Monday

"The Nanny Was Part Of Our Family... And Then She Changed...And Would Not Leave"

DIANE STRETTON VS. THE BRACAMONTES (Two Sides To a Story )

The former live in nanny to a family that says she would not leave after they fired her says she feels exploited and taken advantage of by them . " I think they're people trying to get something for nothing."  Diana Stretton, who has been living in her car, told ABC News ' "20/20" about Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte. "I think they are very cheap, and I think they are trying to use people"

The Bracamontes' lawyer, Marc Cohen, says they now have the right to change the locks after Stretton vacated the property. Stretton was given a certain amount of time to collect her things, but Stretton claims this move, not sactioned by a court, would be "unlawful."

Stretton says she was in ill health and homeless when she answered Marcella and Ralph Bracamontes'ad looking for someone to help around their Upland Ca. house and with their children for ROOM AND BOARD.

"When i sleep in my car, my legs really swell up" Stretton said. "And i was having alot of trouble with my legs, so my friends said, 'Why don't you look on craigslist?' " Stretton said it seemed like a fair trade for her and the "B" family." For 20 hours a week of work, I'd get my legs up and take care of my heart condition and get to sleep in a bed," Stretton said.

"It was help out with the kids when needed, to pick up little things and to maybe prep up a little bit of dinner if mom was running late," Ralph Bracamontes told ABC News. " She was awesome," Marcella B. told ABC, Referring to Stretton when she first started the job.

But Stretton said The Bracamontes began to expect more of her and that she worked more hours than they were entitled to for the value of the room.

Ms Stretton says " I feel very exploited and very much taken advantage of.  They did not know i was homeless but they knew i did not have alot. They knew it wouold be difficult for me to do something else

http://abcnews.go.com/US/live-nanny-wouldnt-leave-feels-advantage/story?id=24506318

26 comments:

Lacy said...

I followed this news story. Both sides were so wrong. Mostly the nanny for not leaving after 30 days. Legally a live-in nanny has to be given a 30 day notice.

Anonymous said...

This post is terrible, just like your last one. At least include a link to the real news story so we don't have to read the nonsense narrative that you provide. I miss the only ISYN.

Anonymous said...

Ugh. ISYN used to be so much better. Like, years ago though. The last reboot wasn't great either. They posted such crap. Now, it's the worst. Please retire this website. It's done.

MissA said...

This story is 15 months old. The nanny is on the list of vexatious litigants and is a known con artist. Her employment ended on June 6, 2014 and she had vacated the house by July 4, 2014. The family did take legal measures to evict her, which they are well with in their legal rights to do. The nanny stayed less than a month which she is well with in her rights to do. The family is quoted as saying that, "they know the eviction process can take a while but they wanted to speak out to warn other families and to advise them to always use an attorney is such matters". I think the two take away points here are to use a contract for employment to protect yourself whether you're a nanny or a family and to use a reputable source for finding a position or a nanny.
I understand the need for content, but this story is quite old and, again, is written poorly. I would recommend that you write your posts in Word or another word processing software that has a spell check and grammar check function if blogspot does not offer that feature. That could greatly improve the grammatical content. As far as getting fresh, well constructed and written stories for the blog, would it be better to put a (well written and formatted) call for submissions up as a blog post instead? Maybe offer an incentive to the story that receives the most votes? A contest of that sort would encourage both submissions and reader participation. I am attempting to offer some constructive criticism and advice so that you do not dismiss my frustration as "being negative" as you have with previous posters who have echoed this same sentiment.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous
If you do not like ISYN why do you keep reading and commenting negative thoughts? You must be one unhappy person...what a Negative Nellie

CleaverJune said...

My thoughts are the same as those of "MissA."

What the?? said...

These last five or so posts are seriously moronic, are they being written by a ten year old? Actually, a ten year old could probably write better! Lol we need some better writers here, or maybe isyn should just creep off into the woods and die, alone, unread.

Janice said...

So sad to see one of my favorite sites decline this rapidly.

I am confused - most posts here are submissions - have there been no submissions since you bought the site? Were there no submissions waiting to be published? This is an outdated news story that got tons of coverage a while back.

And what is going on with the spacing and commas in your posts?

We want to keep reading - I am really hoping you get it together.

My eyes are bleeding. said...

You should have put the money you spent on "I Saw Your Nanny" toward some courses in writing composition and basic English grammar/punctuation. I agree with Janice. How could there possibly not be pending content from the previous owners? This is just embarrassing. Hope you enjoy the advertising income for now; maybe use some of it for hiring a writing coach.

nc said...

I agree with Janice. There hasn't been any submissions? I'd rather read those, than the fluff you've been posting...

Anonymous said...

I remember this story, it was all over the news.

What the family "forgot" to mention at that time is that it was an unpaid position. In other words, MODERN SLAVERY.

If she couldn't afford a Nanny, simple, she shouldn't have hired one, especially since she wasn't really a Nanny. On the top of that, the mom was a stay at home one so she could have taken care of her family on her own without hiring a slave. Don't get me wrong, for any stay at home moms who are able to afford a Nanny in order to get some free time for themselves, good for them! As long as they know what it means to hire someone and do what is necessary!But if you are a stay at home mom and can't afford a Nanny or an au-pair, there is always day-care, not a slave for god sake. And i really you can;t afford any of these options, do like TONS OF MOMS, look after them on your own.

This is our livehood and while most of us absolutely love what we do and are dedicated, we cannot work for free or too little to get by! Everything is connected: Good employers,happy nanny,happy children!

Any sane and experienced caregivers, would absolutely not consider a position like this family described. The only people who would consider it would be the very desperate ones, or worse it could be someone dangerous like a pedophile and the mom could have seriously put her kids at risk. With desperation often comes depression, this mom should have know better.

for the cheapskates similar to this mom who had her "nanny" stay for 30 days: Think twice before you want to nickel and dime your care giver because its true , YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

I believe she went to doctor phil show lol. from what i've seen, this family seemed to have the mean to afford a nanny , simply didn't want to pay her.. So they hired a slave basically...

Karma is a bitch and by having the guts to "hire" someone without paying they had what they deserved. It came back at them like a boomerang, and I do not feel sorry at all for them. Hopefully if she ever consider again having someone to take care of what is suppose to be the most precious human beings in her life, perhaps she will play it smart and sacrifice a pair of fancy designer shoes in order to get quality childcare instead.

I know its quiet of a rant lol although in the media , they weren't clear about the whole story and seemed to be totally on the side of the family while they were in fact not good "employers" at all.

Leigh Raymer said...

Great comments ! a few notes:

I copied the story word for word from an article by a successful ABC News reporter so that puts paid to all the "bad writing" whining. I did not write it i merely copied it.

You may remember a few weeks back the creator of the blog went about a week without posting anything and then when she finally did she received the negative nellie treatment - so yes, original posts seem to be down from an extended period in the past.

You know- life is not static, it changes. The internet changes, technology changes,blogs change.

I appreciate the comments on the story - i personally had not run across it and i could see that there were REALLY bad actions on both sides - i enjoyed the summary so part 2 will not be necessary

Janice said...

J'NeiNei, all other criticism aside for the moment, I urge you to read up on copyright law if you are copying and pasting. If you paste a short section from another site, you will not run into legal issues if you ADD to it - comment, offer opposing views or questions, AND link to it. Simply copying and pasting stories to a site with paid advertising is likely to get you sued.

I manage and edit blog and social media content professionally and have seen a huge increase in bloggers getting sued over this in the past year.

Leigh Raymer said...

ok, point taken - i thought as long as you give credit where you got the material from, it's ok to include it

ISYN has been including news stories and other unoriginal content for years

Leigh Raymer said...

a note: the blog was listing me as j'neinei, my name is Leigh Raymer so apparently that got fixed

MissA said...

Please post the link for the article you copied.
If you did copy it (and I very much doubt that you did) and represented that as your own work, that is plagiarism.
I believe you're being dishonest in saying that you "copied it word for word". There are glaring errors in capitalization (use of i instead of I in many places), spelling (alot instead of a lot, wouold in place of would) and punctuation (multiple spaces where they are not indicated, lack of spaces between words, missing commas and periods).

MissA said...

Please indicate where you gave credit to the author of this story.

Kate said...

I don't want to add to the "negative nellie" parade, but this reads like something you wrote. Otherwise, ABC needs to fire that reporter. Agree with above pps. Please link to articles if you don't want to be sued.

I actually sympathize with you. Obviously you have an issue with any criticism, but that's no way to grow. I don't know MissA or Janice, but they've offered you a lot of helpful advice.

I really wish you'd consider soliciting good submissions. There has been a drop in submissions for a while here, but badly written/outdated posts aren't better than no posts. There also plenty of writers/editors who would help for a nominal fee or just to build up portfolios.

I can't speak to anyone else, but I want you to succeed. Truly

Leigh Raymer said...

Thank you Kate - Criticism can be constructive and it can be pejorative. I actually verbatim wrote the Stretton article word for word from a famous ABC news writer - google the name stretton and you will find it. I purposely wanted to see if the attacks would continue with a different professional writer - i did it on purpose. I wanted to see if it mattered who the writer is - and i was right it doesn't.

But - to their credit - most of the commenters were at their best and the discussion was good.

Kate - i do not know how long you have followed the blog, but there is a group that feels great anger at the name of the blog - " I saw your nanny" and they trash virtually every poster who is not a nanny. THEY cannot take criticism - as you can see LOL.

I will try to be more gentle with the nellies as they cannot take critcism very well but - i will not be intimidated by them - sorry ;(

Now - Kate - follow your own advice and submit something!! Go Girl!!

Leigh Raymer said...

MissA - to answer your question - if you read the article you will see that i credited ABC's "20/20" for the story more than once. Sorry, the nellies are busted on the "bad writer" thing. I very specifically experimented to see how the nellies roll - sorry to bust them but i was curious.

I agree that links need to be there in the future and i have hired a few people to work with the blog on various issues but it will not happen overnight

and i disagree with anyone who says "nothing" is better than something even out dated, or "boring", i believe nothing is boring so - onward!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, nobody believes a processional writer from abc.com wrote this lol.

Nice try tho.

Anonymous said...

MissA, I do not understand why you doing so much nit-picking over this and other posts. The content is good, even though she did not copy/paste and just retyped it, and yes, made some mistakes in doing so, but why is it a big deal? It seems like she is trying to appease everyone and you simply can not or will not be happy. So, my question to you.. Why are you here? If you truly want to be here, please submit something, ANYTHING and I bet she will post it!

Leigh Raymer said...

i feel that we are going to be Processional writers on this blog LOL - we shall proceed no matter what! Sorry i just had to make that joke on behalf of the nitpickers ;)

Leigh Raymer said...

BTW - thank you strange name Oc7 - maybe we can get some new posts fromyou!!!

Janice said...

Leigh,

You re-wrote this word for word? That does make the glaring errors of space and punctuation make more sense than if you copied and pasted it.

I urge you to rethink the way you are taking criticism of your writing. This is not an issue of taste. Your posts have dozens of grammar, punctuation, syntax and spacing errors. To retype an entire story you found elsewhere in order to prove criticism wrong is not a great use of your time, especially when you then ended up making so many typos. If you want to keep readership here and make this blog into something to be proud of, that time could have been better spent writing a call for submissions.

Leigh Raymer said...

Janice - thank you for your time. I hope you will not look at my response as critical ! LOL. As another poster said - the idea of the post was reasonable and the "nit-pickers" need to understand that we are coming into another day - where the value of what is written is more important than the "syntax and the commas" - again - Janice, those like you recently pounded a nanny OP, whose second language is english - trying to describe her situation on this blog to get help ! - please go back and learn and see.

Janice - you are not informed - let me inform you - the blog - before i bought it - has a lack of submissions. You need to be informed and not ignorant of the facts. Members have been dissing the creator and more about the blog about the contents for months if not years. Sometimes they bring in submissions and other times not.
So - the blog not up to your par? Start your own and / or - make a submission ! I am here for you!!!