I was talking with my sisterinlaw last night on the phone, she lives far away.

She lives in the basement suite of a house and this man and his daughter live upstairs.

In passing conversation she tells me that this man is drunk every night. He has not gone to work in a week. He threatens my sil that if she "weren't his friend" he'd blow up her car and crap like that... that's not my real concern, my sil is 21 and you can't tell her anything.

Anyways, I'm concerned about this daughter. Like I said, he's drunk all of the time, says inappropriate things -like the threats- in front of her, calls her fat, etc. The house is a pigsty. The daughter does all of the laundry, etc. She's only eleven :sad: and has lived with her Dad since she was three.

My sil's bedroom is right below the daughters and she said that she can hear them both in there sometimes, the girl is laughing, telling him, "don't", etc.... my sil assumes he's tickling her. I'm kinda worried.

Am I over reacting? This guy is a looney... but, is there something more to it? She does go to school everyday....

It was bugging me all night last night.

What, if anything can/should I do at this point? I told my sil to keep an eye on her... to actually LOOK for things. She goes up there every other day or so... but I don't know if she'd notice anyway.

Any suggestions are welcome. Feel free to email me too.

I know, this is tough. If I had the money, I'd go myself.

You didn't say where your sister lived, but relavent legislation is fairly consistent across Canada in such matters.

In Ontario, there is certainly sufficient grounds in what is presented here to call the local Child Welfare agency, and they would be required to do some sort of investigation. How in depth that would be would depend on the time and resource pressures in that particular juristiction. I'm sure they would at least contact the school to ask if there were concerns.

The absolute minimum that would happen is that a file would be opened on this parent. That is important, because if a teacher, or anyone, ever express similar concerns, it would be a second complaint, and they would have more to act on. Also, there may already be a file on this person, and corroberating information is useful.

Yes, nonesuch, you could say that.

I'm going to call the child services and tell them everything I know. Hopefully I'll be able to get my sil on side... but at the very least, as oldgoat said, a file will be opened.

I'm talking with her again tonight... and yes, she's in danger, but, I can't force her to move if she won't.... I can do something about this minor though.

Also, it is a criminal offence to make a threat, and the caselaw is exceedingly clear that conditional threats are also threats. Ie. "If I did not like you, I'd kill you" is a criminal threat. Likewise a threat to destroy property.

Sorry I hadn't updated you all.

I called the authories in the city where my sil lives.

They appreciated me calling them, understood WHY I was concerned, but told me what I thought I would hear:

They will not investigate on 3rd hand worries.

They will not investigate unless my sister-in-law makes a specific complaint with SOME sort of proof... of which she has none. She has never seen her being hit by her father, bruises, missing school or lacking food and shelter.

Calling your child fat and being an alcoholic is not considered child abuse.

She goes to school everyday, she has food in the house and has shelter.

So, that's about it as far as the authoritis go.

My sister in law has agreed to keep her eyes and ears peeled however when it comes to this girl, happening to be doing the laundry at the same time, etc... just so this kid knows she's not totally alone.

As far as the threats against herself goes, she doesn't take them seriously -much to my frustration- and there's nothing else I can do but tell her what I think and leave it at that. She's 21, and if her parents who live 45 minutes away can't make her press charges or leave, I sure can't do it from out here.