Get Out Of Here!

I notice a trend today in which children become adults and then never leave the family home.

I know that part of the problem is that when people are graduated from college nowadays, they are around 3 trillion dollars in debt for tuition loans, student activity fees, and bar tabs. So they go home, take down the Black Eyed Peas posters and open a can of black-eyed peas for dinner.

Some say that another part of the problem is that young people are being raised with the notion that the world so eagerly awaits their arrival that top-level executive positions are kept open for them to fill once they get that diploma.

I guess the situation differs from family to family. And maybe sometimes parents are tickled to death to have young Abercrombie or Hildegard hang around until the cows have not only come home, but have turned out the lights in the barn and gone to sleep.

And then again, maybe some aren't.

Meet the Rotondos, Christina and Mark, from Camillus, in upstate New York.  They have this son named Michael, 30, and he just won't get the hell out of the house.  So they have turned to the law for help.

They gave him written notice to leave the house within 14 days on February 2, and he ignored it, probably because he was streaming season three of The Brady Bunch that week.

On Feb. 16 along came a note saying he was “hereby evicted," giving him until March 15 to hit the road.

That didn't work either, so they sent him a note (I have to wonder if they MAILED the note to him or just left it on the kitchen table in his cereal bowl) that said they “have seen no indication that you are preparing to leave.”

All that did was waste some paper, so the Rotondos filed more papers to have the case heard by the Supreme Court of New York State (they aren't fooling around!) saying that they understand that Michael cannot be "evicted" because he is a family member and this is home to him, but asking that he be given the boot through an "ejectment" proceeding.

It's like a ballplayer who argues with an umpire and goes too far; he can't be evicted, whether or not it's a home game, but he can be "ejected."

Michael turned off the tv long enough to file a response, claiming that  five written notices did not give him a "reasonable amount of time" for him to leave. He used the case of Kosa vs. Legg as precedent. That was a 2006 New York case (Larry Kosa, Plaintiff, v Detria Legg, Defendant) in which it was determined that "there is Common law requirement of six-month notice to quit before tenant may be removed through ejectment action.”

Michael also filed a paper that said that he was not given any reason for being shown the gate after just 30 years, years during which he “has never been expected to contribute to household expenses, or assisted with chores and the maintenance of the premises, or assisted with chores and the maintenance of the premises, and claims that this is simply a component of his living agreement.” 

His official stance, then, is he never had a sense of responsibility to either himself or his parents, and they are just a couple of big poopheads.

The hearing date was yesterday. I'll be on the lookout for how it came out.