Neighbors sue to declare autistic boy a public nuisance [View all]

[KamaAina]

I wish this were The Onion. Believe me. But it is not.

http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_28832426/sunnyvale-neighbors-sue-banish-autistic-boys-family-claiming

When neighbors complained about Vidyut Gopal and Parul Agrawal's young son with autism pulling children's hair, biting a woman and other menacing behavior, the couple said they did what they could to make it stop.

They hired caregivers, gave the boy special medication, and put him in therapeutic classes. But instead of bringing calm to Arlington Court, the Silicon Valley couple got slapped with a lawsuit that called their son a "public nuisance" -- and ultimately drove them out of their home of seven years.

Now, Gopal and Agrawal find themselves in the midst of a legal battle that has sparked outrage among parents of children with autism everywhere, and raised troubling questions about how to coexist with neighbors with special needs kids....

The lawsuit -- filed last summer by two couples who lived in homes that flanked Gopal and Agrawal's house -- alleges that the boy's disruptive behavior also created an "as-yet unquantified chilling effect on the otherwise 'hot' local real estate market" and that "people feel constrained in the marketability of their homes as this issue remains unresolved and the nuisance remains unabated."

So now we lower property values? Where have I heard that before? Oh right, that's what white people used to say when African Americans moved into their neighborhoods. I guess we've truly arrived as a minority.

I do find the sitting on the cat thing rather odd. For one thing, what self-respecting cat would allow that? Plus, many Autistic people, present company very much included, are hard-core cat people. Cats were my friends many years before people ever were.