Fired Nanny Who Refuses to Leave Sets Conditions for Moving Out

The nanny who refused to leave after she was fired has finally agreed to move out, but only when certain conditions are met.

Diane Stretton was fired by Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte as their live-in nanny after they say she failed to perform the duties she was hired for. Stretton refused to leave and continued to live in their home. After what was probably not a totally uncomfortable weekend at home with the Bracamontes, Stretton has apparently conceded that she will leave. But only when she’s good and ready, according to ABC News:

In an email sent this weekend to Marc Cohen, the Bracamontes’ lawyer, Stretton said she tried to move out of the house but there was “always a bunch of news vehicles right in front of the house. The media needs to be completely gone before I continue moving.”

She said her departure will now be delayed by a coming heat wave. “The temperature over the next 5 days is expected to be near 100 degrees. I can’t work in that kind of heat,” she wrote in her email.

Stretton said in her email that she wants to be able to sleep in the Bracamonte home for three more nights and to be able to shower in their bathroom.

“If the media stays away, I will be out by the 4th of July. But that depends on the circus not continuing,” she wrote.

Marcella Bracamonte thinks all of this is total bullshit anyway. “I don’t believe her,” she said. “She is going to show up when I am not here with a bunch of food and water and she will barricade herself in her room.”

One of the reasons why Stretton is putting up such a big fight to leave the home is that she may not have anywhere else to go. She seems to have alienated most of her family by suing them in a bunch of frivolous lawsuits so they don’t seem very likely to take her in. She wasn’t making any cash with the Bracamontes (their deal was for room and board), so probably she doesn’t have money for another place.

The Daily Mail has an interview with a friend of Stretton’s, who told them the nanny was homeless for about nine years. In fact, the desperation over her housing situation may have been what led her to try being a nanny in the first place, which clearly seems to be something she wasn’t really cut out for according to her own statements to the family.:

Kimberly Whitcomb, a friend of the rogue nanny, told MailOnline: ‘She’s been homeless for about nine years. She was staying in the homeless shelter (Path of Life) in Riverside.

‘She was struggling and looking for another place and I said check Craigslist, they always have all kinds of odd stuff on there.

‘She found the nanny job and I encouraged her to go for it.’

Kimberly,- who lived in the same apartment block as Stretton’s son, Michael, and began collecting her mail for her when he moved to Arizona, even provided a reference for her friend.

The Daily Mail also reported before she was hired, Stretton lost her place at the shelter and was living in her car.

Asked if the Bracamontes were aware Stretton was a homeless person, Kimberly said: ‘No, I don’t think so. They didn’t ask that and I didn’t volunteer it. I think she had been in her car a couple of days at least [when she got the job.

‘When she [Diane] got it she was real happy about being able to have her own place… she was like “I’m really glad I found this place, it’s a nice area.” She said it was nice and roomy. I think she did like the family, she said they gave her a hug and the kids were cute and all that.’

[…]

Asked where her friend would go when she is evicted, Kimberly Whitcomb replied that she would have to go back to the shelter or live in her car.

‘She’s got no property at all and she doesn’t have enough money to get whatever she needs. She is probably not wanting to go back.’

According to ABC News, she was seen sleeping in her car over the weekend. None of that excuses what she is doing to this family, but it could help explain just why someone would do such a seemingly bizarre thing in the first place. Maybe we’re not looking at the face of a rogue, unstable nanny at all. Maybe this is just another homeless person desperately trying to find a housing solution, even if they are going about it in the absolute worst way possible.