A California family is exasperated and fearful – after a 64-year-old woman they hired as a live-in nanny stopped working and has refused to move out of their home after being fired.

Marcella Bracamonte says she and her husband, Ralph, hired Diane Stretton in early March to do chores and watch over their children, ages 11, 4 and 1, in exchange for room and board in their home in Upland, in the Los Angeles area.

About three weeks later, however, Stretton stopped working, saying she has a chronic pulmonary disease, and ignored repeated requests to leave the house, Bracamonte said. She added that the woman also threatened to sue the family for wrongful termination and elder abuse.

Bracamonte says she is frightened for her children and her property, adding: “Obviously, she isn’t right in the head.”

Police have declined to intervene in a civil matter, Bracamonte said, so the family has started a formal eviction process, which they fear could take months.(Reuters)