Deadbeat Son, 30, Refuses To Leave, So Parents Sue: Video

SYRACUSE, NY — Finally, there was no polite way for Christina and Mark Rotondo to put it to their unemployed, 30-year-old son, Michael: Get out, mom said in a lawsuit to evict him from their Camillus home. The action was filed earlier this month in Onondaga County Supreme Court in Syracuse.

The lawsuit is a final straw in the exasperated parents’ efforts to get their son to start living life on his own as a self-sufficient adult. The real-life "Failure to Launch" saga has included offers by the Rotondos to pay their son $1,100 so he could find a place to live (and take his broken-down Volkswagen Passat with him), pleas with him to get a job and multiple eviction notices.

He’s a stubborn one. Michael Rotondo is acting as his own attorney as he challenges his mother’s lawsuit. He claims his parents are legally required to give him six months' notice before tossing him out of their home, and that he’s “never been expected to contribute to household expenses or assist with chores and the maintenance of the premises.”

On Tuesday, the fed-up parents got a win when State Supreme Court Justice Donald Greenwood ordered him booted from their house in what the newspaper described as “a surreal 30-minute court appearance.” Here’s some of what transpired:

When Greenwood said Rotondo’s claim that he deserved six months’ notice prior to eviction was “outrageous,” Rotondo countered the judge’s eviction order was “outrageous.” Rotondo nitpicked at details, saying an incorrect listing of the courtroom for Tuesday’s hearing warranted an adjournment, an argument Greenwood dismissed. When Greenwood asked him to approach the bench, Rotondo tried to take a podium, where reporters’ microphones were plugged in, with him.

The (allegedly) deadbeat son isn’t budging without an appeal, he told reporters who swarmed the courtroom after the story made international news. In court filings, he has disputed labels that he's a deadbeat and claims he supports himself with a business, but declined to tell reporters what it was.

“My business is my business,” Rotondo said.

In a redacted court filing, Rotondo had called his business “successful” and “the overwhelmingly superior choice for [his] economic well being over the working of a full-time job.”

The five eviction notices the parents sent their son from Feb. 2-March 30, filed with the lawsuit, reflect their growing frustration with their son.

“Michael, After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided that you must leave this house immediately,” they wrote in one.

“You have 14 days to vacate," another read. "You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever means are necessary to enforce this decision.”

Yet another one said: “Michael Joseph Rotondo, You are hereby evicted … effective immediately.”

And then: “You have heretofore been our guest and there is no lease or agreement that gives you the right to stay here without our consent. A legal enforcement procedure will be instituted immediately if you do not leave by 15 March 2018.”

Finally: “There are jobs available even for those with a poor work history like you,” another notice read. “Get one — you have to work!”

Photo via Shutterstock; Syracuse.com video via YouTube