OT: CA… Be careful who you invite to stay over….

[Coronita]

…otherwise it might take a court order eviction to get rid of them…

California special…..

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/26/a-victim-in-my-own-home-ca-couple-tries-to-evict-live-in-nanny-who-wont-leave/

An Upland, California couple has gotten embroiled in a civil dispute with a live-in nanny who has a history of abusing the legal system, KCBS-TV reported on Wednesday.

‘This lady is welcome inside my house, anytime she wants, to eat my food anytime she wants and harass me basically,” Marcella Bracamonte said of the nanny, 64-year-old Diane Stretton. “I’m now a victim in my home and it’s completely legal.”

Bracamonte and her husband, Ralph, hired Stretton in March to help her care for their three children. According to Bracamonte, their original agreement called for Stretton to provide her services in exchange for room and board.

But after the first few weeks, Stretton allegedly retreated to her room, saying she suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and refused to perform her duties while remaining in the home.

On June 6, Marcella Bracamonte said, she and her husband approached Stretton with a “last chance letter” setting up terms for possible termination if she kept refusing to do her job. Stretton refused to sign both that letter, saying she would leave within 30 days. But then she refused to sign a second letter asking her to put the 30-day notice in writing.

“When I asked her why she wouldn’t sign the letter she said ‘It’s not legal,’ and slammed the door in my face,” Bracamonte told ABC News. “Once she said the word legal, I knew it wasn’t going to be fun.”

Police refused to get involved, saying that because Stretton had established residency in the couple’s home, that the dispute was a civil matter requiring formal eviction proceedings. The couple’s first attempt to file an eviction notice against Stretton was deemed invalid by a judge.

[scaredyclassic]

This sucks.

Not sure what I would do to speed it up. Lots of impulses run through my mind

[CA renter]

Yikes! This is unbelievable. For one, I would remove the bedroom door, telling the nanny she will have no privacy while living in our home. Then, I would play loud music in the adjoining rooms (all day and night), and I would only bring enough food into the house for my own family. Maybe some parties (every day…that’s what friends are for!) where everyone is walking back and forth past her room without the door on? Lots and lots of kids, too. They could stand in her bedroom door and snicker and make faces at her. Since it’s their house, the kids should watch TV in the nanny’s room, too. How about removing the furniture if the room was furnished by the owners?

Would this be legal, scaredy?

[CA renter]

Found this:

“Single lodger in a private residence

A lodger is a person who lives in a room in a house where the owner lives. The owner can enter all areas occupied by the lodger and has overall control of the house.9 Most lodgers have the same rights as tenants.10

However, in the case of a single lodger in a house where there are no other lodgers, the owner can evict the lodger without using formal eviction proceedings. The owner can give the lodger written notice that the lodger cannot continue to use the room. The amount of notice must be the same as the number of days between rent payments (for example, 30 days). (See “Tenant’s notice to end a periodic tenancy”.) When the owner has given the lodger proper notice and the time has expired, the lodger has no further right to remain in the owner’s house and may be removed as a trespasser.11″

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/whois.shtml

I don’t see anything requiring the lodger’s signature. To be safe, the owner should pay to have the notice formally served, but don’t think the nanny is required to sign to make it legal or official.

Am I wrong on this? Would a nanny be recognized differently than a lodger? IMO, it should be the same classification; the lodger is trading labor instead of money for shelter.

[njtosd]

What worries me is that the lodger is 64. Does she gain any extra rights or protections when she turns 65? My guess is that evicting elders is more complicated.

[moneymaker]

Hire a firm that specializes in evictions then don’t let the next nanny be a live in.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

[quote=CA renter]Found this:

“Single lodger in a private residence

A lodger is a person who lives in a room in a house where the owner lives. The owner can enter all areas occupied by the lodger and has overall control of the house.9 Most lodgers have the same rights as tenants.10

However, in the case of a single lodger in a house where there are no other lodgers, the owner can evict the lodger without using formal eviction proceedings. The owner can give the lodger written notice that the lodger cannot continue to use the room. The amount of notice must be the same as the number of days between rent payments (for example, 30 days). (See “Tenant’s notice to end a periodic tenancy”.) When the owner has given the lodger proper notice and the time has expired, the lodger has no further right to remain in the owner’s house and may be removed as a trespasser.11″

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/whois.shtml

I don’t see anything requiring the lodger’s signature. To be safe, the owner should pay to have the notice formally served, but don’t think the nanny is required to sign to make it legal or official.

Am I wrong on this? Would a nanny be recognized differently than a lodger? IMO, it should be the same classification; the lodger is trading labor instead of money for shelter.[/quote]

CAR: Except, in this instance, you can make a strong case that the lodger, by refusing to perform said services, has reneged and breached the contract.

The suggestion below is a good one: Hire a company that does this professionally and have them deal with this.

[UCGal]

This is an extreme case – but it’s a variation of the de-facto tenant issue I posted about previously. Where someone you do *not* have a contract with (lease, etc.) can make you go through the eviction process. And the eviction process gets trickier because there’s no contract of the terms.

[scaredyclassic]

64 is kind of old for this work unless she’s in very good shape.

From the nanny’s point of view, it is her place..she lives there….If she gets fired does she have to leave imnediately? That doesn’t seem fair.

Wonder If there are special leases for live in workers?

Maybe the family’s lucky she didn’t allege threats and get a tro v. The parents…

[UCGal]

Apparently the family cut off the internet and cable to her room, and padlocked the fridge.

She’s left. But left behind her stuff. She apparently threatened to sue them for age discrimination and other stuff.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/27/fired-california-nanny-wont-leave/11553965/

[CA renter]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
CAR: Except, in this instance, you can make a strong case that the lodger, by refusing to perform said services, has reneged and breached the contract.

The suggestion below is a good one: Hire a company that does this professionally and have them deal with this.[/quote]

Agree on the breach of contract, but it seems (just based on other articles and comments about the story) that a live-in worker has rights because the home is considered their residence.

Crazy stuff, and one more reason for us not to build a granny flat in our backyard that we were thinking about. UCGal’s story regarding her tenant’s girlfriend/boyfriend was my other red flag.

BTW, UCGal, how did you end up handling that? Did you have them sign the new rules regarding how many nights a bf/gf can stay per week?

[CA renter]

[quote=njtosd]What worries me is that the lodger is 64. Does she gain any extra rights or protections when she turns 65? My guess is that evicting elders is more complicated.[/quote]

Good question. Also, since the couple didn’t pay the nanny wages in addition to room and board, it seems that they had broken some law, too. Might make things more difficult.

As horrible as this nanny may be, the couple seem pretty awful, themselves. For one, why in world does the **stay-at-home** mom needs a full-time, live-in nanny? Apparently, the mom knows taking care of three kids and keeping the house clean is a lot of hard work (which is why she hired the nanny), but she didn’t want to pay wages to the person who would be doing all the work? And I’ll be the mom would have foisted all of the “difficult” stuff onto the nanny, too.

Lots of bad actors here, IMHO.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/06/27/knx-couple-legally-should-have-paid-the-wont-go-nanny/

[spdrun]

Depends on the amount of work. If it involved watching the kids an hour or two a day while she ran to the store and maybe an hour or two of cleaning per day (call it 3.5hr/day or 140hr/month), that would be $1680/mo at $12/hr.

Depending on the area, room could easily be “worth” $1200/mo, with food, use of car, etc, she was being “paid” $1680/mo tax-free. Especially if she had other pension income, having all major expenses handled doesn’t seem like a bad deal for her.

I don’t consider the family to be bad actors. Yeah, yeah, the state of CA would rather get taxes than have people barter, but I don’t consider that a moral question.

[UCGal]

[quote=CA renter]
Crazy stuff, and one more reason for us not to build a granny flat in our backyard that we were thinking about. UCGal’s story regarding her tenant’s girlfriend/boyfriend was my other red flag.

BTW, UCGal, how did you end up handling that? Did you have them sign the new rules regarding how many nights a bf/gf can stay per week?[/quote]

We talked to her, and while they weren’t happy about it – his overnight stays dropped (and she was also gone most of those nights). From a legal point the talk did the trick. It did cause some family tension since she is/was family… but not much. (Actually, she was ok, it was another family member who thought we were being ridiculous). She chose not to renew the lease when it was lease renewal time and she and her boyfriend got a bigger place together….

So we’re now on the hunt for a good tenant again. We updated our lease document to include language that specifically addresses this – no overnight guests for more than 14 days continuously and no more than 14 days of overnight guests in a single month. We corrected a couple other deficiencies in our lease, also, that our lawyer pointed out.

[svelte]

It’s hard for me to feel sorry for a couple who hires a homeless woman off Craigslist to watch their most valuable possession – their children.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2673173/Nanny-stayed-familys-home-unwanted-squatter-disappears-couple-fear-legal-woes-continue.html

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