SS moved in with exBPD

[david]

SS moved in with his mom. I just found out today when I picked our boys up at school. We had a custody eval several years ago and I expressed my concerns about that then because he has serious substance abuse issues. Back then he was on heroin (I don't know about now). He had been kicked out of at least a half a dozen places including a halfway house then. He doesn't talk to his older brothers and hasn't had any communication with me for over two years now. Apparently, his girlfriend kicked him out the other day. I sent an email letting ex know he was not allowed to live there if our boys were there and told her she needed to resolve this issue.

I am looking for other ideas to make sure our boys are safe.

[Waddams]

In my jursidiction here, you pretty much have to show there's a genuine harm being experienced by the kids first.  That means you gotta wait for things to get bad.  Him just moving in wouldn't be enough.  Him moving in AND causing harm to the kids that can be documented has to start happening.  Things like slipping grades, misbehaving, getting caught with drugs, run-in's with the cops/neighbors/etc.  Or drug use or other illegal behavior in front of the kids, but that's hard to document unless you get the kids to testify or somehow record it themselves.

Basically child neglect, abuse, endangering, contributing to delinquency, etc. has to actually be occurring.  The court here won't recognize the potential of it as a reason to make a change. 

As for being prepared, perhaps talk to a lawyer, talk the boys regularly, tell them they are safe in coming to you for help if they need, have the local authorities on speed dial, talk to the cops that cover her area, let them know you're concerned and ask them how to initiate a wellness check, etc. 

Telling her who is and isn't allowed to live in her house is probably not the best way to go about it.  With no harm in actual progress, to a judge it looks controlling.  Or would to the judges here.  My advice would instead be to express the concern for your children's well being and ask for updates on the situation as it relates to them.  And tell her you can take them anytime if something goes haywire and they need to be gotten out of there for any particular incident.  These are ideas... .  focus on what you can do to help protect the kids, not on what she does or doesn't do, in your communication with here.  Just my humble opinion. 

[david]

We had a custody eval and during the eval I expressed my concerns that SS was living there at the time. I sent an email to ex about it so she knew I was concerned and right before the eval started she kicked her son out (my SS). The evaluator told ex that SS was not allowed to live there as long as our boys were living there too. I do not have it in writing but she did tell ex that. She actually told ex that she could blame it on the evaluator for kicking him out ?

I sent the email yesterday pointing out the the evaluator told her SS was not allowed to live there. Ex actually found needles in her place before and I found out through our boys and also his older brothers that he had a substance abuse issue. The older brothers don't have a relationship with him anymore so they know nothing about him. SS avoids anyone that confronts him about things he is doing that are unhealthy.