Urgent Help Needed for Todd's Family Stability

Hello, my name is Todd McCloud. I am not someone that's used to asking for help, but in the past 3 months, my back has been against the wall with no real end in sight. In a few days, my family and I will be homeless. We are asking for help with moving fees, storage fees, legal fees, and a security deposit.

I moved to California in 2011 after high school due to my mother getting married. When we arrived, we found out that her husband used us as a ploy to convince a woman that he was having an affair with to leave her husband. We spent the next few years in fear, not knowing what would happen until they finally divorced and we were kicked out in early 2017. Since then, I have stayed with my family since I was the only person working full-time and my brother was a minor at the time. I did this because I saw this as the only way to help my family as I knew we were in a terrible situation living in one of the most expensive areas in the country.

Because of who she was to me, I was blind to see that my mother would begin to take advantage of me, using me and other men to financially aid her. I have worked multiple jobs, gotten both her and my brother full-time employment when they needed, been with her through countless emergency room visits and surgeries, helped her rehab, done most of the cooking in the house, put bills for our former home in Illinois in my name when she would move new tenants in, paid a portion of rent, and paid all of the in-home bills (power, gas, internet, TV) since we moved into our apartment. I also did all of her homework for her, and she has 2 college degrees from my work.

In late 2022, I spoke with my mother about my girlfriend and her daughter moving in with us to help me begin to transition into a new life with her. While initially seeming to be okay with it, she almost immediately began tormenting me and my girlfriend, causing my girlfriend to retreat from dealing with her.

At the beginning of the year, my mother hurt her foot at work. When the summer came, she was up and walking and still on leave from work. My girlfriend's daughter was out of school for the summer, and I asked my mother to watch her on Tuesdays and Wednesdays while the rest of us were at work, and she agreed. My girlfriend's daughter broke her glasses, and my mother offered to cover them for my girlfriend. My girlfriend told her yes. My mother wanted to do it the very next day, but my girlfriend asked if they could hold off on it for one day to take her daughter to a birthday party. My mother got upset and told me that she didn't want to help my girlfriend with the glasses and that she would back off from trying to assist her with things. I told her I wasn't upset with her for doing this as my girlfriend is an adult and can handle things on her own.

The following Tuesday, she left my girlfriend's daughter at home alone for 2 hours and then proceeded to tell me that when she told me she didn't want to help with the glasses anymore, this also meant she wasn't willing to babysit. I left work to grab my girlfriend's daughter and leave. The next day, I got called home from work because my mother said that my girlfriend came at her with a knife. Both my girlfriend and her daughter confirmed to me that this never happened. I then told her that she won and we would leave. I spoke to our landlord and immediately began trying to move, viewing another apartment complex that he owned a day before I was kicked out of my home.

On July 2nd, my mother filed false restraining orders against myself and my girlfriend. She lied and said that when I left work and came to get my girlfriend's daughter, I pushed her through a glass door. She then said that the following day, when she called the police on my girlfriend, I allegedly got in her face and told her that I would kill her. She then attacked my brother on July 13th after finding out that he wouldn't take her side due to issues between them that had also been brewing. We all made it a point to avoid her after the initial confrontations. My brother blocked her from contacting him. When he came home, she tried to steal his phone, cursed him out, and told him that she would see him in hell and to get out. He replied that he would see her there and left. She then followed him out of the apartment to his car, opened his door, and began choking him. Luckily, he was recording the incident, capturing the numerous times that she threatened to bash his head in with her cane, threatened to hit him, pushed him, and crowded herself around him until he began to have a panic attack and had to lock himself in the bathroom to escape. I got a text from him telling me of the situation, and I had to call the police on her. The next morning, police came and put me out of our apartment. Initially I was only supposed to be out of the home for a week and a half. However on July 19, there was a ransomware attack on the LA County courts. Due to this, the Judge in our case pushed our court date back by another month.

I had to spend over a month out of our apartment after we all had already paid rent, and I had paid the in-house bills that she refused to offer any help with. I was also dealing with trying to find new housing while also paying for a hotel for my family since none of them felt safe in the home with her. The restraining orders against my girlfriend and I were dismissed, and my brother was able to get a year-long restraining order and a temporary restraining order for one month against her for her attack against him. However, since then, she has found every way she could to be a thorn in our sides.

She was ordered via Judge Tony Cho of the Los Angeles Superior Court to temporarily leave our home until October 1 so we could find a new place to live and she could have our apartment since she had told many of our relatives that she refused to leave. The Judge gave her 4 days to pack so she could leave only for the following month. She packed nothing. However, while we were gone still dealing with the bogus restraining orders against us, she filed a notice to vacate our apartment without my knowledge even though I am on the lease to our apartment. This was purposely done to give us less time here.

Our landlord informed me of her actions, told me that she told him that we all agreed to leave by September 1st. I told him that we in fact did not, and even though we asked him to restructure our lease and just to take her off since she wanted to leave, he decided to evict us all and told us that we had 2 weeks to be there unless we paid him in full. She was also ordered by a judge to pay her portion of rent. She refused.

I was able to speak with our landlord and ask him if he would reconsider kicking us out since she put us through hell and attacked one of us. He told me that he would reconsider it if we could get her to grab her belongings from the home. I contacted her boyfriend and asked him to have her grab her things. I exchanged emails with her and gave her tentative days to get her things and times that we would be gone so there would be no issue. I even told her that we would give her extra time outside of the home. She then contacted our landlord and told him that she refused to come to our apartment. Our landlord then told us again that we had to leave. We were then told that she refused to pay her portion of the rent, so we had to or be put out in 2 weeks.

The last week of September, her boyfriend contacted me and asked me to speak with him about everything that had gone on. I explained the situation to him, and he told me that he would help her get her things so she could leave. He and I spoke, and I began to let him come over to pack some of her things and take them to her. She asked us to write a letter to the Lomitas Sheriff's Department informing them that we would not call the police on her if she was at the apartment. I told them I needed the dates that she could come over. They refused to give me an answer, only giving me a vague answer of "she needed to go to Atlanta so she should be done by the end of the 1st week or so of October." They then called and asked me to do a 30-day extension with our landlord. However, her boyfriend made it clear to me that despite her name still being on the lease and I was now holding her belongings for her, she still refused to pay rent, so we had to.

On October 1, I got a call from my girlfriend freaking out because my mother had shown up at our apartment uninvited. I had to call her boyfriend and ask him to tell her to leave. He told me that she told him that "her understanding was that she was able to come back on October since the restraining order was over." I had to remind him that her doing a notice to vacate immediately after being issued with a restraining order meant that this was still my brother's residence and therefore she could still be arrested. Therefore, I needed her to give me the dates to add to the letter she wanted written to the Sheriff's Department. Her boyfriend asked to meet with them in person at the Sheriff's Department. However, when I got there, it was clear that I was being roped into a reconciliation attempt instead of speaking about her getting things. I let them know I was recording our conversation, and her boyfriend tried to get me to stop. I told him no because I needed protection from her since she had been telling everyone that I had threatened her, and I needed something on record where she stated the days that she would get her things. She refused to speak anymore after alleging that I would use the audio in court. This caused an argument. She would then lie and tell our landlord that we were blocking her from getting her things. This caused him to then call me and reiterate to me that we had to leave because of her drama.

Since then, we have allowed her into the home for the past 2 weeks. She is purposely taking her time and moving very little out of the apartment to further keep us from staying here. The foolishness of this situation has affected all of our credit and finances, making it harder to find a new apartment. I don't know what to do. The state is supposed to have resources and protections for domestic violence victims, but it seems as if no one is trying to help. No one that has told me that they would help has come through save for a few friends. This has been hell for us, and I just want peace and to live my life without this woman around.