The fellow who bought the house next to mine took pity on an abandoned mother with a one year old child and let her stay in the house until he was ready to sell it. He found out later that he could not make a mother with child leave due to state laws and he had to keep paying for her utilities as well as fix stuff she broke. Charity must be tempered by certain wisdom and knowledge of the relevant laws. The woman stayed there for over a year. I don’t know where she went but she decamped in the middle of the night like she was skipping out on the rent she never had to pay.
What state is THAT?!? Some liberal state, no doubt. In Georgia, you can evict a whole family of one-year-olds in 4-6 weeks.
“Charity must be tempered by certain wisdom and knowledge of the relevant laws.”
I need to try to remember this. Our church is involved in a program where teens live with other families - they are usually from homes where the parents or siblings are bad influences and they just want out. My wife wants to do this. I’m not. “I already raised a bunch of teens!” And now to think that once we took one in we may not be able to get rid of them legally. (It wouldn’t be hard to trap a rat outside though and let them loose in the spare bedroom some night I suppose.)
My mom owned a small rental property years ago and some gal bailed on her. Didn’t pay a month or two of rent, and then just skipped town. Left all of their stuff there - I mean everything - maybe took her toothbrush. My mom couldn’t just throw out all of the stuff by law. She tracked down relatives and they didn’t know where she was.
My mom had to run a classified in the paper for awhile. Had to clean out all of the stuff and store it all for three months in case the gal showed up. I recall her going through the stuff and telling me “Well - they say I’m supposed to keep all of her stuff. Obviously the stacks of magazines are garbage. And the pile of dirty clothes- I’m not putting those away dirty, and I’m not washing them. And most of the towels are more like rags....”