Trying to find a way to convince my alcoholic, abusive, psychopath older brother to move out of my basement before my baby is born. Bribing him with a house of his own didn't work, and now I'm stumped.
About a year and a half ago, my mom suffered a devastating stroke that left her permanently disabled; she will need to live with someone for the rest of her life. I am her chosen legal guardian; she gave me power of attorney, put my name on all her accounts, etc. ages ago.
We are currently living in my childhood home, a house that has been unofficially "mine" for about three years. When Mom inherited my grandmother's house, she wanted to live in it instead... and around the same time, the house we currently inhabit was condemned for demolition by the city as a health hazard (more on that in a minute). To help Mom out, I moved back home, started paying the mortgage and bills, and renovated the house enough to get the condemnation called off. In gratitude, and to get the still-too-crappy-to-sell house off her financial back, she "gave" it to me. Only, she couldn't actually put the title in my name, due to a government lien on the property that means it can't be sold until mid-2011.
A few months ago, life threw me another curve ball... after being told I was sterile, I found myself miraculously pregnant. Even more miraculously, my boyfriend "Matt" is ridiculously thrilled about this and is determined for us to live together and co-parent. To toss one more miracle into the pot, Matt is a childhood friend of mine who adores my mother like she was his own and doesn't mind the thought of her living with us forever. Mom loves him just as much (and adores his son from a prior marriage) and is overjoyed at the idea that they might live with us.
So there's an easy solution here. Matt and his son move in with me and Mom and the fetus. There's plenty of room, and Matt and I would both benefit hugely financially from sharing expenses rather than maintaining two expensive separate households.
Of course, if this were actually an easy solution, I wouldn't be querying the hive mind, so here's the big catch.
My 41-year-old brother "Frank" has lived in the basement of this house his entire life. He's an alcoholic pothead who is overqualified for a diagnosis of
Antisocial Personality Disorder / psychopathy. Every romantic relationship Frank has ever been in has ended because he beat his girlfriends up; he abused me when I was small (I'm nine years younger) and has been arrested numerous times for assault and battery, drunk driving, domestic violence, etc. Frank has a terrible and irrational temper and has hurt me and Mom on many occasions, including an incident a few years back where he strangled me, threw me into walls, and eventually pulled a loaded gun on me.
Even beyond the scary bits, Frank's hell to live with. He's never held down a job more than a few months, doesn't contribute to the household expenses at all, and survives by bullying me and our father (mom and dad are divorced) for "loans" that he never pays back. Frank is a hoarder who has turned the yard and house into something out of Sanford and Son; he is the main reason that the house was condemned as a health hazard. Frank is a "handyman", and when anything breaks in the house, he wants you to pay him to fix it. If you do, he won't ever fix it and will rage out if you nag him to. If you hire someone else to fix it, he also goes into a rage, because that means you don't trust him to do it.
He lets his dog crap in the foyer, Frank himself pees in the front yard, he throws beer cans in a pile in our driveway next to the three dead cars he's going to fix someday. I'm pretty poor and I struggle to buy groceries; whenever I do, Frank binges on the most expensive and nutritious items in the middle of the night so that Mom and I are forced to eat crap until my next paycheck. His basement is a disgusting, reeking hellhole wallpapered and stacked with hardcore porn. He brings home horrible meth-head bar skanks who steal my stuff, he plays his music so loud you can hear it from three houses away... I could go on and on and on.
The worst bit, however, is that Frank is enraged that Mom passed him over in the chain of responsibility and gave the power of attorney etc. to me. He demands equal say in everything I do regarding Mom and constantly harasses me over every decision I've made. He's basically been the ultimate roadblock in me taking proper care of Mom's business; his interference in my attempts to get my grandmother's house sold have resulted in total financial ruin for me and Mom and a massive amount of damage to my grandmother's house, such that it can no longer be put on the market without a huge amount of repairs that I can't afford.
Matt, quite understandably, refuses to move in as long as Frank is here and does not want either of his children around him. I completely agree with Matt about this; I'll be damned if I'm going to put my child, or my beloved quasi-stepson, through the violent, miserable, Frank-infested childhood I went through.
Flat-out kicking Frank out is not an option for several reasons. One, I'm genuinely worried that if I tried it, he would beat the crap out of me. He's already spent my entire pregnancy trying to convince me to have an abortion and has been telling family members that he hopes I miscarry. I've seen Frank walk right through restraining orders, so that wouldn't faze him one bit. When Frank's angry, he's kind of like the Terminator: he can’t be bargained with and he doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear.
To top it all off, my mother is in total denial about how screwed-up Frank is and doesn't see any reason why we can't all be one big happy family. If I kick him out, I can 100% guarantee you she will both be furious with me and will let him back in. Dad's not quite as head-in-sand as Mom, but he wouldn't back me up on a flat-out kick-out either, especially since he'd be the one Frank would go running to and the one whose life Frank would start ruining (more).
Dad did, however, help me come up with an alternate plan that we really thought would work. Dad offered to buy my grandmother's house for a reduced rate that will take into account the repairs it now needs, with my Dad's cabin as the down payment. Frank loves my Dad's cabin and, like anything he likes, pretty much considers it his. I would then turn around and give the cabin to Frank, so he'd have his own, totally-paid-for place to live.
Dad and I both thought Frank would love this plan. I mean, he gets his dream cabin for free!
Unfortunately, Frank isn't going for it. He likes the part where he gets the cabin, of course... but he is insisting that he be allowed to continue to live in the basement as well.
Frank's argument is that he wants to be able to spend the night and visit Mom, and that since the cabin is about an hour away, it will be too far to drive when he gets a job in town (not bloody likely). He's been telling everyone in the family piteously that all he wants is to be able to come sleep in the basement occasionally, why would that be so bad, he's my brother after all, and what kind of bitch tries to force her brother away from their mother?
Matt and I both hate the idea of an alcoholic psychopath having free rein to come into our home any time he feels like it, and we both agree that Frank won't be "visiting Mom" so much as he'll be showing up for free meals and to badger us for cash. Plus, if Frank still lives here... even part-time... he's not going to move his dangerous, nasty stuff.
Matt said he'd just buy a house for the five of us, and Frank could have the childhood home, but then we realized that as long as Mom's with us, Frank will feel entitled to know where we live and to show up whenever he feels like it to "visit" her. Not to mention that we'd be completely broke, as we'd be paying a mortgage and all the bills on a house in which we did not reside.
I need a way to not just get Frank to move out completely, but to make Frank WANT to move out completely and think it was his idea. I really thought this thing with the cabin was the answer, but now I'm at my wit's end.
Anyone been through anything similar or have any ideas?
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It sounds to me like a lot of talking needs to be done.
In the end the person who owns the property or has power of attorney for the owner gets to decide, and he has to do what they say. If you can get him on your side somehow then that will help a lot. Do you have someone else (i.e. not pregnant), an independent third party, that can help?
posted by devnull at 5:43 AM on February 9