I went over Saturday and talked to both my sister and mom about my sister’s daughter JL.  

On Saturday, my niece was still absent, bringing the total up to 5 days of simply abandoning her oldest two kids. Both my mom and sis are agreed that JL has to go. I suggested that while there is a legal process to go through, we shouldn’t bother with trying to comply legally right now. Just let her know she has 30 days, and if she hasn’t voluntarily left at 30 days, then remove her stuff and lock her out.  

My sister told me JL would be streetwise, but streetwise isn’t legal-wise. And even if JL did understand this eviction wasn’t fully compliant with county law, it would be on her to get representation and challenge the issue, none of which she is likely to do once she’s out. 

So I got some eviction forms from online, printed them out and Sunday, went over and sat down with my niece briefly to explain that she was being given 30 days to find other living arrangements. I told her that this didn’t bring anyone any satisfaction to do it, but there was too much turmoil and emotional stress in my mom’s house, and it needed to be resolved. She actually accepted this and said she understood. Now, I confess I don’t know what that means in my niece’s head. Maybe she understands and is planning on moving out, or she might understand we want her to, and is planning on staying and maintaining business as usual. That remains to be seen in the next few weeks.  

I hate to be underhanded, but I felt it might be best not to tip my hand and tell her we’d remove her stuff at the end of 30 days, so I left that part out. Anyway, so far, so good, at least as far as my niece is concerned. 

The other concern I have is: I’m expecting my sister to come unglued on me again. 

Some years ago her son was staying at mom’s, and was increasingly being a problem. My sister had complained about how dangerous her son was, and warned me beforehand that it wouldn’t be easy to remove him. She knew the night before it happened and was fully informed of our intentions. Then the day after her son was removed, she turned on all of us and sent me hundreds (yeah, literally hundreds) of text messages informing me of how awful a person I was. I was actually up on stage leading worship with my phone in my back pocket blowing up, with message after message filing in. 

So I’m fully expecting the same reaction. In fact, I wrote in the first post how I was surprised that she even called me to ask what to do, given her statements about how uncaring I was towards her kids. But I sort of understood even then why she did it: she didn’t want the responsibility of making the call about what to do. She knew there were only bad choices, so she wanted someone else to pull the trigger so she could blame them later.  

Fortunately for my mom’s sanity, I don’t care too much what my sister thinks of me. And my sister should probably keep in mind that if mom’s stress levels are the deciding factor in removing JL, my sister should probably beware of causing stress herself. If she unloads on both mom and I then she’ll be getting an eviction notice next. 

In fact, speaking of the devil, as I’m typing this, I just got the first text messages from my sister questioning the way I did things. And yep… she’s blaming me. Let’s hope it doesn’t go too far, especially with her bugging my mom. Mom, who is the sweetest woman alive, is already torn up by having the turmoil, the yelling and name-calling that goes on between my sister and her daughter. Then my sister, who does nothing and pays no rent, occasionally launches tirades at mom, because my sister is, well, mentally unstable and barfs her emotional baggage on whoever she happens to be near at the moment. 

Anyway, that’s where it stands right now. We’ll have to see how it goes down for JL moving out. 

As mentioned in the previous post on this subject, there was a difficult choice with the kids. Right now, my sister says she will get guardianship, so at least the kids won’t be put in the system, but if she does keep the kids, and stays at mom’s house, then it doesn’t really clear up the amount of noise/stress at the house. Interestingly enough, just recently, my sister’s son, the one who we kicked out years ago, showed back up and was asking if when JL is gone, he could live there in her place. Mom said no, thankfully, but then he had the temerity to tell her she wasn’t being fair. Thankfully again, this time mom said she wasn’t going to hear that from him.  

The main thing I’d like to see right now is: for my sister and her daughter to clear out of mom’s house and go someplace else. If there has been some small benefit to my sister being there to help with picking up prescriptions or taking them occasionally to the doctors, It just hasn’t been worth the trouble.