I want my 24 year old son to leave home...

[Tigerzmum]

My son is 24 years old; has dropped out of uni 2ce; with a large student loan now. He does not ask for advice on how to move forward and does not share his information.

My pension does not cover my costs, my son lives in my home rent free, paying no bills and feels this is his due as I am his mother and he has no income.

He has been told he does not qualify for JSA, as he does not have enough NI credits;

He does not want to apply enough care in my home for hygiene and protecting items in my home. (A 3-bed house). He has refused to accept my rules for my home.

I live on the state pension having spent a huge amount of my income on private education for my son from the age of 2 years to 15 years.

The only options I see I have, are to sell my home or rent it out and move away, but the latter is a scary option as I like to be alone and love the corner in buckinghamshire where I have chosen to plant myself, even before I became his mother. (As a single parent.)

I just want to be away from my son. I have given him verbal notice to leave over 12 months ago, and have put this in writing 2 weeks back now. He doesn't believe I can enforce this.

I really do not want to spend the rest of my life, servicing him, forcing him to meet my level of hygiene or cleaning up after him.

I feel I am being coercively controlled by my son to fund his cost of living.

Further, I am really not living the life I had planned. I am 66 years old. I just want to be free to live the rest of my life as I had planned in my own home alone and not having to meet a confrontation to force a 24 year old man to meet my requests and standards for my home.

Isn't 24 years of age old enough to live independently? -Surely there is government support to help him to get on his feet.

I'd love to hear your views.

@Exhausteddog Yes, life is different now but you’re not expecting your children to be doing nothing at 24, are you?

My two are 20 and 17 and perhaps they’ll be living at home in their 20’s, but they’ll be doing something!

I beg to differ!

OP, you 100% have my sympathy.
I think that you need to contact Age UK for advice.
You are being bullied and controlled by him.

He may be autistic, but he's not stupid.
He knows that he has comforts in your home and has no wish to leave.

Your responsibility to him is over.
He will continue to bully and live off you if you allow it.

Reach out for support, the police if necessary, but you need him to leave.

You are being bullied and abused.
You don't owe him your remaining years.

In order to be accommodated by the council you need to be considered 'vulnerable'. You may be given temporary accomodation while the council decides if you are vulnerable, but that will end if they decide you arent. Vulnerable in these terms mean that the person would suffer or be at risk of suffering harm or detriment when homeless that a less vulnerable person would not, and that harm or detriment would make a noticeable difference to their ability to deal with the effects of homelessness.

So you are not vulnerable because you are homeless, but only if you would find homelessness harder than the average person. Unless your son has a diagnosed mental or physical disability, or has spent time in care, prison or the military, then the council are unlikely to be able to help him with accommodation.

"AI writes clearly with perfect grammar"

😂😂😂

No, still don’t understand how it’s relevant? I bet you’re one of those people that say if you’ve been to a hospital appointment, for example will say always mention the colour of the doctor or nurse you saw

He is being entirely logical though, as if he doesn’t move he has a home and if he does move out he will be homeless and unemployed on the streets. It’s winter. Why would he listen to you unless he is forced?

I’m curious why that’s funny to you. People use AI in professional settings to write things clearly. AI can make factual errors and it can hallucinate but the standard of written English is excellent. Have you used Chat GPT / Copilot / Gemini, and seen a lot of grammatical errors yourself?

You’re going OTT here.

The nationality of the son was mentioned in the story, not skin colour. It could have been an American a Norwegian for instance, whichever nationality the son who sued was would have been mentioned, details make the story more interesting and believable. This son in this story happened to be Indian.

Move on!

This is true and why the OP should encourage her son to seek diagnosis and/or MH support at this point, because MH and/or disabilities make people technically 'vulnerable' and eligible for housing services for homeless people, including support finding somewhere and a deposit.

There are millions of people who are not in work, training, education or whatever it's called, and many of them do live on Universal Credit. I wonder if the OP's son might step up if he thinks that's his destiny. I suspect he lives in a nice house right now, with little demand on his time, probably gaming all night, and doesn't want to change or doesn't know how- he needs both carrot and stick in this situation, including the fear of either living in a shitty one room place or even having nowhere to live. I bet at that point he will go and live with a relative or friend. If he doesn't, she can always let him back in, but as a temporary visitor and not someone entitled to live for free for ever in his mum's house and not even be nice to her.

The simplest solution to your problem, which would also assuage your guilt, would be to downsize yourself into a very small home that he physically can't fit in, and use the money you have left over to keep supporting him until he's on his own feet.

Sure. That's what I do.

Why should he receive government support? He’s a 24 year old man with no dependants. He needs to get off his ass and get a job, become financially independent, find a room to rent etc.

Not a good idea. She could end up in a smaller house, her funds all spent with the son not quite yet on his own feet.

This could work if he has a secure job and she could use the funds to help with a mortgage deposit.

Yes, I use all AI everyday and all are verbose in text and grammar. Which is why we don't use straight copy and it needs a human to review and copy edit 100% of the time.

This is very hard.
I think there are a lot of young adults struggling right now. In my day you left uni, started work the week after and your salary was enough to buy a mortgaged small home with one graduate salary.
Their generation are finding it a lot harder, so why bother? They've given up.
Add into that the mental health issues from the COVID lockdowns and the availability of addictive substances (Inc gaming) and it's a recipe for disaster.
Is he depressed? Doing weed? Would he listen if you scheduled a proper conversation with him? Tell him that you cannot carry him any longer . I think you have to put your own needs first now .

Astounded at the number of posts telling OP to SELL HER HOUSE to deal with the issue of her adult male son not moving out.

@catspyjamas1 I think it’s mainly because in her first post, the OP says “My pension does not cover my costs,”

Unfortunately, It sounds like her house is unaffordable on her pension and she needs to find somewhere cheaper to run.

It isnt clear what he is/isnt doing ....apart from not contributing to household bills, and not meeting the OPs expectation on hygeine and house rules. She doesnt say if hes actively looking for a job....

My kids are teens , I've seen how difficult it was for DD just to get a pt job, if OPs son is ND this might make it more difficult, im just countering all the "he should get a job tomorrow" type posts, when if its a zero hours contract, he might only get a few hours a week....which wont be enough to be able to move out.

@Exhausteddog Yes, I’m assuming that he’s not trying to get a job. Perhaps he is, but the OP is still in a difficult situation given that her pension doesn’t cover her current costs.

Sorry if I’ve missed this but how long has he been out of education?
It sounds incredibly frustrating, but also sounds like he is unhappy. Presumably has never had a job or he would be able to claim JSA? He probably just doesn’t have a clue how to adult/ lacks confidence. I agree he needs to be pushed into the deep end a bit but perhaps needs support from an organisation/ person outside of family. He likely feels pressured and overwhelmed.

I can see your point. She's paying gas, electric, water, food, council tax etc. for two. If he wasn't there (or paying 50%), it might be affordable. Selling house doesn't solve the root cause - the son. ?

Yeah some people are heartless but then again I guess karma will have them dropped outside the care home when they're old and never visited, oh well.

Most move back home to save for a mortgage of their own. Why waste money on rent when they can save for their own property.

You've asked him to leave already, he ignores you, you are within your legal rights to simply change the locks.

No idea why you'd sell your house over this. Just change the locks and be done with it. You do not need to go through any legal process, he is not a tenant.

If he is autistic, do you think he'd be capable of living by himself? Can he cook? Do laundry etc.? If you have no concerns about him being able to live without support, I'd simply change the locks, provided you've given him a date you'd like him to move on by.

Tell him you love him but on your state pension, and approaching 70 years old, you are no longer able to house and care for him anymore.