Slate Advice: Two on Housing

[minoanmiss]

From Pay Dirt: Our Horrible Neighbors Are Forcing Us to Sell Our Home

My husband and I have made the difficult decision to sell our townhome due to bad neighbors. We have a toddler and an infant.

Our neighbors have two pit bulls that are aggressive toward our children. Whenever the dogs see them, they snarl, growl, and lunge at them. They pull on their leashes to try to get to the kids when we encounter them on walks in the neighborhood. When we have the kids in the front yard, they often run to their front windows to growl and bark nonstop. When both the dogs and our family are out in our backyards, sometimes one of the dogs will ram itself against the fence trying to get to the kids. It’s terrifying. There is no doubt in my mind that if they ever got loose while we were outside, they would attack my children.

We’ve tried talking to our neighbors and have gotten nowhere. They go back and forth between being in denial that their dogs are dangerous and basically telling us, “Yeah, sorry but it’s not my problem.” I got a video of the dogs behaving aggressively out back and called animal control, but they told me there was nothing they can do since the dogs “haven’t done anything.” We’re sick of being unable to safely use our own outdoor spaces, so we’re going to move, even though it will almost certainly be at a financial loss.

My husband leans towards telling potential buyers as little about the dogs as we can get away with, to avoid losing even more money. I’m inclined to be very upfront no matter what and maybe even refuse to sell to another family with kids. I don’t want it on my conscience if the next owners get hurt. What are our legal and ethical obligations to disclose this issue to potential buyers?

—Buyer Beware

Dear Buyer Beware,

I’m sorry you are in this scary and stressful situation. Ethically, you should disclose this to any potential buyers but stop short of making decisions for them. You open yourself to legal liability if you refuse to sell to a buyer based on a protected status, including families with children.

But don’t worry, you likely won’t be stuck in an ethical quandary without guidance—most states require you to disclose any issues that might not be readily apparent to the buyers when selling. These include neighbor disputes, excessive barking, or aggressive dogs. How much and when you disclose will vary by state. Most require written disclosure signed by both the buyer and seller. Even if your state doesn’t require a written disclosure, I recommend documenting it in writing so you’ll be open to fewer potential legal issues later.

As you move forward, I would identify an experienced real estate agent that feels they will be able to sell the property despite the aggressive neighbor. Perhaps they know a dog trainer looking for a new home?

_____________________________________________________________________

From Dear Prudence: Help! We’re Getting a Free House. My Only Concern Is the Pedophile Next Door.

My partner and I are a queer couple in an expensive city. We are currently talking about moving in together and are both very excited about it, but my partner’s grandpa has promised my partner his house after he passes away and the house is right next door to my partner’s parents. I get along very well with his parents, but my partner hasn’t always had the clearest boundaries with his family. And I just know for certain his parents would 100 percent show up without warning and barge right in. I honestly wouldn’t even want to live next door to my own parents, let alone my parents-in-law.

The other issue is that my partner’s oldest brother has been tried for child pornography and this brother still lives at his parent’s house. So, that raises questions about us having children or my baby sister coming to visit. Is that safe?

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I think a lot of this sounds petty. I don’t exactly have six figures worth of savings or a home to offer, but I can’t imagine a world in which living next to my partner’s parents wouldn’t involve weekly conversations about boundaries and lots of hurt feelings. How do I explain to my partner that I don’t want to live next to his parents for the rest of my life?

—Gift House in the Mouth

Dear Gift House,

The easiest solution here would be to accept the house, spruce it up, sell it, and take the proceeds to move somewhere a healthy distance from meddling in-laws and the sexual predator brother. But I’m sure you two would have already made your plan and started looking at Zillow if you felt your partner might easily agree to this.

Personally, I think a FREE HOME would be worth the hassle of dealing with busybody parents. Now, don’t get me wrong: It’s worth saying to your partner, “You know I love your parents but I’m concerned about what it would mean to live right next door to them and have our privacy and enough time with just the two of us. Would you consider selling the house and moving a short drive away so we could still be close enough to see them regularly but also feel like we live on our own in a place we chose?” But if he pushes back, at least wait for the situation to be unbearable before you turn down a lifetime’s worth of housing security. Assuming you’re not already rich and you’re the kind of partners who share finances, this is a massive, life-changing transfer of wealth! You could use the equivalent of a single month’s rent or mortgage to bring in a family therapist for a few sessions and get everyone on the same page about boundaries. Or pay to change the locks and “forget” to give them a key. For decades.

Now, the brother is another story. You can have your sister visit and keep a close eye on her while she’s there, but raising kids full-time next door to a pedophile is a hard no. Tell your partner that you’re firm on this and if he doesn’t agree to sell and move before bringing a child into the family, cut your losses and part ways. If he does agree, just hang in there until that time comes. You can do it. Set some boundaries with the annoying parents, hide with the lights off, and pretend not to be home from time to time—whatever it takes to take advantage of the free real estate! I just really think it’s too good a deal to turn down before there’s a risk of actual harm to anyone. Nobody ever died from annoying in-laws but people have died from being poor.

Comments

[oursin]

The parents, who are apparently cool with giving house-room to paedo brother.... on top of the random dropping in? NIGHTMARE.

[movingfinger]

Sometimes "free" is more expensive than buying something!

[hashiveinu]

+1

[lilysea]

Given how hard it is for people born after 1980 to access secure long term housing,

my advice would be "Grab the house with both hands, be prepared to sell it and buy a different house"

[cimorene]

+1. And if the issue is that LW isn't really happy with it but thinks their partner would be unwilling to do that, maybe a lot of conversations with their partner are indicated...

[melannen]

They aren't necessarily "cool" with giving house-room to the pedo brother, but there often aren't any other good choices.

He's a human being and has to live somewhere; his sex offender record almost certainly severely restricts his housing (and employment) options. Even if he doesn't live in a place where sex offenders are legally prevented from finding housing, very few people will rent once they've done a background check. Generally the good options are: buy, if you can find a house you can afford in a place you are legally allowed to live, and are financially stable enough (which is also difficult with that on your record); or live with family. The other options are either to live on the streets/rent under a fake ID, at which point you have nothing to lose, and the legal system loses track of you; or share housing with other sex offenders in a sex-offender-friendly rental, where you will egg each other on to reoffend.

There aren't any *good* choices here, but his parents giving him a place to live where he is still on the grid and he has people around who are (hopefully) motivated to keep him from reoffending is probably the best of a bad lot.

(That said: if you offer housing to a known sex offender, you had better learn to be very good with boundaries, and it sounds like these folks have a ways to go on that.)

[lethe1]

I'm wondering whether if children move in next door (or arrive at a later stage) the brother would be obliged to move elsewhere. I faintly recall reading that sex offenders are not allowed to live near children.

[melannen]

It really depends on the exact circumstances and laws (sometimes just leaving the city limits changes the rules, which means some small cities have "sex offender districts" right over their borders.) But I don't think there's any case where someone with kids moving in next door would force someone who already had housing to move (Although there are definitely cases where a sex offender moving *in* causes custody issues, and if LW and spouse are thinking of adopting or fostering it's definitely worth checking into what the agencies they're applying with a might think of that before they make any decisions.)

What often causes the issue is rules about being near schools - it's pretty common for sex offenders to be banned from, say, living within two miles of a school, in an area where schools are on average three miles apart from each other, so there might be a total of one acre in the entire county where it's technically legal, and it's a weird corner of forest with no access roads.

[lethe1]

Ah yes, it was living near schools. Thank you!

[jadelennox]

all this, but also, "tried for child pornography" can mean a lot of things! It can mean "received a sext from your underage girlfriend" in some states, for crying out loud. And since LW's sister is presumably a child, there's reasonable odds that LW's partner's brother is himself pretty young.

Not all people who've dabbled in what we umbrella as "pedophilia" are Princes Andrew or Marvin Minskys.

[melannen]

Yep! Actually if he was tried and not convicted, none of my stuff about housing difficulty applies, but also, maybe LW should try not to assume that being declared not guilty means he's dangerous. Even if he did have a history of collecting child porn, the vast majority of people who use child porn never abuse a RL child, and the vast majority of people who abuse RL children aren't interested in child porn. I still wouldn't let him babysit, but it's not like he exudes some kind of miasma that will endanger your child through the walls of two houses.

And he's presumably still going to be part of Partner's family, so if you want to have kids with them you're going to have to figure out that they can be OK while in Brother's vicinity somehow, whether you move in next door or not.

[oursin]

True: provided, that is, that there's not an 'excusing/minimising family "peccadillos"' thing going on.

I'd also register a bit of a concern, depending on the surrounding community, and also on how widely known existing situation is, of moving in next door to a registered sex offender as queer couple intending to have family. Could blow up in nasty ways?

[melannen]

Yeah, like I said elsethread, if they're planning to acquire kids via adoption or any other way that requires third-party approval, "we live next door to Uncle Pedo" is not likely to be points in their favor, no matter how low-risk he really is in the details. That's probably worth bringing up with partner now if that's in the plan.

[hashiveinu]

Personally, I think a FREE HOME would be worth the hassle of dealing with busybody parents.

This really, really depends on how bad the parents actually are. The fact that there's a pedophile in the family they're giving free housing to? Doesn't speak well of them.

But if he pushes back, at least wait for the situation to be unbearable before you turn down a lifetime’s worth of housing security.

NO

You could use the equivalent of a single month’s rent or mortgage to bring in a family therapist for a few sessions and get everyone on the same page about boundaries.

Conjoint therapy with abusers is contraindicated.

[melannen]

LW, it feels like you're borrowing trouble here. It doesn't sound like Grandpa is on the cusp of kicking the bucket, so if you're thinking about living together now, you're going to be looking for somewhere else anyway. By the time the inheritance comes into play, the parents and brother might have moved out or moved on anyway. Use that time to figure out if you do want to live with your partner, and find a place worth making into a long-term home that you live together in, and work on selling them on the idea that it's nice to have your own place where you don't have family in your pockets (your partner can spend the time pointing out how nice it would've been if you'd had family nearby every time there's a minor crisis.) Hopefully Grandpa lives a good long time and doesn't expect your partner to put his life on pause until he inherits.