Question re: Eviction Proceeding/Squatter Laws

[DMcDonough]

Hi. I took in an in law who was down on his luck and it turned out to be a disaster -- he ran up our bills, trashed the house, ate everything in sight without replacing items that we used as basic staples after gobbling them down, drank alcohol to excess and then passed out on our sofa at least 6 nights a week, brought illegal substances into our home, picked fights with us in front of our daughter, and laid around sleeping all day, not working, not looking for work, and not contributing anything. A couple of months ago, my spouse and I spoke to our relative, reminded him of the rules of the house, and asked him to get a job and pay some of the bills he ran up. He said he would. He did get a job (finally) but never paid the hundreds of dollars in phone bills that he ran up while staying with us. My husband spoke to him again and gave him copies of the phone bills, asked him to please pay the bill. (At no time did we threaten to throw this individual out on the street or even mention the word "eviction".) He said he'd pay up, but then disappeared. He packed a small knapsack of belongings and left for work one day, never to return. It has been 3 and a half weeks and we have not seen him -- he has not been back to the apartment at all, hasn't left a note, hasn't called, hasn't even checked his mail. We heard through the grapevine that he has moved in with a new girlfriend, but he has not said this to us and he hasn't returned the keys to our apartment or contacted us to retrieve the many personal belongings he left at the house.

Since he is gone nearly one month, is this abandonment? Can we change the locks or would this be considered an illegal eviction? We are thinking of just changing the locks and sending a note to him through one of his friends, saying that we figured he now has another place to live so we changed the locks, that he can't move back in if this new situation doesn't work out because he disrespected the rules of our house, and that we will hold on to his mail and belongings for 30 days and if he doesn't make any arrangements to get his stuff or tell us who else we should send it to for safekeeping, we will have to toss his stuff out and return his mail to the post office ("moved and left no forwarding address"). We didn't kick him out, the guy left and hasn't returned or contacted us in a month's time. Even with all the problems because he was family we did not toss him on the street or go to court for eviction papers, but since he has "disappeared", we don't want him to just stroll back into our apartment again several weeks from now (or whenever he and his new girlfriend have a fight or break up) and resume sponging off of us as if nothing ever happened and he never left.

This person was living with us for just under 6 months at the time of his "disappearance" and was not on the lease, and since he was only expected to be staying with us for about 2 months when we first agreed to let him sleep on the sofa, we never alerted our landlord to the fact that we had a roomate or a family member staying with us temporarily. We know he is alive and well because we've bumped into friends of his and they've said they have seen him. Also, while we used to receive several phone messages a day for him, his friends are no longer calling our house looking for him, backing up our impression that he is staying somewhere else and that everyone except us knows where to reach him.

Should we go to court to get eviction papers, or is it OK to change the locks and toss his stuff out if he doesn't show up in another month?

Even though the person owes us money in phone bills we are not interested in fighting with him in court or even informally to get the money back, even though we were used and disrespected, this person is still family and we are not going to further strain family relations by going back and forth in court for a measly $400 (it's measly in the scheme of things and family is worth more than $400). We just want our home back to the way it was.

Is there any advice anyone can give me? (other than "never take in a friend or relative who has no job and without signing a written agreement"?)