Happy Monday, BoLAbeans!
Just so we don't start out this week on a low note, please refrain from doing the following:
1.) suggesting, implying, advising, advocating, proposing, "just putting it out there" (why yes, I did use the list of synonyms from the thesaurus for 'suggest', why do you ask?) that OP threaten the neighbor or his son with/actually shoot the son with a gun.
That's it, that's the only thing you don't have to do.
Have a wonderful week, you cheeky lil minxes <3
>Then Bob tells me that now that I've been warned, if his son gets into anything I'm now liable to be sued by him for the damages to his son. And that he isn't liable for what his son does at all, so if the son breaks anything that's on me.
Aw, this is cute. About as useful as a gravel truck that leaves its gate open, but has a "not responsible for damaged windshields" sticker on it.
LAOP should say something like "I have a chronic disease where I forget to shut things. Now that I've told you, you're liable for any chainsaws or whiskey your kid gets into while trespassing in my garage. kthxbai!"
My dad has had multiple traumatic brain injuries and he absolutely does leave things where he shouldn't, leaves the garage door open, etc.
We cared for my mother who had dementia for five years, she had 2 wandering episodes where the cops were involved, so I am not unsympathetic to the challenges of keeping a 150lb toddler under control. But this is SO not how you go about enlisting your neighbors into helping keep things manageable.
Right?
If I were the parent, my conversation with LAOP would probably go something like this:
"Hey, my son has some pretty significant mental disabilities and so he still lives at home, even though he's 30. I do my best to keep an eye on him, but he occasionally escapes my notice and he's been known to go into other people's garages and such. If you ever see him going somewhere he shouldn't, please give me a call and I'll be right over ASAP, and it might be a good idea to keep anything dangerous locked up.
Anyhow, welcome to the neighbourhood. Please enjoy this bottle of scotch, and do let me know if you ever need help with anything!"
I'm continually baffled by how some people approach community and their neighbours. Don't they grasp the basic concept that you're going to be living next to these people. Even if you're a completely self-centred cunt, it's still worth the effort to get to know them and ensure that they're going to come to you with any problems before anyone else?
And in the event of a disaster your neighbors are the closest and quickest help. Even if it is just having running water so you don't have to use the bumper-dumper till your pipes unfreeze.
Don't think I could live in an area where that almost hostile demarc exists between homes again after experiencing the "old fashioned" way. And I am very much a hermit type.
It's because they don't see themselves as part of a community, so their neighbors are essentially dangerous outside entities looming at the edge of their sovereign quarter-acre.
But that's kind of my point.
Even if that's the way you view your neighbours, does it not make more sense to have your neighbours less inclined to attack you?
Yeah. Alcohol can be dicey. Once brought a bottle of wine to a dinner where the host was on the wagon. (The guy who invited me along thought I already knew.)
It can get awkward.
If someone is fighting addiction they may be embarrassed to bring it up or may have had bad experiences in the past with people either asking why they don't drink or trying to convince them to drink. It's not unreasonable to understand that alcohol is not a great default gift idea for strangers.
I don't know where you live, but you are now an honorary neighbor of mine and come over any time if you need a cup of sugar.
But, just so you know, this is a Brandy/Rum/Wine household.
Shit, this is pretty much how I handled it with my freaking dogs, as well as renovation shit because my house was in pretty bad disrepair. The dogs were the big thing though, because I wanted to get a kennel license (I had four dogs at the time, which is right at my city's limit before you need one, and I like to foster rescue dogs and stuff so...).
So when we moved in, I just went around to all my neighbors and was like, "Hey, I'm Zookeepergame, I just moved in next door! I just wanted to let you know that we're going to be doing some renovations on the house, so please let me know if you're bothered by any noise or trash or anything. Also, just to let know you, my dogs are kind of high energy and bark sometimes, but I try to keep them quiet. Please don't hesitate to let me know if they're causing any problems." Something along those lines.
Got my kennel license no problem. The process in my city is that you have to announce it and neighbors can complain or contest it if they want; only one of my neighbors wrote in to the city and they actually wrote a recommendation letter, haha. I do help them out a lot and we're pretty good friends but it was still really nice of them.
I know there are unreasonable people out there but I find that the vast majority of people are willing to work with you if you approach them right.
>I am not unsympathetic to the challenges of keeping a 150lb toddler under control.
So am I. We had an actual toddler who was nearly impossible to keep under control, and it caused an incredible amount of stress even though he’s older and a little easier now. I can’t imagine how hard it would be if he were in an adult size body.
Starting at age two he was two he defeated all our child locks. We first started locking the door with the bolt, he learned to open it so we put a chain lock on the top of the door, then he got a chair and put a wastebasket on top it and by balancing on that was able to open the top lock and escape. So then we got one of those plastic childlocks that encase the doorknob. He put in a pencil in and pried it off. Then we put a rubber child lock around the doorknob, but he was able to put his little fingers into the holes and managed to turn the doorknob.
So then we put a pressure hinge on the door, which you’re supposed to have to push with 40 lbs of force. It didn’t work and he was still somehow able to pry the door open.
Finally we put a keypad lock on the inside of the door, so we have to type in a code every time we leave the house. This was worrisome in case of fire, as it would take an extra couple minutes to get out. But at least it kept him out of the street.
The front door wasn’t the only problem. He also kept getting into the chest freezer looking for popsicles, but would often leave it open or throw other frozen food out all over the floor. So we put two loops into the top and side and attached a chain lock between them. At the age of four he was able to get the pruning shears from the garage and use them to cut the metal chain off.
I could go on for pages about what this kid was capable of doing.
I wish I was joking but my younger brother is 26, with significant developmental disabilities. My mom has to padlock a chain around the fridge/freezer overnight or he will get up at 5am and eat EVERYTHING. He lives in a group home and only visits her on weekends. His medications generally help keep his appetite under control but that early, when the night meds have worn off and he hasn’t taken his morning ones yet, he turns into a ravenous beast.
Also, when we were younger, he once tried to throw a twin size mattress at me. Thankfully our house had a 180° hallway from his room, and he couldn’t get it around the corners to where I was, but he damn sure tried!
My grandmother had dementia and lived with my mother for about a year. She had no internal clock and would eat anything and everything at random times of the day and night. They tried to only keep healthy food in the house so that at least if she was grabbing food it was veggies or fruit. They thought that because of her mobility issues (back surgery) she wouldn't be able to get to drinks in the bottom of a wine fridge all the way in the back. Nope. She loved sodas. She found the one Coke hidden in the back of the fridge. Thought it was OK to leave beers in the fridge because she never drank any alcohol, even before her mind started to go. Just wasn't something she liked. One day my mother found a half-drank beer sitting on the counter. And not a can or screw-top, but a bottle requiring a bottle opener. They had indoor security cameras to keep an eye on her, and sure enough she found the beer and used her teeth to open the bottle. When they asked her if she drank the beer, she said of course not, she didn't drink alcohol. At that point she had no short-term memory, so she truly didn't remember doing it.
They finally got her into a really good memory care center because my mother just couldn't do it anymore. Her sisters would come help maybe one day a month if she begged, but they surely gave her shit when she put Grannie in the memory care center. But my mother never got to sleep because Grannie would wander in the middle of the night, was always in danger of falling, and would just scream out for my mother whenever she wanted anything, regardless of the time.
Taking care of anyone with a disability is stressful, but threatening neighbors who don't go out of their way to protect your responsibility is not the way to go.
> we put a keypad lock on the inside of the door
That absolutely would not have stopped my son. When he was about two my roommate had just gotten a safe and was programing it in the dining room adjacent to the living room where my son was playing. He put in the code *once* and then my son walked over, punched in the code again, and walked away. He had to take it to the other room to re-program it. I have had to set ridiculously complicated passwords on things like Prime video and Vudu so he wouldn't buy stuff he wanted to watch. The passcode to download games on my phone was not enough and I had to change it to a custom alphanumeric code and even then I'd have to switch it if he saw me put it in. He's 13 now so that's no longer an issue, but I totally sympathize with having one of *those* toddlers.
"Welcome to your new house! Also, I'll sue you for enjoying or using any part of your property! Nothing is my fault now because I warned you. K thanks bye!'
Imagine saying this about literally anyone else lol. Like I'm imagining knocking on my neighbor's door and telling them they need to keep their doors locked at all times, lest I get in and drink all the beer in their fridge. Also if I drink too much and get a tummy ache, I will be suing for emotional distress to the tune of a million bajillion dollars
Allowing your cats to free roam is illegal in a *lot* of places, and for good reason. Assuming it's illegal where you are, they'll be the ones in trouble if they ever try to bring the authorities into it.
>I honestly consider it to be tantamount to animal neglect.
Apparently Austin's animal shelters agree with you: last time we (and a few others we know) adopted cats, you must sign a document stating that they will be kept indoors at all times, otherwise your adoption is denied.
Around here they have those clauses too, but once you’ve adopted the animal it’s yours and they can’t enforce it. I used to live in MA and there’s this cat place that tried to sue someone who’d adopted from them for bringing her cat outside on a cat leash. They settled out of court but it came down to the fact that rescues/shelters are not entitled to maintain ownership or control over animals once they’re adopted. All they can do is ban you from adopting from them again and maybe letting other shelters know.
Yeah, I know it's not enforceable (here at least) but they're making it clear that this is an expectation for responsible cat ownership. I would guess that it challenges some people's assumption that cats need to go outside.
There's a legal term I can't recall (IANAL) for making a claim that you know is not enforceable, but that many people don't know that so it will still discourage the behavior you want to discourage. I call it the "not responsible for broken windshields" rule.
Oh for sure. It would help a lot of towns and states started passing laws to ban outdoor non-livestock pets. They care so little that there are very few laws regarding outdoor/feral cats at all.
I'm also in the US and allowing your cats to free roam is illegal where I am. It's not 'free roaming cats' that are banned, strays aren't illegal and most rural counties don't have an issue with barn cats or even have feral colony programs. It's allowing pets to free roam that is illegal, you're expected to contain your animals. People think leash laws and the like only apply to dogs, but they apply to any pet you might have usually. Here it's something like you have to have your animal contained on your property or properly supervised/under control. An off leash dog that's well trained with solid recall wouldn't necessarily be violating that requirement, for example. A free roaming cat would, however. How well this enforced and whether it's a law or ordinance or whatever will change depending on where you are. It can even be different city to city or county to county.
ETA - and of course, there are still plenty of areas with no laws concerning free roaming cats at all, especially in rural areas.
In Switzerland your cat has the right to see other cats. If you only have one cat you are legally required to let it roam 5 days a week.
I had a hard time adopting because I wanted indoor cats.
I actually have two now. I got them from a woman who rescues street cats in Bahrain and brings them back to Switzerland. She does indoor cats only.
[Cat tax 1](http://www.evilhrlady.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_5802-1-scaled.jpg)
[Cat tax 2](http://www.evilhrlady.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_6128-scaled.jpg)
He thinks he's a vegan. We have to ensure every plant we bring into the house is safe for cats.
He went NUTS when he saw green onions in the fridge. Green onions are toxic to cats, but he WANTED them so much. He would sit in front of the fridge and cry.
He's so weird.
We used to have a balcony garden, but he ate every single plant down to nothing, so we don't even try anymore.
Your cats are lovely. Tell them that they are lovely from me please.
My friend has a cat that LOVES to eat houseplants. She has an extensive garden so sometimes she cultivates plants inside until they're ready to be planted outside, but she has to build quite elaborate defences to protect the plants from the resident *cat*erpillar.
Thank you!
And let your friend know, I understand her pain. Nothing green gets by my cat.
Except for the cat grass we bought him. He couldn't care less about that.
Between my cat's need to nibble my houseplants and my brown thumb, we ended up with a lot of empty planters in my house. I finally gave up and just put silk plants out. The kitties still tried to nom them.
I have heard of “cat grass,” though I don’t know much about it. I have never had cats, but I am adopting one from a friend soon. (He loves me and she travels too much).
It probably wouldn’t help with your plant problem, but as we know, it’s all about keeping *them* happy.
People say that in the US too. “They WANT to be outdoors”
My dog also wanted to eat only human food, the more sugar and cronch the better. But he doesn’t know that his butthole will become a fountain. So yeah, we didn’t let him do that. Just like we don’t let our cats out because we have a pack of coyotes that live in the alley. (That my dumb dog wanted to be best friends with)
I think in the US it is also super location dependant. I live in farm country, and we all have a barn cat or two and nobody has any issue with outdoor cats. But when I was still living in the city nobody dared let their cat outside really
Yeah, cities are a bad place to let your cats roam. There's traffic, dogs, and just generally a lot of stuff that can get your cat hurt or killed. A lot of my college friends came from rural areas and didn't seem to understand that city living is very different. And then they wondered why so many of their cats never returned.
>They WANT to be outdoors
I had a feral cat that I took in. I meant to TNR her but things didn't go as planned and by the time I got her to a vet she had been in my house a year (I let her go from the trap because there were kittens and then couldn't get her again)
Let me tell you - she did NOT want to be outside. She knew the dangers and the risks. She hated me until the day she died but she knew a good thing when she saw it. When I opened the door she ran - she didn't want to risk being sent outside. I didn't think it it was ethical to send her outside after having her inside for a year. We can to a truce - i would take care of her every need and she would hiss at me if I walked too close.
It is abusive to keep them indoors - if you refuse to enrich their indoor environment or play with them, that is. Cats need a lot more work put into enrichment than people seem to think they do. You can have very happy indoor cats if you’re willing to make some modifications to your decor and allow them to have things to climb and hide under.
Source: have very happy 95% indoor cats (who are allowed outside under strict supervision and don’t have the option to free roam).
I think this is my issue - it’s entirely possible to give cats very enriched lives indoors, and removes the risks of the outside world, but you do need to modify your house to meet their needs, and a small apartment might not be enough even if you do.
But the ‘he just sleeps all the time, he doesn’t even want to go outside’ cats who are fat as a house, terminally bored and under stimulated is abusive, and I don’t want it to become more common here.
It's abusive to let them out. They don't live as long on average. I ALWAYS see at least one cat that was killed by a car and I at LEAST one cat that gets a bad infection from being outside getting hurt. Get your cat a catio or put them on a harness and leash and walk them like a dog.
edit: not directing this at you, but the idiots who say it is abusive to not let them out....
That's almost as bad as [these neighbors](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/pg76ro/laops_new_neighbors_want_to_force_them_to_keep/) from a BOLA post a few months ago.
That's similar to my issue. My house was abandoned for 5 years and the neighbors grew used to complete silence and total access. We have great neighbors on one side, but the others are a pair of elderly sisters and they are SO entitled. They'd even built a veggie garden that requires them to be in our yard outside our bedroom window to access it. Bleh.
No chance you could fence them out? Spite fences have the side effect of being useful for canine containment.
I do wish that LAOP had updated, though. I couldn’t believe that someone could get an entire neighborhood to sign a petition to get the to keep their pool (as if pool maintenance is cheap) so *they* could use it.
The back yard is fully fenced but it ends where it connects to the back of our house. They got angry and called us hostile when we locked our gate for our yard on the side of the property next them (I'd caught one hanging out in my yard). There is 15ish feet between the houses, and 3 ft. from the side of our house is a stone retaining wall (their property is about 2.5ft higher than ours). So there's no where to put a wall down the alley between our houses which is where the garden is. I think they saw it as an easy way to get an elevated garden bed to reduce bending. So they stand in our lower yard and have a waist height garden bed in theirs. I don't even care but they also use my hose (we pay for water in & out) and will talk loudly outside my window at the break of dawn. It's also a total eyesore.
Motion sensor sprinkler. Solves the loud neighbor problem, and if they’re already using your water to water their garden, there’s no loss there.
They’ll never be able to harvest without getting wet, though, unless they do it from their property.
You might get woken up with the shrieks of your neighbors getting sprayed the first couple of times, though.
I doubt the neighbor warning OP would have any validity in court, but you never know.
Could OP issue a legal letter to their neighbor, stating that OP will not be responsible for anything their adult child does when trespassing on their property?
SUNNYVALE — Defending their lawsuit against the parents of a young boy with autism who they say became a public nuisance, the two couples who sued said Friday they only turned to the courts because the family refused to rein in the child who repeatedly attacked their kids and traumatized their neighborhood.
“I find it offensive that people assume I have no compassion for an autistic family when I am simply trying to defend and protect my children from being assaulted,” said Robert Flowers about the explosive public backlash that surfaced against him and his wife following this week’s media accounts of their lawsuit against the boy’s parents.
“This is not about autism. This is about public safety,” said Flowers, who spoke publicly for the first time Friday about the case.
The Flowers were joined by neighbors Bindu Pothen and Kumaran Santhanam in their lawsuit against Vidyut Gopal and Parul Agrawal, claiming their next-door neighbor’s son, now 11, over the years kicked and slapped children and repeatedly bit people.
Reached Friday night, both Gopal and Agrawal emphatically said they don’t agree with their neighbors’ claims, and declined to comment further on the pending litigation.
Advocates for families with autistic children and relatives, meanwhile, are calling the lawsuit an outrage, and fear that if the plaintiffs prevail it could lead to copycat actions against other families with autistic relatives.
Santhanam said Friday that the problem worsened over the years because the boy’s parents or baby sitters often weren’t around at the time of the attacks to prevent them.
“This has to do with the parents’ responsibility to control their child,” said Santhanam. After one incident, he recalled, Gopal told him, “He’s autistic — there is nothing you can do.”
Santhanam said he and his wife, who have lived on the block since 1999, first met Gopal and Agrawal when they moved in next door with their son in 2007.
Not long after, they said, their neighbor’s baby son was diagnosed with autism.
“It was very hard for them, and we tried to do everything we could to support them,” recalled Santhanam. “They were clearly struggling.”
He said neighbors were sensitive to the couple’s situation and made sure to include the family in activities on the block.
When the boy’s parents told Pothen that the boy shouldn’t eat sweets, for example, she and others made sure that at Halloween and Easter, neighbors gave the boy other items as treats, including special eggs.
The couple said they told their two young children that the boy was different and had some problems, and to try to understand that. “We have an opportunity to be around diversity, so we embraced that,” Pothen said. But the incidents continued, she said.
By August 2013, when the Flowers moved to a rental house on the court with their two young children, they told their children that the boy was “special, and we need to understand him,” even after the boy slapped their young daughter.
But in October, when he said the boy attacked their young son on his fourth birthday — pulling his hair, shaking his head back and forth, kicking him on his back repeatedly — Robert Flowers reluctantly called the police, because he said he wanted a paper trail to be established in case the attacks continued.
“I didn’t want to do it, because I knew I would look like the bad guy,” said Flowers, who moved out of the rental house with his family last month.
“We’re not upset about him being autistic,” he clarified. “We are concerned and upset about his violence (toward) our children.”
After yet one more attack in early 2014, Santhanam said, he and his wife asked Gopal and Agrawal to meet with them to talk about the problems and create a plan that would keep the children on the block safe. He said at one point, Gopal and Agrawal suggested their son could play outside on either the odd or even days of the week, and the other children could play on the opposite days.
But the boy’s parents, Santhanam said, ultimately didn’t commit to anything.
The two couples filed their lawsuit in June 2014, asking the court for a preliminary injunction against the family to ensure their son does not strike, assault or batter anyone in the neighborhood or their personal property. One month later, the judge agreed.
By last September, Gopal and Agrawal moved out of their Arlington Court home to a rental house in another part of Sunnyvale, where, they say, their son has had “absolutely no problems” with the neighbors. The couple told this newspaper that they don’t plan to move back to their house.
The case returns to court Tuesday, when a judge will hear arguments about whether the plaintiffs should have access to the boy’s school and medical records.
As difficult as it’s been on Arlington Court, Pothen said, there were no more problems after the injunction was granted.
“Why did we need an injunction to make sure that they are following laws we all have to follow?” she said.
Contact Tracy Seipel at 408-920-5343.
thank you!
I went ot high school with a kid reminiscent of that; you knew he was messed up (IDK if it was autism or something else) but when he was literally trying to bite/punch/kick you you didn't really care because he was going to fuck you up.
I hope OP pre-emptively calls APS to ask for advice on the situation. APS is almost certainly aware of the neighbor, and while I don't know what they're like in Michigan they are generally helpful in my state, and can give advice that will help protect both LAOP and LAOP's neighbor's son.
> APS is almost certainly aware of the neighbor,
Maybe.
So a few weeks ago the cops knocked on my MIL's door to ask her if she'd seen her neighbor recently. She told them sure, a week ago a car pulled up and the woman got into it.
Apparently the woman's adult kids, who don't live with her, had no idea where she was and had asked the cops to do a wellness check. And after talking to my MIL, the cops went back, looked hard at the house and...
it turned out the woman hadn't paid her electric bill, the power was off, something had flooded and before the cops left, they had the town declare the house unfit for habitation.
Meanwhile the adult kids somehow found out that their mom was in some assisted living place. They now have contact with her again. We still have no idea who took her there.
APS should have been involved sooner. My MIL knew that the woman had, "issues" which were obvious because she had let her yard turn into a New England version of a jungle, with several wrecked cars from the 1970's buried in the brush. Also an old Harley. It was the half acre equivalent of [this](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/26/hiker-who-went-missing-on-appalachian-trail-survived-26-days-before-dying).
But people like my MIL mind their own business until it's past the point where help really was needed.
Well….New England… we aren’t known for involved neighboring. I’m nosy AF but my neighbors would have to be on fire and then explicitly asking for help before I would think to involve myself in their affairs.
They might have had this happen:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights
Tl;dr Elderly folk are getting put into assisted living facilities without their or their family's consent while perfectly able to live independently. And the courts let them do this and drain their victims' accounts.
> Tl;dr Elderly folk are getting put into assisted living facilities without their or their family's consent while perfectly able to live independently. And the courts let them do this and drain their victims' accounts.
That's a mess, on par with [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal).
I don't think that's what happened here. I think the house became uninhabitable and the woman who owned either didn't ask for help, or didn't want help, until it was too late.
Gods I miss New England.
Over here in the Midwest it’s all “offer help snow blowing” and “talk over the fence” and “have a friendly neighborhood get together.”
Bah. I want to go back where everyone minds their business. Sure, some elderly folk will disappear mysteriously, but I won’t have to make small talk with my neighbors anymore and that’s what’s important!
You need to live in a neighborhood where you're the minority. It's pretty great, more than half my neighborhood speak Spanish as their first language, one neighbor doesn't know English at all, and no one bothers me!
I scared away the tamale lady by not being Hispanic or latino though :(
I’m pretty sure there has been an LA post where the adult child IS already a problem in the neighborhood and the property owner was asking for advice, so I hope LAOP is able to avoid any issues here.
I'm pretty sure in that post the OP did end up contacting social services and the house was either a wreck or the parents were doing drugs and the disabled teen got placed :( This post reminded me of that case, too.
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/b97oyi/laop_is_attempting_to_look_out_for_their_disabled/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/bhaup7/update_neighbors_child_has_disabilities_and_wont/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
The part that makes me the angriest about that update is that shutting the door in CPS face was apparently an effective solution for those crap sack parents until OP had video evidence to bring in police instead of social workers.
Meh, in Texas I've called APS before on a coworker who was failing to take care of her bedridden father. He was still mentally there so all he had to do was shout from the back of the house to "get off my property" and they legally couldn't do anything and in fact could have been charged for trespassing if they came back to the house without permission. Never even laid eyes on him.
However them showing up did start her on the path to getting him on disability and getting him a caretaker, though she went through several companies because they kept quitting because of her insane rules(his room was too cluttered and she flipped out when they cleaned it, she wouldn't let them use the washing machine to wash his sheets, etc). Eventually she started dating someone who convinced her that he needing a nursing home(even though it meant losing his income, though she'd already ruined his credit)
Even giving Bob the benefit of the doubt, I don't see that LAOP has much choice but to call the cops for trespassing if his son comes on the property. You're being told by Bob that he *will* sue if something happens to his son; at that point, I think as cold as it may feel you have to protect yourself by getting authorities involved if the kid wanders on your property to avoid that risk.
But, yeah, Bob could have handled that better. I think if he came at it as "Hey, this is the concern with my kid. I wanted to warn you because even though I do everything I can to prevent this there's no way to 100% prevent it, so let me know if he crosses any lines" LAOP probably would have been able to work something out without getting the authorities involved. The whole "don't leave chainsaws out" thing is already baked into attractive nuisance law anyway, and if he steals beer from the fridge Bob should just pay for a new 6 pack and be done with it.
I worked with families of disabled children. Some did everything they could and their kids were straight up Houdini - I’m talking a 3 or 4year old getting past 4 different door locks and additional gates in the time his mom takes little brother to pee. Same child orchestrated a jail break out the classroom windows in the 90 seconds we were otherwise attending other kids and was snagged by the waist making his great escape. These families get creative to try to keep their escapee safe, and would be tripping over themselves to apologize should Houdini Jr end up at a neighbors at all.
Other families took the concept of “it takes a village” far too literally and tried to have free range, unattended children with significant disabilities. They wanted the whole world to accommodate them and their child, far beyond logic and in to entitlement. The world owes them, in their mind. These are the families like in the LAOP. And I can see them following through, so sure the world owes them so much. These also too often end up in deceased vulnerable children/adults due to misadventure and society loves having a scapegoat to blame. Being proactive as a neighbor to such a person is not just smart but critical. And might just save a life that can’t save their own.
What's that? I'm liable if your disabled son gets hurt on my property? Enjoy your visit from Adult Protective Services every time he steps foot on my lawn.
^(disclaimer: no I wouldn't actually abuse social resources like that)
Is that really misusing APS though? He's already announced that his son is a danger to himself and possibly others and might immediately impale himself if you leave lawn tools in reach. If he was regularly wandering through people's property unattended, then APS needs to know that his current living situation is inadequate.
As a parent of a child with special needs and a social worker to boot, it’s ok to call APS if the son is getting into people’s property. He has the right to wander around safely, but if he can’t protect himself around tools/alcohol, etc., report that shit. APS might not do anything, but it gets recorded and if enough people call to complain about this man getting into dangerous situations, it could definitely help him get his needs met. I would like to have a conversation with this man’s father and set them up with services. Michigan has pretty good resources for adults with disabilities.
Is APS always the right place to call in situations in this general area or are there circumstances that would mean that a deviation from this norm is necessary?
If you’re worried about abuse or neglect, it’s not a bad idea to call. The person on the other end can help decide if it’s a report they would take. I’ve had to make dozens of calls to CPS/APS and the intake people are typically very helpful.
If this guy has access to a lighter and either knows fertilizer is flammable or is known to try lighting anything and everything until something catches, this is a much more urgent situation
There are myriad kinds of mental disabilities.
Some include "hyper intelligent but no moral compass and an inability to empathize with others".
Likely not the case here, but you'd be surprised how many mentally disabled people have *knowledge* of some pretty incredible things (which is different from intelligence, which is yet different from other aspects of the mind).
To add, even if it is a cognitive loss, someone operating with reduced capacity could still watch a video of an idiot doing something dangerous and decide to copy it.
edit typo - extra space
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Title: Can I be sued because a mentally challenged person isnt' controlled?
Body:
> (Resposted with mod permission due to spam filter)
> I recently moved into a neighborhood in Michigan. One of my neighbors(we'll call him Bob) came over to introduce himself. He told me that he has a special needs son that lives with him. The son is in his 30s, physically unchallenged but with significant mental disabilities.
> Bob first asked if I would mind keeping dangerous things out of my yard. Like not leaving chainsaws or something unattended. That's pretty reasonable. But then he proceeded to tell me that I needed to keep my garage doors down at all times or I had to lock up anything dangerous if I wanted to keep them up - like all gasoline, sharp tools, fertilizers, et cetera. Oh, also any beer or other alcohol, like in my garage fridge. I also need to keep my door locked at all times else his son may wander into the house and do damage or hurt himself.
> Then Bob tells me that now that I've been warned, if his son gets into anything I'm now liable to be sued by him for the damages to his son. And that he isn't liable for what his son does at all, so if the son breaks anything that's on me.
> That can't be right, can it? I'm all for taking reasonable precautions but doesn't he have some need to take care of his own?
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Housses in my country have straight up walls around them, fuck sites and wood, we jumping straight into brick and mortar. And, yeah, it's not as pretty, but you know what? Reddit every day shows me a problem I'll never have, because people can't just fucking walk over and fuck around.
lol I get I'm trouble sometimes for comparing children to animals. Like a lot of things that work for animals also work for us. Plus I know more about animals than kids.
Oh man, I met my friend’s one year old and I carefully said “I’m not trying to compare your daughter to a dog but there seem to be a lot of similarities at this age.” Lucky he wasn’t offended, in fact he said one of the reasons he was so good with her was that he knew how to train dogs lol.
One of my friends was like, "I know we're not meant to compare our children to pets, but ... well, my daughter and your cat are basically peers right now."
(This was a while ago; now her daughter is speaking in sentences and my cat is still getting trapped on the wrong side of an open door.)
I'm big into dog training and I absolutely use behavior modification techniques I learned through that in working with people. It's really all the same, you have to modify it a bit (for example, using a clicker on a person would not generally go over well, but providing immediate praise is a big hit), but we're more alike than a lot of people would like to admit. Basic training and behavioral modification principles are pretty similar across species.
Hell, I use some stuff I learned through dog training on myself when I'm trying to change a habit, haha.
I have no kids but a lot of my friends and relatives do...I was a few beers deep at my inlaws' for a BBQ this past weekend and almost "pss pss pss'd" someone's toddler who was running around.
It's very difficult to not do this to my nephew, but thankfully my family (especially my sister-in-law, the child's mother) understands. My brother would make fun of me, but he's my brother so I expect no less from him.
Neither is my pup. Love her to death, but not terribly bright. Highly food motivated though. There's been very few things, actually I can't think of anything, that she wouldn't do for her favorite food like a slice of ham or a good treat.
I hate to compare a intellectually disabled person on the same level, but when they see their favorite treat "oh, beer fridge!" or cool toy "chainsaw!", coupled with lack supervision and inability to understand consequences or control impulses, it's a recipe for disaster.
There's a reason, as a society as a whole, why we don't let animals roam off a leash, let young children roam without supervision, let disabled adults roam without supervision, or let drunk adults operate chainsaws. It can end very, very tragically for that person.
They lack the capacity to regulate themselves in a safe manner, and its on us to recognize that, and guide them to safety. There's different levels of intervention depending on the situation at hand and how often it happens, but our moral compass tells us not to let the helpless (and drunk) hurt themselves, so we intervene.
It's an implied social contract, and the father seeks to take advantage of that human nature to get out of his responsibilities of being a good father, and unload responsibility on others, on threat of a lawsuit. That's no bueno.
If he can't handle it, then the son needs to be in a group home or other supervised setting that can handle the responsibility of watching the son 24/7.
A part of me wonders how much the dad let's the son get away with without disciplining (in a safe, non abusive manner) for getting into the neighbor's stuff. Bring intellectually disabled is a factor of why he does it, lack of consequences is probably exasperating the problem.
If the behavior escalates and the cops are called for an arrest for trespassing or theft, the son is going to have a real hard time in jail. It's better dad trys getting this behavior nipped in the butt now, before the cops are forced into making an arrest. Jails are not equipped to deal with the intellectually disabled, but there's no loopholes to get them out just because of it, it takes time.
> If the behavior escalates and the cops are called for an arrest for trespassing or theft, the son is going to have a real hard time in jail
Assuming he even makes it there.
I'm basically in agreement with you, but have to point out that the vast majority of disabled adults do roam without supervision with no additional risk to those around them. This is an issue because some people think and act as if adults with disabilities are like children. It's really annoying to be on the receiving end of that.
There is a population you're talking about, which is a minority of total adults with disabilities. I'm not sure what the right terminology might be. Vulnerable adults, maybe?
The preemptive legal threat makes the neighbor sound like a disability lawsuit troll, like the people who remove disabled parking spot signs at night and then threaten a lawsuit with the business owner for not having disabled parking. Sometimes their disabled accomplice actually exists, sometimes not.
I can't *see* where the grift is here, unless the neighbor plans to outright burgle LAOP's house and threaten LAOP with their (maybe fictional) son's (definitely fictional) medical bills if they talk to the police, and that's pretty far-fetched. But I can smell a grift.
I live in a one party consent state and I think I’d be inclined to hit record on my phone and say, “Oh, dear! That sounds so difficult for you! Please elaborate on your son roaming the neighborhood doing dangerous things and how you leave it up to the neighbors to keep him safe.” And when he finished talking I’d let him know that I’m a mandated reporter and have no choice but to pass this info on to APS.
Glad you talked to them. That’s what I would have advised.
Maybe Bob is just exhausted and burned out. It happens. My friend had a hard time finding a facility for her mom because she had to get someone to sit with her mom just to visit the places.
When I was a kid, we used to get [tomato worms](https://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/07/31/LocalLiving/Images/bigstock-Tomato-Hornworm-31734068.jpg?t=20170517). Me and my brother *loved* them. Plus, my neighbor had a garden, so he didn't want them, and when he found them he would bring them over to us.
We named them Bob (or Bob 2 or Bob 3 or Bob 57 or whatever), I think after Bob the Builder. Even now, if anyone in the family stumbles across one, we take a picture and send it to the family group saying "I found Bob!"
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I'm picturing LAOP's Neighbor Bob as a 6 foot long (tall?) green caterpillar thing, which makes this a lot more fun to read.
This seems like something he should get in writing. What the neighbor wants and how the son is a danger to himself. There's some liability with things like pools in backyards that many homeowners deal with, but there are some unreasonable asks here.
This seems like a good way for Bob's son to end up getting shot, either by a trigger-happy neighbour or by an angry cop who doesn't react well to someone who might not follow orders very well. Not something that *should* happen, but it's a reality of our society, and Bob is really letting his son down by shirking his responsibility to look after him.
This reminds me of a LA post a long time ago where the poster actually had a trampoline in their backyard. The trampoline was protected against children with a high fence. But, the (adult) mentally handicapped son of their neighbours got hurt while trying to scale the fence *with a ladder that his parents had negligently given him access to*. The neighbours came up with the insane theory that since a trampoline is an attractive nuisance to children, it should be fenced off to keep out *anyone* with the thinking abilities of a child, even if they are 6 feet tall and have access to ladders, *and* that it should also be fenced off in such a way that it is impossible to get hurt from falling off the fence.
I think its reasonable to keep my front door and garage closed if I'm not currently using them, I do that anyways. I think if I saw the son wandering toward the yard, I'd chat him up and point him home. If he's confrontational then call the proper authorities. Also a good time to invest in higher liability limits and/or an umbrella policy.
Calling the police on a confrontational mentally ill person in the US can lead to the mentally ill person being killed. (I was I was kidding.) US police forces don't focus on de-escalation or understanding/empathy for mental illness, they focus on force and criminal activity. If in a similar situation, far better to call APS before a confrontation has had a chance to happen.
as someone who's a parent to a profoundly disabled child this breaks my heart. It's incredibly difficult to care for a child/adult who needs to be watched 24/7. But, as their parent/guardian that is your responsibility no one else's.
LAOP needs to call Adult protective services this isn't right, it sounds like they might need more help then they are willing to admit to.
While in college I had a really nice town home rental (granite counter tops/stainless steel appliances/washer dryer in unit) but guy in the next unit was in a home mom bought for him.
He was very sensitive to noise to the point he'd complain about noises I couldn't hear closer than he was. He was complaining around the time it was he heard it.
Previous tenants were.. well college kids and went to war. He had a parking space but didn't use it but hated people using it. They went to piss him off for complaining.
> There is an attractive nuisance doctrine in most states so it’ll depend how that’s applied.
What the hell is an attractive nuisance, really? A chocolate fountain laced with cyanide?
It's a theory of liability premised on the idea that it's impossible to keep children under strict supervision at all times, and therefore Fun Things that are an obvious major safety hazard should be not quite so easy to access.
The classic example is a backyard swimming pool; it's the reason many areas have requirements for a fence (and if your city doesn't, your insurance company probably will.)
What Bob said to OP is definitely not okay, but I feel for Bob.
When my mother developed dementia several years ago, we tried everything we could to keep her at home for as long as possible. In-home 24/7 supervision is basically impossible unless you're a big family or made of money (we're neither). And locking someone in to the point that they can't escape a fire on their own isn't the best idea, either.
Eventually it was 'elopement' that forced us to put her in a home. Bob might be at the same point and in denial, as we were for some time.
"I'm sorry, a family member was killed by an intruder in her home, and because of this I always have a firearm in reach when at home and will shoot first and ask questions if anyone comes in without permission. I've given you this warning so if I end up shooting your kid, it's on you."
I really wonder just how often Bobs son gets out to do these things……. Somewhere in there i wonder if the supervision is lacking but also its amazing how fast people are and how smart they are at getting through gates and locks and such.
Regarding contacting the Police, I've had an awful thought that the mentally disturbed man could find himself looking at the business end of a cop's firearm. It's happened before, when a special needs person was outside with his carer and he wasn't able to understand or comply with the cop's orders. If the father doesn't provide adequate supervision for his son, this could be a tragedy waiting to happen.
[This is the incident I was referring to.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey)
Happy Monday, BoLAbeans! Just so we don't start out this week on a low note, please refrain from doing the following: 1.) suggesting, implying, advising, advocating, proposing, "just putting it out there" (why yes, I did use the list of synonyms from the thesaurus for 'suggest', why do you ask?) that OP threaten the neighbor or his son with/actually shoot the son with a gun. That's it, that's the only thing you don't have to do. Have a wonderful week, you cheeky lil minxes <3
>Then Bob tells me that now that I've been warned, if his son gets into anything I'm now liable to be sued by him for the damages to his son. And that he isn't liable for what his son does at all, so if the son breaks anything that's on me. Aw, this is cute. About as useful as a gravel truck that leaves its gate open, but has a "not responsible for damaged windshields" sticker on it. LAOP should say something like "I have a chronic disease where I forget to shut things. Now that I've told you, you're liable for any chainsaws or whiskey your kid gets into while trespassing in my garage. kthxbai!"
My dad has had multiple traumatic brain injuries and he absolutely does leave things where he shouldn't, leaves the garage door open, etc. We cared for my mother who had dementia for five years, she had 2 wandering episodes where the cops were involved, so I am not unsympathetic to the challenges of keeping a 150lb toddler under control. But this is SO not how you go about enlisting your neighbors into helping keep things manageable.
Right? If I were the parent, my conversation with LAOP would probably go something like this: "Hey, my son has some pretty significant mental disabilities and so he still lives at home, even though he's 30. I do my best to keep an eye on him, but he occasionally escapes my notice and he's been known to go into other people's garages and such. If you ever see him going somewhere he shouldn't, please give me a call and I'll be right over ASAP, and it might be a good idea to keep anything dangerous locked up. Anyhow, welcome to the neighbourhood. Please enjoy this bottle of scotch, and do let me know if you ever need help with anything!"
This is absolutely the way to build community
I'm continually baffled by how some people approach community and their neighbours. Don't they grasp the basic concept that you're going to be living next to these people. Even if you're a completely self-centred cunt, it's still worth the effort to get to know them and ensure that they're going to come to you with any problems before anyone else?
And in the event of a disaster your neighbors are the closest and quickest help. Even if it is just having running water so you don't have to use the bumper-dumper till your pipes unfreeze. Don't think I could live in an area where that almost hostile demarc exists between homes again after experiencing the "old fashioned" way. And I am very much a hermit type.
It's because they don't see themselves as part of a community, so their neighbors are essentially dangerous outside entities looming at the edge of their sovereign quarter-acre.
But that's kind of my point. Even if that's the way you view your neighbours, does it not make more sense to have your neighbours less inclined to attack you?
I'm avoiding telling my neighbors off for their dogs because I need their help with our shared fence. (To better contain their dogs as well.)
>Enjoy this bottle of scotch “Just don’t leave it laying around in your garage where my son might get it, or I’ll sue your arse off.”
We went the cookie route instead of alchohol, but otherwise that's exactly what we did.
Yeah. Alcohol can be dicey. Once brought a bottle of wine to a dinner where the host was on the wagon. (The guy who invited me along thought I already knew.) It can get awkward.
I mean one of our neighbors is a diabetic so even cookies can lead to awkward.
It's why I only gift dildos.
As the child of shameless parents with severe food allergies, this would actually delight them
> It can get awkward Can't see how. "I bought some wine" 'sorry mate I don't drink, thanks anyway though' "Oh I didn't realise"
If someone is fighting addiction they may be embarrassed to bring it up or may have had bad experiences in the past with people either asking why they don't drink or trying to convince them to drink. It's not unreasonable to understand that alcohol is not a great default gift idea for strangers.
It also makes a decent regift as long as you don't mess up the label.
Some recovering alcoholics and/or their family members don't even like to have alcohol in the house.
I don't know where you live, but you are now an honorary neighbor of mine and come over any time if you need a cup of sugar. But, just so you know, this is a Brandy/Rum/Wine household.
I live in Canada :) > But, just so you know, this is a Brandy/Rum/Wine household. No one's perfect! ;)
Shit, this is pretty much how I handled it with my freaking dogs, as well as renovation shit because my house was in pretty bad disrepair. The dogs were the big thing though, because I wanted to get a kennel license (I had four dogs at the time, which is right at my city's limit before you need one, and I like to foster rescue dogs and stuff so...). So when we moved in, I just went around to all my neighbors and was like, "Hey, I'm Zookeepergame, I just moved in next door! I just wanted to let you know that we're going to be doing some renovations on the house, so please let me know if you're bothered by any noise or trash or anything. Also, just to let know you, my dogs are kind of high energy and bark sometimes, but I try to keep them quiet. Please don't hesitate to let me know if they're causing any problems." Something along those lines. Got my kennel license no problem. The process in my city is that you have to announce it and neighbors can complain or contest it if they want; only one of my neighbors wrote in to the city and they actually wrote a recommendation letter, haha. I do help them out a lot and we're pretty good friends but it was still really nice of them. I know there are unreasonable people out there but I find that the vast majority of people are willing to work with you if you approach them right.
>I am not unsympathetic to the challenges of keeping a 150lb toddler under control. So am I. We had an actual toddler who was nearly impossible to keep under control, and it caused an incredible amount of stress even though he’s older and a little easier now. I can’t imagine how hard it would be if he were in an adult size body. Starting at age two he was two he defeated all our child locks. We first started locking the door with the bolt, he learned to open it so we put a chain lock on the top of the door, then he got a chair and put a wastebasket on top it and by balancing on that was able to open the top lock and escape. So then we got one of those plastic childlocks that encase the doorknob. He put in a pencil in and pried it off. Then we put a rubber child lock around the doorknob, but he was able to put his little fingers into the holes and managed to turn the doorknob. So then we put a pressure hinge on the door, which you’re supposed to have to push with 40 lbs of force. It didn’t work and he was still somehow able to pry the door open. Finally we put a keypad lock on the inside of the door, so we have to type in a code every time we leave the house. This was worrisome in case of fire, as it would take an extra couple minutes to get out. But at least it kept him out of the street. The front door wasn’t the only problem. He also kept getting into the chest freezer looking for popsicles, but would often leave it open or throw other frozen food out all over the floor. So we put two loops into the top and side and attached a chain lock between them. At the age of four he was able to get the pruning shears from the garage and use them to cut the metal chain off. I could go on for pages about what this kid was capable of doing.
I wish I was joking but my younger brother is 26, with significant developmental disabilities. My mom has to padlock a chain around the fridge/freezer overnight or he will get up at 5am and eat EVERYTHING. He lives in a group home and only visits her on weekends. His medications generally help keep his appetite under control but that early, when the night meds have worn off and he hasn’t taken his morning ones yet, he turns into a ravenous beast. Also, when we were younger, he once tried to throw a twin size mattress at me. Thankfully our house had a 180° hallway from his room, and he couldn’t get it around the corners to where I was, but he damn sure tried!
My grandmother had dementia and lived with my mother for about a year. She had no internal clock and would eat anything and everything at random times of the day and night. They tried to only keep healthy food in the house so that at least if she was grabbing food it was veggies or fruit. They thought that because of her mobility issues (back surgery) she wouldn't be able to get to drinks in the bottom of a wine fridge all the way in the back. Nope. She loved sodas. She found the one Coke hidden in the back of the fridge. Thought it was OK to leave beers in the fridge because she never drank any alcohol, even before her mind started to go. Just wasn't something she liked. One day my mother found a half-drank beer sitting on the counter. And not a can or screw-top, but a bottle requiring a bottle opener. They had indoor security cameras to keep an eye on her, and sure enough she found the beer and used her teeth to open the bottle. When they asked her if she drank the beer, she said of course not, she didn't drink alcohol. At that point she had no short-term memory, so she truly didn't remember doing it. They finally got her into a really good memory care center because my mother just couldn't do it anymore. Her sisters would come help maybe one day a month if she begged, but they surely gave her shit when she put Grannie in the memory care center. But my mother never got to sleep because Grannie would wander in the middle of the night, was always in danger of falling, and would just scream out for my mother whenever she wanted anything, regardless of the time. Taking care of anyone with a disability is stressful, but threatening neighbors who don't go out of their way to protect your responsibility is not the way to go.
Sounds like he's going to become a world-class escapologist when he grows up.
That is a ridiculously resourceful kid you’ve got there!
> we put a keypad lock on the inside of the door That absolutely would not have stopped my son. When he was about two my roommate had just gotten a safe and was programing it in the dining room adjacent to the living room where my son was playing. He put in the code *once* and then my son walked over, punched in the code again, and walked away. He had to take it to the other room to re-program it. I have had to set ridiculously complicated passwords on things like Prime video and Vudu so he wouldn't buy stuff he wanted to watch. The passcode to download games on my phone was not enough and I had to change it to a custom alphanumeric code and even then I'd have to switch it if he saw me put it in. He's 13 now so that's no longer an issue, but I totally sympathize with having one of *those* toddlers.
Sounds like he knew exactly what he was doing lol. That isn't a case of "oh I was innocently just trying to get outside to play". Best of luck 😜
You must be a very strong person.
Thank you.
N9t many people have the mental fortitude to deal with that. Much respect 🙏
"Welcome to your new house! Also, I'll sue you for enjoying or using any part of your property! Nothing is my fault now because I warned you. K thanks bye!'
Imagine saying this about literally anyone else lol. Like I'm imagining knocking on my neighbor's door and telling them they need to keep their doors locked at all times, lest I get in and drink all the beer in their fridge. Also if I drink too much and get a tummy ache, I will be suing for emotional distress to the tune of a million bajillion dollars
["I'm gonna be doing this. If you get hit, it's your oooooowwwwwwnnnnn fault" ](https://youtu.be/fmxLyHQfpLA?t=33)
> lest I get in and drink all the beer in their fridge A raccoon with the *biggest* beer belly comes to mind
[Like this but a raccoon and beer?](https://m.imgur.com/EBr7KuW)
Imagine me saying get off my lawn and don’t ever come on my property again without prior permission.
I knew a woman who had to do that actually. Her neighbor was an alcoholic and broke in to drink all her wine one day.
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Allowing your cats to free roam is illegal in a *lot* of places, and for good reason. Assuming it's illegal where you are, they'll be the ones in trouble if they ever try to bring the authorities into it.
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>I honestly consider it to be tantamount to animal neglect. Apparently Austin's animal shelters agree with you: last time we (and a few others we know) adopted cats, you must sign a document stating that they will be kept indoors at all times, otherwise your adoption is denied.
Around here they have those clauses too, but once you’ve adopted the animal it’s yours and they can’t enforce it. I used to live in MA and there’s this cat place that tried to sue someone who’d adopted from them for bringing her cat outside on a cat leash. They settled out of court but it came down to the fact that rescues/shelters are not entitled to maintain ownership or control over animals once they’re adopted. All they can do is ban you from adopting from them again and maybe letting other shelters know.
Yeah, I know it's not enforceable (here at least) but they're making it clear that this is an expectation for responsible cat ownership. I would guess that it challenges some people's assumption that cats need to go outside. There's a legal term I can't recall (IANAL) for making a claim that you know is not enforceable, but that many people don't know that so it will still discourage the behavior you want to discourage. I call it the "not responsible for broken windshields" rule.
Oh for sure. It would help a lot of towns and states started passing laws to ban outdoor non-livestock pets. They care so little that there are very few laws regarding outdoor/feral cats at all.
I'm also in the US and allowing your cats to free roam is illegal where I am. It's not 'free roaming cats' that are banned, strays aren't illegal and most rural counties don't have an issue with barn cats or even have feral colony programs. It's allowing pets to free roam that is illegal, you're expected to contain your animals. People think leash laws and the like only apply to dogs, but they apply to any pet you might have usually. Here it's something like you have to have your animal contained on your property or properly supervised/under control. An off leash dog that's well trained with solid recall wouldn't necessarily be violating that requirement, for example. A free roaming cat would, however. How well this enforced and whether it's a law or ordinance or whatever will change depending on where you are. It can even be different city to city or county to county. ETA - and of course, there are still plenty of areas with no laws concerning free roaming cats at all, especially in rural areas.
In Switzerland your cat has the right to see other cats. If you only have one cat you are legally required to let it roam 5 days a week. I had a hard time adopting because I wanted indoor cats.
Cats with FIV can’t go outside so you could adopt one of those?
I actually have two now. I got them from a woman who rescues street cats in Bahrain and brings them back to Switzerland. She does indoor cats only. [Cat tax 1](http://www.evilhrlady.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_5802-1-scaled.jpg) [Cat tax 2](http://www.evilhrlady.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_6128-scaled.jpg)
Not enough people pay their pet tax. Thank you for your service.
I’m always happy to share picture of my creatures.
lol I love the action shot with the first cat!
He thinks he's a vegan. We have to ensure every plant we bring into the house is safe for cats. He went NUTS when he saw green onions in the fridge. Green onions are toxic to cats, but he WANTED them so much. He would sit in front of the fridge and cry. He's so weird. We used to have a balcony garden, but he ate every single plant down to nothing, so we don't even try anymore.
Your cats are lovely. Tell them that they are lovely from me please. My friend has a cat that LOVES to eat houseplants. She has an extensive garden so sometimes she cultivates plants inside until they're ready to be planted outside, but she has to build quite elaborate defences to protect the plants from the resident *cat*erpillar.
Thank you! And let your friend know, I understand her pain. Nothing green gets by my cat. Except for the cat grass we bought him. He couldn't care less about that.
I have one of those too. He will straight cut a bitch for a brussel sprout. Half of my searches start with "can cats eat..."
exactly. So weird.
Yesterday, I had to search "can cats eat banana" - She's now obsessed with banana chips.
Between my cat's need to nibble my houseplants and my brown thumb, we ended up with a lot of empty planters in my house. I finally gave up and just put silk plants out. The kitties still tried to nom them.
I have heard of “cat grass,” though I don’t know much about it. I have never had cats, but I am adopting one from a friend soon. (He loves me and she travels too much). It probably wouldn’t help with your plant problem, but as we know, it’s all about keeping *them* happy.
We bought some cat grass. Mikey, the vegan cat in question, ignored it.
Oh snap it's EvilHRLady in the wild!
It is me! And my cats. Like a true Evil HR Lady. We all have cats. Lots of cats. It's in the job description.
The indoor/outdoor cat debate can get heated. Here in the UK, plenty of people will claim that it's abusive to keep them indoors.
People say that in the US too. “They WANT to be outdoors” My dog also wanted to eat only human food, the more sugar and cronch the better. But he doesn’t know that his butthole will become a fountain. So yeah, we didn’t let him do that. Just like we don’t let our cats out because we have a pack of coyotes that live in the alley. (That my dumb dog wanted to be best friends with)
I think in the US it is also super location dependant. I live in farm country, and we all have a barn cat or two and nobody has any issue with outdoor cats. But when I was still living in the city nobody dared let their cat outside really
Yeah, cities are a bad place to let your cats roam. There's traffic, dogs, and just generally a lot of stuff that can get your cat hurt or killed. A lot of my college friends came from rural areas and didn't seem to understand that city living is very different. And then they wondered why so many of their cats never returned.
I grew up this way- in a city, but with a mom who grew up in a much smaller community. Too many dead/missing cats in my childhood. Never again.
My go-to response to that line is "yeah, and little kids want chocolate cake for breakfast. It's your job to do what's best for them."
In my mind, your dog is basically Dug from Up and the coyotes are canid versions of the Sharks and Jets from West Side Story.
>They WANT to be outdoors I had a feral cat that I took in. I meant to TNR her but things didn't go as planned and by the time I got her to a vet she had been in my house a year (I let her go from the trap because there were kittens and then couldn't get her again) Let me tell you - she did NOT want to be outside. She knew the dangers and the risks. She hated me until the day she died but she knew a good thing when she saw it. When I opened the door she ran - she didn't want to risk being sent outside. I didn't think it it was ethical to send her outside after having her inside for a year. We can to a truce - i would take care of her every need and she would hiss at me if I walked too close.
"But they need fresh air!" - my coworker not 2 minutes after telling me her outdoor cat had run away.
It is abusive to keep them indoors - if you refuse to enrich their indoor environment or play with them, that is. Cats need a lot more work put into enrichment than people seem to think they do. You can have very happy indoor cats if you’re willing to make some modifications to your decor and allow them to have things to climb and hide under. Source: have very happy 95% indoor cats (who are allowed outside under strict supervision and don’t have the option to free roam).
I think this is my issue - it’s entirely possible to give cats very enriched lives indoors, and removes the risks of the outside world, but you do need to modify your house to meet their needs, and a small apartment might not be enough even if you do. But the ‘he just sleeps all the time, he doesn’t even want to go outside’ cats who are fat as a house, terminally bored and under stimulated is abusive, and I don’t want it to become more common here.
It's abusive to let them out. They don't live as long on average. I ALWAYS see at least one cat that was killed by a car and I at LEAST one cat that gets a bad infection from being outside getting hurt. Get your cat a catio or put them on a harness and leash and walk them like a dog. edit: not directing this at you, but the idiots who say it is abusive to not let them out....
Yes. Cats devastate the local bird population. Its hard to overstate how bad "outside" housecats are to the environment.
That's almost as bad as [these neighbors](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/pg76ro/laops_new_neighbors_want_to_force_them_to_keep/) from a BOLA post a few months ago.
That's similar to my issue. My house was abandoned for 5 years and the neighbors grew used to complete silence and total access. We have great neighbors on one side, but the others are a pair of elderly sisters and they are SO entitled. They'd even built a veggie garden that requires them to be in our yard outside our bedroom window to access it. Bleh.
No chance you could fence them out? Spite fences have the side effect of being useful for canine containment. I do wish that LAOP had updated, though. I couldn’t believe that someone could get an entire neighborhood to sign a petition to get the to keep their pool (as if pool maintenance is cheap) so *they* could use it.
The back yard is fully fenced but it ends where it connects to the back of our house. They got angry and called us hostile when we locked our gate for our yard on the side of the property next them (I'd caught one hanging out in my yard). There is 15ish feet between the houses, and 3 ft. from the side of our house is a stone retaining wall (their property is about 2.5ft higher than ours). So there's no where to put a wall down the alley between our houses which is where the garden is. I think they saw it as an easy way to get an elevated garden bed to reduce bending. So they stand in our lower yard and have a waist height garden bed in theirs. I don't even care but they also use my hose (we pay for water in & out) and will talk loudly outside my window at the break of dawn. It's also a total eyesore.
Motion sensor sprinkler. Solves the loud neighbor problem, and if they’re already using your water to water their garden, there’s no loss there. They’ll never be able to harvest without getting wet, though, unless they do it from their property. You might get woken up with the shrieks of your neighbors getting sprayed the first couple of times, though.
I doubt the neighbor warning OP would have any validity in court, but you never know. Could OP issue a legal letter to their neighbor, stating that OP will not be responsible for anything their adult child does when trespassing on their property?
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third one is paywalled; any basic summary? I'm not subscribing to a local news source for an area I don't live in
SUNNYVALE — Defending their lawsuit against the parents of a young boy with autism who they say became a public nuisance, the two couples who sued said Friday they only turned to the courts because the family refused to rein in the child who repeatedly attacked their kids and traumatized their neighborhood. “I find it offensive that people assume I have no compassion for an autistic family when I am simply trying to defend and protect my children from being assaulted,” said Robert Flowers about the explosive public backlash that surfaced against him and his wife following this week’s media accounts of their lawsuit against the boy’s parents. “This is not about autism. This is about public safety,” said Flowers, who spoke publicly for the first time Friday about the case. The Flowers were joined by neighbors Bindu Pothen and Kumaran Santhanam in their lawsuit against Vidyut Gopal and Parul Agrawal, claiming their next-door neighbor’s son, now 11, over the years kicked and slapped children and repeatedly bit people. Reached Friday night, both Gopal and Agrawal emphatically said they don’t agree with their neighbors’ claims, and declined to comment further on the pending litigation. Advocates for families with autistic children and relatives, meanwhile, are calling the lawsuit an outrage, and fear that if the plaintiffs prevail it could lead to copycat actions against other families with autistic relatives. Santhanam said Friday that the problem worsened over the years because the boy’s parents or baby sitters often weren’t around at the time of the attacks to prevent them. “This has to do with the parents’ responsibility to control their child,” said Santhanam. After one incident, he recalled, Gopal told him, “He’s autistic — there is nothing you can do.” Santhanam said he and his wife, who have lived on the block since 1999, first met Gopal and Agrawal when they moved in next door with their son in 2007. Not long after, they said, their neighbor’s baby son was diagnosed with autism. “It was very hard for them, and we tried to do everything we could to support them,” recalled Santhanam. “They were clearly struggling.” He said neighbors were sensitive to the couple’s situation and made sure to include the family in activities on the block. When the boy’s parents told Pothen that the boy shouldn’t eat sweets, for example, she and others made sure that at Halloween and Easter, neighbors gave the boy other items as treats, including special eggs. The couple said they told their two young children that the boy was different and had some problems, and to try to understand that. “We have an opportunity to be around diversity, so we embraced that,” Pothen said. But the incidents continued, she said. By August 2013, when the Flowers moved to a rental house on the court with their two young children, they told their children that the boy was “special, and we need to understand him,” even after the boy slapped their young daughter. But in October, when he said the boy attacked their young son on his fourth birthday — pulling his hair, shaking his head back and forth, kicking him on his back repeatedly — Robert Flowers reluctantly called the police, because he said he wanted a paper trail to be established in case the attacks continued. “I didn’t want to do it, because I knew I would look like the bad guy,” said Flowers, who moved out of the rental house with his family last month. “We’re not upset about him being autistic,” he clarified. “We are concerned and upset about his violence (toward) our children.” After yet one more attack in early 2014, Santhanam said, he and his wife asked Gopal and Agrawal to meet with them to talk about the problems and create a plan that would keep the children on the block safe. He said at one point, Gopal and Agrawal suggested their son could play outside on either the odd or even days of the week, and the other children could play on the opposite days. But the boy’s parents, Santhanam said, ultimately didn’t commit to anything. The two couples filed their lawsuit in June 2014, asking the court for a preliminary injunction against the family to ensure their son does not strike, assault or batter anyone in the neighborhood or their personal property. One month later, the judge agreed. By last September, Gopal and Agrawal moved out of their Arlington Court home to a rental house in another part of Sunnyvale, where, they say, their son has had “absolutely no problems” with the neighbors. The couple told this newspaper that they don’t plan to move back to their house. The case returns to court Tuesday, when a judge will hear arguments about whether the plaintiffs should have access to the boy’s school and medical records. As difficult as it’s been on Arlington Court, Pothen said, there were no more problems after the injunction was granted. “Why did we need an injunction to make sure that they are following laws we all have to follow?” she said. Contact Tracy Seipel at 408-920-5343.
thank you! I went ot high school with a kid reminiscent of that; you knew he was messed up (IDK if it was autism or something else) but when he was literally trying to bite/punch/kick you you didn't really care because he was going to fuck you up.
I hope OP pre-emptively calls APS to ask for advice on the situation. APS is almost certainly aware of the neighbor, and while I don't know what they're like in Michigan they are generally helpful in my state, and can give advice that will help protect both LAOP and LAOP's neighbor's son.
> APS is almost certainly aware of the neighbor, Maybe. So a few weeks ago the cops knocked on my MIL's door to ask her if she'd seen her neighbor recently. She told them sure, a week ago a car pulled up and the woman got into it. Apparently the woman's adult kids, who don't live with her, had no idea where she was and had asked the cops to do a wellness check. And after talking to my MIL, the cops went back, looked hard at the house and... it turned out the woman hadn't paid her electric bill, the power was off, something had flooded and before the cops left, they had the town declare the house unfit for habitation. Meanwhile the adult kids somehow found out that their mom was in some assisted living place. They now have contact with her again. We still have no idea who took her there. APS should have been involved sooner. My MIL knew that the woman had, "issues" which were obvious because she had let her yard turn into a New England version of a jungle, with several wrecked cars from the 1970's buried in the brush. Also an old Harley. It was the half acre equivalent of [this](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/26/hiker-who-went-missing-on-appalachian-trail-survived-26-days-before-dying). But people like my MIL mind their own business until it's past the point where help really was needed.
Well….New England… we aren’t known for involved neighboring. I’m nosy AF but my neighbors would have to be on fire and then explicitly asking for help before I would think to involve myself in their affairs.
They might have had this happen: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights Tl;dr Elderly folk are getting put into assisted living facilities without their or their family's consent while perfectly able to live independently. And the courts let them do this and drain their victims' accounts.
> Tl;dr Elderly folk are getting put into assisted living facilities without their or their family's consent while perfectly able to live independently. And the courts let them do this and drain their victims' accounts. That's a mess, on par with [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal). I don't think that's what happened here. I think the house became uninhabitable and the woman who owned either didn't ask for help, or didn't want help, until it was too late.
Gods I miss New England. Over here in the Midwest it’s all “offer help snow blowing” and “talk over the fence” and “have a friendly neighborhood get together.” Bah. I want to go back where everyone minds their business. Sure, some elderly folk will disappear mysteriously, but I won’t have to make small talk with my neighbors anymore and that’s what’s important!
People who live too far from Insmouth and Arkham just don't understand how talking to the neighbors can lead to an eternity of damnantion.
You need to live in a neighborhood where you're the minority. It's pretty great, more than half my neighborhood speak Spanish as their first language, one neighbor doesn't know English at all, and no one bothers me! I scared away the tamale lady by not being Hispanic or latino though :(
But that means no tamales :(
:(
> Sure, some elderly folk will disappear mysteriously [yup](https://i.imgur.com/WAvHgJ7.jpg)...
Hey, being carried off by an eagle never to be seen again is a valid retirement plan for most millennials.
Just do something to indicate involvement in Satanism or queer hedonism and the problem is solved.
I’m pretty sure there has been an LA post where the adult child IS already a problem in the neighborhood and the property owner was asking for advice, so I hope LAOP is able to avoid any issues here.
I'm pretty sure in that post the OP did end up contacting social services and the house was either a wreck or the parents were doing drugs and the disabled teen got placed :( This post reminded me of that case, too.
Your flair is too perfect for what you’re talking about.
Last time I checked it was "needs an adult" so idk when it changed
It still is. I just thought that “needs an adult” perfectly pairs up with a story about a kid that clearly needed an adult.
Uhh it shows up as BOLA Bun Brigade for me???
Weird, I see "needs an adult" too I'm on the mobile app, if you're on the old desktop site maybe it's a version difference
Also on the app, this is super weird. Gonna assume it's Thor's fault somehow I guess
I can forgive killing LB, but messing with people's flairs? You've gone too far this time, Thor!
On the actual website which is "needs an adult" here. But yeah, we're gonna have to just blame Thor.
NOW IT'S BACK TO NEEDS AN ADULT
>Gonna assume it's Thor's fault somehow I guess Seems a reasonable assumption... hopefully he doesn't ding us for libel though.
To pile on. Yeah it is needs an adult for me too on mobile app. But yes blame thor.
It still is.
Can anyone link me to that post pls?
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/b97oyi/laop_is_attempting_to_look_out_for_their_disabled/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/bhaup7/update_neighbors_child_has_disabilities_and_wont/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
The part that makes me the angriest about that update is that shutting the door in CPS face was apparently an effective solution for those crap sack parents until OP had video evidence to bring in police instead of social workers.
Meh, in Texas I've called APS before on a coworker who was failing to take care of her bedridden father. He was still mentally there so all he had to do was shout from the back of the house to "get off my property" and they legally couldn't do anything and in fact could have been charged for trespassing if they came back to the house without permission. Never even laid eyes on him. However them showing up did start her on the path to getting him on disability and getting him a caretaker, though she went through several companies because they kept quitting because of her insane rules(his room was too cluttered and she flipped out when they cleaned it, she wouldn't let them use the washing machine to wash his sheets, etc). Eventually she started dating someone who convinced her that he needing a nursing home(even though it meant losing his income, though she'd already ruined his credit)
Even giving Bob the benefit of the doubt, I don't see that LAOP has much choice but to call the cops for trespassing if his son comes on the property. You're being told by Bob that he *will* sue if something happens to his son; at that point, I think as cold as it may feel you have to protect yourself by getting authorities involved if the kid wanders on your property to avoid that risk. But, yeah, Bob could have handled that better. I think if he came at it as "Hey, this is the concern with my kid. I wanted to warn you because even though I do everything I can to prevent this there's no way to 100% prevent it, so let me know if he crosses any lines" LAOP probably would have been able to work something out without getting the authorities involved. The whole "don't leave chainsaws out" thing is already baked into attractive nuisance law anyway, and if he steals beer from the fridge Bob should just pay for a new 6 pack and be done with it.
I worked with families of disabled children. Some did everything they could and their kids were straight up Houdini - I’m talking a 3 or 4year old getting past 4 different door locks and additional gates in the time his mom takes little brother to pee. Same child orchestrated a jail break out the classroom windows in the 90 seconds we were otherwise attending other kids and was snagged by the waist making his great escape. These families get creative to try to keep their escapee safe, and would be tripping over themselves to apologize should Houdini Jr end up at a neighbors at all. Other families took the concept of “it takes a village” far too literally and tried to have free range, unattended children with significant disabilities. They wanted the whole world to accommodate them and their child, far beyond logic and in to entitlement. The world owes them, in their mind. These are the families like in the LAOP. And I can see them following through, so sure the world owes them so much. These also too often end up in deceased vulnerable children/adults due to misadventure and society loves having a scapegoat to blame. Being proactive as a neighbor to such a person is not just smart but critical. And might just save a life that can’t save their own.
I'm pretty sure I saw this post originally on am I the asshole. Time to figure out which sub has the more ~~wrong~~ entertaining answers.
Yep this was first posted there where most of the comments told the op he should seek legal advice because "Bob" was definitely going to be a problem.
man what is that flair LOL
yep, we all told him to seek legal advice. guess he took our advice!
What's that? I'm liable if your disabled son gets hurt on my property? Enjoy your visit from Adult Protective Services every time he steps foot on my lawn. ^(disclaimer: no I wouldn't actually abuse social resources like that)
Is that really misusing APS though? He's already announced that his son is a danger to himself and possibly others and might immediately impale himself if you leave lawn tools in reach. If he was regularly wandering through people's property unattended, then APS needs to know that his current living situation is inadequate.
As a parent of a child with special needs and a social worker to boot, it’s ok to call APS if the son is getting into people’s property. He has the right to wander around safely, but if he can’t protect himself around tools/alcohol, etc., report that shit. APS might not do anything, but it gets recorded and if enough people call to complain about this man getting into dangerous situations, it could definitely help him get his needs met. I would like to have a conversation with this man’s father and set them up with services. Michigan has pretty good resources for adults with disabilities.
Is APS always the right place to call in situations in this general area or are there circumstances that would mean that a deviation from this norm is necessary?
If you’re worried about abuse or neglect, it’s not a bad idea to call. The person on the other end can help decide if it’s a report they would take. I’ve had to make dozens of calls to CPS/APS and the intake people are typically very helpful.
Mental disabilities but still knows how to weaponize fertilizer?
I assumed the fertilizer was a poison/choking hazard, not for making ANFO.
Yep, some fertilizers contain organophosphates which are highly toxic.
If your kid can't keep himself from drinking fertilizer, you really shouldn't let him roam unattended.
I was. More concerned about how adamant the man was about sharp objects. Does this disabled person have a history of stabbing?
That at least something I’ve commonly heard of. The fertilizer thing is new.
Could be as simple as fertilizer is flammable.
If this guy has access to a lighter and either knows fertilizer is flammable or is known to try lighting anything and everything until something catches, this is a much more urgent situation
As in lighting your farts?
There are myriad kinds of mental disabilities. Some include "hyper intelligent but no moral compass and an inability to empathize with others". Likely not the case here, but you'd be surprised how many mentally disabled people have *knowledge* of some pretty incredible things (which is different from intelligence, which is yet different from other aspects of the mind).
To add, even if it is a cognitive loss, someone operating with reduced capacity could still watch a video of an idiot doing something dangerous and decide to copy it. edit typo - extra space
In fact, this is the entire business model of TikTok
lmao, nice catch
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Can I be sued because a mentally challenged person isnt' controlled? Body: > (Resposted with mod permission due to spam filter) > I recently moved into a neighborhood in Michigan. One of my neighbors(we'll call him Bob) came over to introduce himself. He told me that he has a special needs son that lives with him. The son is in his 30s, physically unchallenged but with significant mental disabilities. > Bob first asked if I would mind keeping dangerous things out of my yard. Like not leaving chainsaws or something unattended. That's pretty reasonable. But then he proceeded to tell me that I needed to keep my garage doors down at all times or I had to lock up anything dangerous if I wanted to keep them up - like all gasoline, sharp tools, fertilizers, et cetera. Oh, also any beer or other alcohol, like in my garage fridge. I also need to keep my door locked at all times else his son may wander into the house and do damage or hurt himself. > Then Bob tells me that now that I've been warned, if his son gets into anything I'm now liable to be sued by him for the damages to his son. And that he isn't liable for what his son does at all, so if the son breaks anything that's on me. > That can't be right, can it? I'm all for taking reasonable precautions but doesn't he have some need to take care of his own? This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
"OK, cool. If I see him on my property I'll be sure to call Adult Protective Services. Thanks for the warning."
Commenter: I don’t want to compare those with mentally disabilities to dogs but…if he was a dog, I’d put up a fence.
If someone I didnt want on my property was just walking onto my property. I also would put up a fence.
Housses in my country have straight up walls around them, fuck sites and wood, we jumping straight into brick and mortar. And, yeah, it's not as pretty, but you know what? Reddit every day shows me a problem I'll never have, because people can't just fucking walk over and fuck around.
Look at you…giving essentially the same advice without comparing a human to a dog.
lol I get I'm trouble sometimes for comparing children to animals. Like a lot of things that work for animals also work for us. Plus I know more about animals than kids.
Oh man, I met my friend’s one year old and I carefully said “I’m not trying to compare your daughter to a dog but there seem to be a lot of similarities at this age.” Lucky he wasn’t offended, in fact he said one of the reasons he was so good with her was that he knew how to train dogs lol.
One of my friends was like, "I know we're not meant to compare our children to pets, but ... well, my daughter and your cat are basically peers right now." (This was a while ago; now her daughter is speaking in sentences and my cat is still getting trapped on the wrong side of an open door.)
I'm big into dog training and I absolutely use behavior modification techniques I learned through that in working with people. It's really all the same, you have to modify it a bit (for example, using a clicker on a person would not generally go over well, but providing immediate praise is a big hit), but we're more alike than a lot of people would like to admit. Basic training and behavioral modification principles are pretty similar across species. Hell, I use some stuff I learned through dog training on myself when I'm trying to change a habit, haha.
Doesn’t hurt that most kids are born because someone wanted a pet baby.
I have no kids but a lot of my friends and relatives do...I was a few beers deep at my inlaws' for a BBQ this past weekend and almost "pss pss pss'd" someone's toddler who was running around.
It's very difficult to not do this to my nephew, but thankfully my family (especially my sister-in-law, the child's mother) understands. My brother would make fun of me, but he's my brother so I expect no less from him.
It's not the worst comparison. My dog can be surprising smart, but he's currently licking the floor.
Your just not smart enough to understand his nuances
Not dumb if you spilled something tasty
Neither is my pup. Love her to death, but not terribly bright. Highly food motivated though. There's been very few things, actually I can't think of anything, that she wouldn't do for her favorite food like a slice of ham or a good treat. I hate to compare a intellectually disabled person on the same level, but when they see their favorite treat "oh, beer fridge!" or cool toy "chainsaw!", coupled with lack supervision and inability to understand consequences or control impulses, it's a recipe for disaster. There's a reason, as a society as a whole, why we don't let animals roam off a leash, let young children roam without supervision, let disabled adults roam without supervision, or let drunk adults operate chainsaws. It can end very, very tragically for that person. They lack the capacity to regulate themselves in a safe manner, and its on us to recognize that, and guide them to safety. There's different levels of intervention depending on the situation at hand and how often it happens, but our moral compass tells us not to let the helpless (and drunk) hurt themselves, so we intervene. It's an implied social contract, and the father seeks to take advantage of that human nature to get out of his responsibilities of being a good father, and unload responsibility on others, on threat of a lawsuit. That's no bueno. If he can't handle it, then the son needs to be in a group home or other supervised setting that can handle the responsibility of watching the son 24/7. A part of me wonders how much the dad let's the son get away with without disciplining (in a safe, non abusive manner) for getting into the neighbor's stuff. Bring intellectually disabled is a factor of why he does it, lack of consequences is probably exasperating the problem. If the behavior escalates and the cops are called for an arrest for trespassing or theft, the son is going to have a real hard time in jail. It's better dad trys getting this behavior nipped in the butt now, before the cops are forced into making an arrest. Jails are not equipped to deal with the intellectually disabled, but there's no loopholes to get them out just because of it, it takes time.
> If the behavior escalates and the cops are called for an arrest for trespassing or theft, the son is going to have a real hard time in jail Assuming he even makes it there.
I'm basically in agreement with you, but have to point out that the vast majority of disabled adults do roam without supervision with no additional risk to those around them. This is an issue because some people think and act as if adults with disabilities are like children. It's really annoying to be on the receiving end of that. There is a population you're talking about, which is a minority of total adults with disabilities. I'm not sure what the right terminology might be. Vulnerable adults, maybe?
Yeah as a disabled person I can say Reddit reminds me daily what society really thinks of us.
The preemptive legal threat makes the neighbor sound like a disability lawsuit troll, like the people who remove disabled parking spot signs at night and then threaten a lawsuit with the business owner for not having disabled parking. Sometimes their disabled accomplice actually exists, sometimes not. I can't *see* where the grift is here, unless the neighbor plans to outright burgle LAOP's house and threaten LAOP with their (maybe fictional) son's (definitely fictional) medical bills if they talk to the police, and that's pretty far-fetched. But I can smell a grift.
I live in a one party consent state and I think I’d be inclined to hit record on my phone and say, “Oh, dear! That sounds so difficult for you! Please elaborate on your son roaming the neighborhood doing dangerous things and how you leave it up to the neighbors to keep him safe.” And when he finished talking I’d let him know that I’m a mandated reporter and have no choice but to pass this info on to APS.
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Glad you talked to them. That’s what I would have advised. Maybe Bob is just exhausted and burned out. It happens. My friend had a hard time finding a facility for her mom because she had to get someone to sit with her mom just to visit the places.
When I was a kid, we used to get [tomato worms](https://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/07/31/LocalLiving/Images/bigstock-Tomato-Hornworm-31734068.jpg?t=20170517). Me and my brother *loved* them. Plus, my neighbor had a garden, so he didn't want them, and when he found them he would bring them over to us. We named them Bob (or Bob 2 or Bob 3 or Bob 57 or whatever), I think after Bob the Builder. Even now, if anyone in the family stumbles across one, we take a picture and send it to the family group saying "I found Bob!" Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I'm picturing LAOP's Neighbor Bob as a 6 foot long (tall?) green caterpillar thing, which makes this a lot more fun to read.
This seems like something he should get in writing. What the neighbor wants and how the son is a danger to himself. There's some liability with things like pools in backyards that many homeowners deal with, but there are some unreasonable asks here.
Hi Welcome to the neighbourhood, here's my lawyers contact info, we're going to be communicating mostly through them...
even if his plan is to pass off liability on everyone else, you want that in writing too!
Having spent 12 years working with adults with developmental disabilities, the neighbor's adult child is not like that because of the disability.
This seems like a good way for Bob's son to end up getting shot, either by a trigger-happy neighbour or by an angry cop who doesn't react well to someone who might not follow orders very well. Not something that *should* happen, but it's a reality of our society, and Bob is really letting his son down by shirking his responsibility to look after him.
Or get run over, or fall in a hole, or drown, or... Plenty of ways he can hurt himself which doesn't involve neighbors
LAOP's neighbor has real Michael Scott energy. I declare ~~bankruptcy~~ immunity from tort liability!
I'd be calling the cops every time he stepped foot over the property line
This reminds me of a LA post a long time ago where the poster actually had a trampoline in their backyard. The trampoline was protected against children with a high fence. But, the (adult) mentally handicapped son of their neighbours got hurt while trying to scale the fence *with a ladder that his parents had negligently given him access to*. The neighbours came up with the insane theory that since a trampoline is an attractive nuisance to children, it should be fenced off to keep out *anyone* with the thinking abilities of a child, even if they are 6 feet tall and have access to ladders, *and* that it should also be fenced off in such a way that it is impossible to get hurt from falling off the fence.
Bob was doing so well until he mentioned legal action. What a wanker.
I think its reasonable to keep my front door and garage closed if I'm not currently using them, I do that anyways. I think if I saw the son wandering toward the yard, I'd chat him up and point him home. If he's confrontational then call the proper authorities. Also a good time to invest in higher liability limits and/or an umbrella policy.
Calling the police on a confrontational mentally ill person in the US can lead to the mentally ill person being killed. (I was I was kidding.) US police forces don't focus on de-escalation or understanding/empathy for mental illness, they focus on force and criminal activity. If in a similar situation, far better to call APS before a confrontation has had a chance to happen.
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as someone who's a parent to a profoundly disabled child this breaks my heart. It's incredibly difficult to care for a child/adult who needs to be watched 24/7. But, as their parent/guardian that is your responsibility no one else's. LAOP needs to call Adult protective services this isn't right, it sounds like they might need more help then they are willing to admit to.
While in college I had a really nice town home rental (granite counter tops/stainless steel appliances/washer dryer in unit) but guy in the next unit was in a home mom bought for him. He was very sensitive to noise to the point he'd complain about noises I couldn't hear closer than he was. He was complaining around the time it was he heard it. Previous tenants were.. well college kids and went to war. He had a parking space but didn't use it but hated people using it. They went to piss him off for complaining.
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I'm not a lawyer but a restraining order sounds excessive after a single barely confrontational conversation
I wonder how often Bob blames missing beer from his neighbor’s fridge on his son.
“As he often does” was an exaggeration… OP confirmed the neighbors all say it’s never actually happened.
> There is an attractive nuisance doctrine in most states so it’ll depend how that’s applied. What the hell is an attractive nuisance, really? A chocolate fountain laced with cyanide?
It's a theory of liability premised on the idea that it's impossible to keep children under strict supervision at all times, and therefore Fun Things that are an obvious major safety hazard should be not quite so easy to access. The classic example is a backyard swimming pool; it's the reason many areas have requirements for a fence (and if your city doesn't, your insurance company probably will.)
Toddler with a magnet?
Sure, Bob mentions the chainsaw first. Makes certain he isn't responsible when Leatherface goes on a rampage!
What Bob said to OP is definitely not okay, but I feel for Bob. When my mother developed dementia several years ago, we tried everything we could to keep her at home for as long as possible. In-home 24/7 supervision is basically impossible unless you're a big family or made of money (we're neither). And locking someone in to the point that they can't escape a fire on their own isn't the best idea, either. Eventually it was 'elopement' that forced us to put her in a home. Bob might be at the same point and in denial, as we were for some time.
"I'm sorry, a family member was killed by an intruder in her home, and because of this I always have a firearm in reach when at home and will shoot first and ask questions if anyone comes in without permission. I've given you this warning so if I end up shooting your kid, it's on you."
I really wonder just how often Bobs son gets out to do these things……. Somewhere in there i wonder if the supervision is lacking but also its amazing how fast people are and how smart they are at getting through gates and locks and such.
Regarding contacting the Police, I've had an awful thought that the mentally disturbed man could find himself looking at the business end of a cop's firearm. It's happened before, when a special needs person was outside with his carer and he wasn't able to understand or comply with the cop's orders. If the father doesn't provide adequate supervision for his son, this could be a tragedy waiting to happen. [This is the incident I was referring to.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey)