visitation living arrangements

[ConcernedCP]

I'm seeking advice for ongoing situation involving my teenaged children.

Brief background:  Divorced 13 months, NCP retained marital home, children's bedroom furniture, etc. stayed with NCP, NCP has visitation EOW (plus two weeknite eve. that he routinely forfeits)

Situation:  Shortly after separation, NCP moved a lot of his belongings into children's rooms, piling it on and around the beds effectively turning them into storage rooms.  This necessitated the children sleeping on the living room floor during their visitation time.  After a long period of hearing the children complain to me about this and realizing that this is most likely not a temporary arrangement, I asked them if they wanted me to address the issue with NCP.  Then, as diplomatically as possible, I requested that NCP allow the children to regain their rooms and clean out the excess belongings.  Over  a period of months, several requests were made to this effect via email, and I spoke to NCP via phone.  Each time contact was made, the NCP said that it would be taken care of.  Now, the NCP has begun smoking heavily (a non-smoker prior to divorce) and the children are complaining of getting headaches and having difficulties breathing from the air pollutants.  I have again spoken to the NCP about their rooms so that the children can escape from the smoky living area, but I have no confidence that any action will be taken.  I fully support the children's visitation and relationship with the NCP and I understand that teenagers are often prone to working one parent against the other and so I usually tend to not get worked up about what I hear goes on at NCP's house, however, this is real (I can smell the smoke on their clothes when they return, often still with headaches) and is clearly affecting them healthwise.  It has gotten to the point where they minimize the time they spend with NCP as much as possible on visitation weekends choosing instead to spending as much time as possible at friends' houses (especially overnight).

So, my question is; is there anything I can do legally to encourage the NCP to produce a more suitable arrangement while the children are visiting, and perhaps more importantly, should I even attempt this or should I simply continue to tell the children that they need to work it out with the NCP (which has produced discord and conflict without resolution in the past)?  

Any advice would helpful.

[FrustratedWife]

If you can afford to go back to court, do it. I did and I won. My XH decided my kids could sleep on the floor. I disagreed. I went back to court and the judge told him that if he wanted to exercise his visitation rights, he had to get them beds.

As for the smoking, not sure on that issue. Aare you joint? Because I am sole and make all medical decisions so for me, if XH smoked, I could refuse because of their "health". But ou could probably make a strong argument about it.

[LizaLou1]

LizaLou

[janM]

Sometimes smoking is an issue in court. I have heard of it being written in the orders that no one is to smoke in the house if the kids are sensitive to it. You might want to get back up from the family doc on that one to show that it is adversely affecting their health.

[ConcernedCP]

Thanks for the replies.

To clarify, I am the sole legal/physical CP.  NCP already has beds for the children as I left their furniture when we moved and bought them new bedrooms sets to ease the transition into our new house.  Why they can't use them is because NCP has piled equipment, tools, computers, etc. on top of the beds and on the floor around them, so that they literally can't get to the beds.  

My goal is for them to continue to have a relationship with the NCP and I do NOT want to deny visitation.  On the contrary, I've tried to encourage the NCP to make it more pleasant for the children to be there so that they can spend more time together.  When we separated, I made a promise to the children that I would do everything in my power to facilitate their relationship with the NCP.  But currently the children, on their own volition, are doing everything they can to avoid spending time with NCP because of the longstanding sleeping & recently developed smoking issues.  During the last visitation, oldest spent less than 4 hrs with NCP over the 48 hour period, the youngest, less than 24.  They are already making plans to stay with friends to avoid spending time at NCP's house for the next visitation time.  NCP has, by choice (not work demands), forfeited 1/3 of visitation time over past year when they've stayed with me.  If we don't get this resolved, the relationship between the children and NCP will continue to deteriorate as they spend less and less time together.  Since talking to NCP directly hasn't helped (either by me or the children), I was hoping that there may be some creative way to get through to NCP to clean up and make things habitable that someone on this forum might be able to share with me.  

The health issues the children are complaining about (headaches and breathing difficulties) are not serious threats, at least not yet, so I've not taken them to the doctor, but we have dealt with asthma issues in the past, and if they flare up again, I'll definately be pursuing this.

If I can avoid the courts, I'd like to do so, because my goal is NOT to deny visitation.  But if that it what it takes to try to improve the situation, I'm certainly not afraid to go there and try my luck.  One concern is that technically he does have living space for them as well as beds for them to sleep in.....the fact that they can't get to them or use them may or may not be relevant to a judge.  Who knows.....