NC laws concerning CPS

[dad325]

I need help with this one. My ex-wife has done everything she can think of to try to get my wife to leave me. This current situation has caused an explosion within my household, and it's one I'm not wanting to deal with.
My ex-wife allows my 8 year old son to not only watch porn, but to also particiapate is sexual situations and instigate sexual situations with others. He's been kicked out of school once already for this behavior and is facing expulision from another school. The step-father has caused me to loose my job, forcing my family to live off of our tax return until either I or my wife can find other employment (she's a full time law student with a seasonal job that was only meant to suppliment our income during the holiday seasons). Even my wife is certain that there has to be something we can do to prevent my ex-wife from using CPS to harrass us, but according to every social worker she's spoken with, there isn't. She's currently looking up laws concerning CPS and how to prevent harrassment, but I thought I'd ask on here and see if anyone else knows something.
A month ago, my son molested our 5 year old daughter. We were told by CPS that it was a case of child on child action and needed to be handled by the police. We called the police and were told that because of his age there was really nothing that could be done to bring out a sense of accountability for his actions. My ex-wife accuses my 5 year old (I share 3 children with my current wife, and only two with my ex-wife; the one I'm discussing is the daughter I share with my current wife and the son I share with my ex-wife) of seducing our son. She has called CPS, not believing that my wife and I had already done so. CPS came out to our house this past Thursday. My wife was going through the clothes to get Winter put away and Summer sorted for washing and wearing during the warmer season. The social worker who came out threatened my wife, and took pictures of our home without our concent. She told my wife that if the clothes were not out of the house my Tuesday morning then CPS would take our three children away, and seek custody of our children.
Now my wife is...pissed. She claims that CPS can not take children away from a home without first seeking custody from the courts. She said that in order to take our children away CPS would first have to prove that our home was unfit, and that clothing does not qualify as proof that a home is unfit, and petition the courts for custody. She said that the pictures that they have were illegally obtained (she said that means that they were not taken with our permission) and are not able to be used as proof. She's planning on putting the CPS woman through the wringer when she comes back, but I told her that she would just piss them off and they would take our kids away anyway. I was wanting to use this situation to get custody of my older children so that they would be taken out of their mothers' care and get the help they need, but since they forced me to loose my job I don't have the money to hire an attorney to go to court for me. My wife says that my inaction is "proof" that I'm not concerned with neither sets of kids, and that I don't care about her as a person. Anyone know what I can do?

[bloom6372]

When the CPS agent came to the house, did she show credentials? If not, I highly doubt that she was an actual CPS representative. She CANNOT take pictures without your consent. Also, clothing on the floor is not sufficient to take the children. They could have told you to clean up the clothing, but they should NOT have threatened. Did you get the name of the CPS agent? If so, I'd file a complaint.

As for not being able to afford an atty, you can file Pro Se and represent yourself. There's lot of information on this site. You should get your kids in therapy to deal with everything.

[dad325]

That's what my wife and I thought, and she looked it up and said that according to the laws she saw on the Internet, the CPS worker shouldn't have even came up to our house without an officer present, and that over the years every CPS worker who came to our house should have come up with an officer. She said that they also couldn't threaten to take our kids away based just on clothing because their own guidelines dictated the rules of what constitutes abuse/neglect. No where, according to her, does clothing even get mentioned, nor does a full trash can, or infestation (we live in public housing and the entire apartment complex is infested). In fact, as long as the children have food, electricity for showers/baths/heating/cooling, and shelter that's all that matters according to their guidelines.
As far as representing myself, I can't do that. For one, I don't speak very well. In fact, this entire thing takes me over an hour to type. My wife is better spoken, faster thinking, and more convincing than I am. Plus, we don't have the money to afford representing ourselves. Just to file for a court date for the violation of court papers is $80 alone. And that's just one page filled out! With the loss of my job (which is because of my ex-wife and her husband and is being investigated by the company and persued by an attorney for possible lawsuit of slander against my ex-wife and her husband) we are trying to survive on our tax return (which is dwindling each month as we pay bills and buy things we need around the house) and until I can get unemployment we are stuck. If it wasn't for my other kids, I'd move to another state that has better jobs.