If your child was in their 20’s or older and did not pay rent or does not help out around the house, would you evict them?

Well parents of a 30 year old son in the state of New York are faced with that predicament and have chosen to attempt to evict their son from their home, via the court system.

A local paper CNY Central.com, is reporting on this situation these parents find themselves in.  They live in Onondaga County New York and they are taking him to court.

They have sent several letters to their son, the first was on February 2nd of this year stating:

Michael,

After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided you must leave this house immediately. You have 14 days to vacate. You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision.

A second letter was sent to him dated February 13th, informing their son, Michael that he is "hereby evicted" from their home "effective immediately" and they they gave him 30 days, until March 15 to move out.

He refused to do so.

They then sent him a third letter dated February 18th offering him $1,100 dollars "so you can find a place to stay” and they then gave him the following advice:

1) Organize the things you need for work and to manage an apartment. Note: You will need stuff at [redacted]. You must arrange the date and time through your Father so he can set it up with the tenant.

2) Sell the other things you have that have any significant value, (e.g. stereo, some tools etc.). This is especially true for any weapons you may have. You need the money and will have no place for the stuff.

3) There are jobs available even for those with a poor work history like you. Get one — you have to work!

4) If you want help finding a place your Mother has offered to help you.

After all of these letters, offers of money and advice to help him he has still refused to move out of their home and has asked the judge to dismiss the case.

In their son’s response to the court, he is making the claim that he was not expected to help with household expenses, chores or upkeep.  Oh really, if that was happening it would stop immediately.

He also pleaded in his response to the eviction that is eviction was a retaliatory response and stated that the five notes he received did not amount to a six-month notice to leave as per Kosa v. Legg .  Apparently that law requires landlords to give their tenants a six-month notice.

The obvious question is what would you do?

I believe that the parents probably should have instilled better work habits while he was younger, maybe they attempted to and it still did not work.

I as a parent would be very disappointed in my child and definitely would be following this up, like his parents, via the courts to throw him out of our home.  Before going to the courts I would definitely make it extremely difficult for our adult child to even want to stay in our home, in fact to start I would do the following:

  • no food (I would lock it up)
  • no internet or Television
  • no availability of a phone
  • no doors on the bedroom they are squatting in

Anything else I could think of I would do.

I wonder how many parents these days find themselves in this predicament with their millennial adult children. A Pew Research study found back in 2017 the following:

As of 2016, 15% of 25- to 35-year-old Millennials were living in their parents’ home. This is 5 percentage points higher than the share of Generation Xers who lived in their parents’ home in 2000 when they were the same age (10%), and nearly double the share of the Silent Generation who lived at home in 1964 (8%).

Time to push them out of the nest and let them learn how to fly on their own, wouldn’t you say?

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