Our eldest son is a divorced dad with custody of his 2 sons age 13 (DGS1) and 8 (DGS2). For the last 7 years he has been living with a partner who already has 3 boys age 14, 12 and 10 (by 3 different fathers) They also have a son together who is now 6. They were living is a 2-bedroom house which obviously was very overcrowded and unsatisfactory. There have been a couple of times when DS and 2DGS were thrown out and came to live with us before returning to her house. There have also been other things such as her stopping us from seeing the 2 boys if we have said or done something she doesn’t like. The boys usually stay with us 2 nights a week and have done for years (when allowed) We moved to a smaller house a few years ago.
A couple of weeks before the first lockdown we were on holiday and received a text from DS saying that he and the boys had moved out of her house and into ours, so when we got back the boys were in their usual room and DS on a camp bed in the lounge with lots of their stuff all over our house. A few weeks later they were given a place in a local hostel, a one bedroom flat. We saw them every day because they brought their washing to us and it was obvious that, despite the circumstances, they were in there was a lot of affection between the three of them. We formed a support bubble with them originally which he claims is still valid but if she is living in his house cannot now be valid.
She was shielding with 3 of her boys during lockdown (the eldest was sent to live with his parental grandparents about 18 months ago because he was ‘causing trouble’ in the home). Throughout all this time DS continued to do her shopping taking the boys with him to the shops and making them stand (often for over an hour ) outside her house while they talked on the doorstep. He is not working and claims he is her ‘carer’ as she apparently has various health issues!
At meetings with the housing people DS said that there was no way that they would live together again.
At the end of August DS and his boys were assigned a nice 3-bedroom house. The boys were very excited. DGS1 said he was very happy to have left the crowded house as he was being bullied by ‘her’ boys. The boys were promised that they would both have their own room and be together in this new house. DS said that they couldn’t move in until he had the house ready, so they stayed with us. When we took them round the day before they were due to go to back, she and her boys were already there and have not left since, so DGS1 does not have his own bedroom as promised and is still being bullied.
Since then DGS1 has been very angry and unhappy and taking it out on us. It is obvious that they are talking about us in a very disparaging way and he has come out with some very hurtful things - our house is dirty, our house is cluttered, we use ready meals at times, we were stupid to go on holiday a few weeks ago, we are not his real grandparents, nor his dads real parents because his dad is adopted.
GS1 has said that he wants his dad’s ‘loving kindness’ back, he feels that his home has been invaded and that she is making all the rules even though it is his dads house. Whenever it is time to go home from our house, he gets aggressive and has often broken down in tears.
We think that she is using access to their boy to control DS.
As well as this she has a dog that has been left in her house for the past 2 months, in a cage, only being briefly visited a couple of times a day.
It is very, very hard to say anything because we can never be sure what the reaction will be. We feel all the time that we are walking on egg-shells. We don’t know who to turn to for advice and would really like to anonymously report them, at least about the dog, but they would probably blame us anyway and stop us from seeing GS1 and GS2, (who is mildly disables and absolutely adores his grandma) at all.
Sorry for the long post. Any advice would be helpful
To think that London, or anywhere else for that matter, does not belong to any one demographic
