Rebecca Meyer
Two days later, she was startled awake by a phone call she received from Child Protective Services. The woman on the phone told her that some made allegations against her. She asked if this phone call and report were connected to the wellness check from the police two days prior. The CPS social worker told her they weren’t connected, and she’d been unaware that the cops had already visited her home.
Several hours after receiving this phone call, CPS arrived at her house to look around and find out if there was any validity to the allegations made against her and her husband. When the woman first arrived and stepped inside, she looked a bit baffled and asked if she could check around the home.
The CPS social worker only spent several seconds in each room before returning to the living room, where they sat on the couch to chat. Before reading off the allegations, the social worker told her and her husband the allegations were obviously fabricated, adding that before stepping into the house, she was afraid because the allegations were incredibly serious.
“She told us the allegations: 1. Trash covered the floors, to the point the ground wasn’t visible. 2. Toilet paper covered in feces all over the place. 3. The bathtub was full of feces. 4. Large boxes full of Panda Express bags, moldy food, rusty items, 20-30 soiled diapers, and trash stacked in the hallway. 5. The baby has no food and is fed curdled milk,” she said.
The social worker continued reading the allegations, which also included claims that their son’s crib was filled with roaches, that he had wounds and welts, and that he was unmonitored almost all the time. Apparently, the list continued, but the social worker didn’t read the rest of the claims because she acknowledged that all of these allegations were fabricated.
She told her and her husband that some of the other claims she didn’t bother reading were even more ridiculous and outlandish than the allegation of their bathroom being full of feces. The social worker said that she wasn’t going to investigate the claims any further since she’d been in the house and knew the allegations were untrue. She’d be closing their case but asked some follow-up questions.
While answering these questions, it dawned on her that the only people who could have reported her to CPS were her mother-in-law, brother-in-law, or her mother-in-law’s boyfriend. She realized this because, in the report, the details about items in her garbage can (even though the claims included false details about tons of diapers, mold, and rust) and boxes in her house were details only her in-laws knew.
Since she and her husband are introverts and don’t like snoopy neighbors, they don’t often invite people over. The most recent time anyone was at their house was when her in-laws came over in the middle of her deep cleaning. After the social worker left, she reached out to her brother-in-law and asked if he reported her to CPS. He claimed that he hadn’t, and when she questioned whether her mother-in-law had done so, he said she hadn’t, either.
“My husband said that if it was his mother (she’s threatened us with CPS before because our son had a fever, and we were making him ‘suffer’), then she is no longer allowed to see our son. His brother said, ‘If you keep Mom from seeing him, we’re disowning you,'” she explained.
Later, she and her husband learned that the police followed up with whoever called them and asked for a wellness check (and they suspect it was her mother-in-law). In their view, after the cops informed the person who asked for the wellness check that their son was fine, they were upset that the police didn’t take action and escalated the situation by contacting CPS.
After the visit from CPS, her husband told her he was debating cutting contact with his entire family because of how they’ve treated them. His family has already caused issues over the years, and there’s always been tension, but the false claims his mother reported to CPS crossed the line.
