On her 98th birthday, Mary Kantorowski got a big surprise from her eldest son Peter. Except it wasn't a present -- it was an eviction notice.
According to 71-year-old Peter Kantorowski, who now owns Mary's home, his mother would be better off living in a nursing home. He explained to the
Connecticut Post that he is worried about her safety and security, and is simply looking out for his mother's best interests.
"I don't like the way she's living over there," he said to
WTNH-TV. "I'm not throwing her out on the street. At her age, at 98, I'm sure that she should be with people of her peers."
Mary has been living in the small, yellow Cape Cod-style house in Bridgeport since 1953. In 1996, she and her husband John, now deceased, transferred the house to a trust administered by Peter Kantorowski -- on the condition that Mary would live there until her death. Upon her death, the home would go to Peter and his younger brother, Jack.
But in 2005, Peter
quitclaimed the house from that trust to another controlled by him and his wife, giving him full ownership of the house.
Just six years later, in December 2011, he served his mother with eviction papers. He will take his mother to court on March 2.
The turn of events has Mary's youngest son, Jack (pictured left) reeling, especially as he claims that he's the one checking on his mother every day, as do a multitude of neighbors, friends, and even a nurse from Bridgeport Hospital. Peter, on the other hand, has admitted he has not seen his mother in eight months.
"I just don't understand him at all," Jack told WTNH-TV. "There are no other words to call him, he's just a scumbag."
His sentiments are echoed by Mary's lawyer, Richard Bortolot Jr., who said that Peter was clearly booting his mother out so that he could sell the home.
Sadly, Mary's not the only senior who's suffered eviction at the hands of her son. In September 2011, 101-year-old Texana Hollis was
evicted from the Detroit home she'd been living in for almost six decades after her 65-year-old son Warren failed to pay the mortgage. Consequently, Hollis was left owing $80,000 on the home, and she and Warren were forced to move into a rental home across the street.
Though Hollis was later promised by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that she'd be able to move into her foreclosed home, HUD
recently deemed the home "unsafe" for the centenarian. She currently remains displaced, and relies on the
charity and good will of locals for a roof over her head.
Hopefully, Mary Kantorowski won't share the same fate.
"I didn't think [Peter] would do it," Mary told the Connecticut newspaper. "My husband worked hard, difficult jobs to buy this house. He built the garage and did a lot of work on the house and he told me never to leave it."
