Help me kick someone out
 

I let an old friend who is havng a lot of problems stay at my house. He has a court hearing in Philadelphia for assaulting his room mate March 9. I live in Austin, Tx, and he drove across the country to come stay with me. He has no money, and has already used credit cards and borrowed money from everyoe who would give him some.

It has become clear now, after a few days that he has no intention of leavng my home. I have asked him to leave, and he ignores me. I just placed all of his things outside, and locked the doors. Then I called non-emergency police to ask them what the procedure is for something like this. Here is the kicker:

The police told me that by letting him in, he established residency, and I have to formally evict him in court. That costs $82 and takes several weeks.

WTF?! OOT, please tell me what happens in the real world in these situations. I figure that he probably won't go back to Philadelphia for his March 9 hearing, so there will be a warrant out for his arrest by that time anyway, and I don't need to bother filing a formal eviction.

Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing? Thanks!

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

hide the body

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

I think you did all you can do. He sounds really lazy and retarded, I doubt he will try to legally get back into your house. If you do get the police involved, lie and say he threatened/hurt you.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

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hide the body

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a la Very Bad Things

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

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hide the body

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Re: Help me kick someone out
 

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I let an old friend who is havng a lot of problems stay at my house. He has a court hearing in Philadelphia for assaulting his room mate March 9. I live in Austin, Tx, and he drove across the country to come stay with me. He has no money, and has already used credit cards and borrowed money from everyoe who would give him some.

It has become clear now, after a few days that he has no intention of leavng my home. I have asked him to leave, and he ignores me. I just placed all of his things outside, and locked the doors. Then I called non-emergency police to ask them what the procedure is for something like this. Here is the kicker:

The police told me that by letting him in, he established residency, and I have to formally evict him in court. That costs $82 and takes several weeks.

WTF?! OOT, please tell me what happens in the real world in these situations. I figure that he probably won't go back to Philadelphia for his March 9 hearing, so there will be a warrant out for his arrest by that time anyway, and I don't need to bother filing a formal eviction.

Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing? Thanks!

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Don't bother with the formal eviction thing. He won't know the law. Just lock him out with his stuff outside. He'll get the picture. Or break back in.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

I dunno if that warrant would be interstate though, even if it promptly issued march 9th. I'm not sure how serious the crime has to be to get an interstate warrant, if they even exist. Just lock him out, don't let him in. If he's bigger than you, get a gun/knife. It's Texas, I'm sure you could shoot him trying to break in and get away with it.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

wow america has some really dumb laws. so if some woman knocked on your door late at night because she said her husband was beating her or something and you said she could stay there, then the next morning she could be like, "well i aint leaving. you have to evict me proper and pay $82 dollars and it takes several weeks."

yeahhhhhhhhh, OKAY!

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

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I let an old friend who is havng a lot of problems stay at my house.

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How long has he been staying with you?

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

Pretty sure there's usually some kind of minimum time frame involved in establishing residency - How long has he been living with you? How long was he supposed to stay for? ie: Was there a verbal contract (lease) on when he was supposed to leave?

If dumping his crap outside didn't work, give legal aid a call. If you're in college, particularly a big school, they'll likely have a student legal aid clinic.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

He's been here 5 nights. I told him he had to leave 3 days ago, and again today. He's out doing errands now, and so I put all of his stuff is outside. We had no real agreement. We wanted to help him get set up with something stable, but it soon became clear that he intends on just staying with us.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

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I let an old friend who is havng a lot of problems stay at my house. He has a court hearing in Philadelphia for assaulting his room mate March 9.

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Give me a sec, I'm rereading this statement. It can't be right. Wait, wuh? "lot of problems stay at my house..... court for assaulting his roomate" Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

My Plan for you

1) A comprehensive neurological workup by a licensed professional

2) Call the cops and say he assaulted you. Who will they believe?

3) Buy a gun 3 - 5 years from now for protection.

4) Dinner at Tony Roma's

LLL

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

Get a list together of homeless shelters and food pantries, and things like that and give them to him. Be empathic and understanding but firm and unwavering. You have to go. I am your friend and care about you but you can't stay here, you have to go. Repeat, repeat. At some homeless shelters there are counselors, etc who can help him 'get set up' (i.e. counseling and direction towards getting a job or whatever). If he isn't out all day every day now pounding the pavement seeking employment and you suspect he is going to blow off court sounds like he plans on staying. So you are enabling him by letting him stay since he isn't following through in trying to get set up. At a shelter he will be more motivated.

If worse comes to worse you can change the locks or call the cops and lie and said he assaulted you but hopefully you can tactfully but firmly get him to leave, i really do recommend that you help him with a few phone numbers and addresses of homelsess shelters or what have you.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

He is not your friend, he is an [censored]. Don't be friends with [censored].

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

Keep his lathe as rent.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

I think you've done all you can do by tossing his stuff out. If he doesn't get the hint or tries to use the residency BS to try and stay at your place then you should go the eviction route. If it turns out that he is really trying to get a job, etc. you might want to consider giving him a little more time/leeway but barring that you're just going to have to write him off as a friend as there's probably more to the story that he's not telling you.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

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you might want to consider giving him a little more time/leeway

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Not a good idea. The longer he stays the more likely you will have to go to court to evict him. Additionally, you have already found out that he is willing to stay longer than he is welcome.

I would be surprised that a 5 day "guest" has acquired tenants rights. Don't tell the cops that you said he could stay for a while (indeterminate time frame) or "till he got on his feet". Say that he was coming for a long weekend and then was going back to PA.

Pay a cab to take him to the nearest shelter.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

how in the world did he get back in after you locked him out and threw his stuff out???

The only thing I can think of is that you "caved" and let him back in at that point

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

First off, unless your old friend's assault case is actually attempted murder or something, nobody in Texas is gonna care whether or not he goes back to Pennsylvania.

It sounds like you're a nice guy and your buddy isn't. In a situation like this what happens next is really kinda up to the guy who isn't nice and there's not a whole lot you can do about it until he makes his next move.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

haha

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

Here is the update: He came back late at night and found all his stuff outside and the doors locked. He called and threatened to sue us for damaging his things and that he was going to call our landlord and get us kicked out. He then started stammering around and knocked on a neighbor's door, at which point, they called the police. The police talked to us and him for a while, and then told him that he has to pack up his stuff, and he can't stay around here. They told him to go sleep in his car somewhere else.

So things seem to have worked out pretty uneventful and nice so far. I would say that the moral of the story is to be very cautious about who you let stay in your home, and don't give unwelcome guests too much leeway. I was pretty astonished at what the police on the phone told me, and what I found in articles like this: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/02/17/Ta...n_favor_.shtml

If I had given him a key, let him recieve mail at my place, or even let him stay a few weeks, things probably would have been much more difficult.

Re: Help me kick someone out
 

Holy crap, that's nuts. Hard to believe the law rules in favor of intrusive freeloaders.