun and try to wipe the slate clean. They are just literally done with my sister this time, though. My dad told me how he went to visit her at the place she's at.. and she's happy and healthy. Which is ironic.. they've got her back on medication, so her mood is good and she's doing structured activities ... so, the irony seems to be how she's the cause of a lot of stress in our family... but she's medicated into bliss and happy and healthy.. while the the rest of us are torn up over the situation and dealing with depression or issues from it. But, he told her that she's not coming home this time. Said she said "ok" but didn't seem to react or really understand what that meant. I guess in her mind she's just sitting at that place to "cool off a bit" until she's going home. This was her life off-and-on.. she screw up or piss my dad off, so he'd kick her (adult) butt out of the house (she had been living with them since her 20's). Then she'd call my mom and my mom would take pity on her and within a week or two she'd be back at home. I remember when I was a teen she'd blow up at my dad and go "I'm moving out!" She'd find a friend to move in with. Well... we all got stuck having to move her junk to the new place. Then her friend was either crazy or something upset her about her friend's place... and we'd get that phone call like in teh middle of the night "mom, I don't like it here I want to come home!"... and my dad would just look at me and my brother and before we knew it we were standing around at 1am loading her crap back into the car and trailer for her and hauling it home for her. So... she's had great conditining over the years that she can just blow up, leave the house or get kicked out.. then just expect to be let back in. I'm kind of wondering if she thinks that's the case this time, too... she hasn't has that "moment of clarity" yet to realize that she's not just at some summer camp / day camp for a bit to have fun before coming home... this is it. This is her life going forward. She's done. I cried last night thinking about this. It's like feeling like you lost a sibling...like they died. But, I don't think she's realized her situation yet. And maybe she's too medicated now to do so... or maybe she will and she's too medicated for it to really sink in... or,... I don't know. It's like everyone around her is having a moment of clarity except her. So, she's medicated and doing fine... and the rest of us are busted up over this trying to deal with the pieces left over. It's just ironic how the person that seems to be the keystone to all the issues in our family is doing "fine" while the rest of us are not. It's like some kind of sick joke. Anyways...I'm typing another novel here. I'm the one typing this, because I'm basically going behind my parents back to seek advice / counsel.. because they never will. My brother and I are trying to have a more grounded response to all of this, and want to reel our parents in to make sure they don't do something rash. I appreciate all of the responses people have given me. I guess I'm being rash to by just going "someone give me legal advice!" when I knew deep down I need to just contact a professonal or such. It's just odd the side things you have to deal with form situations like this... I mean.. there's the big "omg, we need to call the cops on her because she's fighting".. but then the after-math stuff just seems to have head-scratching, embarassing stuff like "um... mom and dad are trying to get rid of her stuff... is that legal?" You'd think it'd be easier to get answers for this ... like there would be a mental health web-site that would clearly state answers for after-math stuff. But, I googled around and found a whole lot of nothing. [/QUOTE]
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