Visitation without an order?

[Motherofone]

My son was born on 7/25/08.
My son's father and I were never married.
We live in Mass.

The father and I were were living together until he threw me out on Nov. 13th 2008. Since then my son and I have been staying with my parents. I applied for financial assistance from the DTA and they in turn filed for child support with the DOR. (It's been four months and we still don't have a court date to establish support.) Also, the baby and I have visited his father overnight on weekends so he could see his son and we could work on our relationship.

Now though, the baby's father no longer wishes to try and work things out with me. However, he still wants to take our son for weekend visitation without me being present, even though we have no custody/visitation agreement in writing.

I don't feel comfortable leaving our son alone with his father because;
1) he's a problem drinker
2) the house has lead paint
3) his dog has shown aggression towards the baby in the past.

My question is this: If he takes me to court for visitation is my son's father likely to be granted unsupervised, weekend over-night visits despite these facts? And is there anything I can do about it?

 

[Duranie]

Dad is likely entitled to unsupervised visits. You didn't care about any of the above before you had a baby with him. Nothing you have listed proves he is a danger to the baby. Dad has rights. You can argue his case incourt. The drinking doesn't really matter since you have not proven he does it around the child unsupervised. You have a tough case against the dog too, the time to get rid of the dog was when you were together and then could convince him to get rid of the dog. The courts are not going to block visits for what the dog "might" do.

 

[Motherofone]

The dad's drinking habits are the reason we no longer live together.
I called the police one night because he was so drunk and nasty that it scared me and he got angry at me for that. I was with him for only three months after our son was born and, honestly, even if he hadn't asked me to leave, I was planning to anyway.
The only reason I trusted him with our son during our weekend visits is because I knew he wouldn't drink around me. I am not as certain that he wont drink around our son if I'm not there to stop him.

In truth, I'm more concerned about his ability to parent with a hangover.
He becomes short-tempered and neglectful.

Also, what of the lead paint issue?
There is documented proof that a lead paint hazzard exists in that home.
One child was poisoned already and the homeowner (the dad's grandmother) was sued for it. I never liked the idea of our son living there but, before he started crawling, it wasn't as much of a problem.

 

[ohiogranny]

If he takes you to court, then present your documentation about the lead paint.
That is the only real, provable concern that the court will listen to. You can ask to have added to the parenting plan that neither of you use alcohol or drugs during your time. It may be hard to enforce, but it may get his attention. IF the judge adds it. Without being convicted of anything, dad will get parenting time.

 

[Motherofone]

I also forgot to mention - the morning after a night of heavy drinking, dad was arrested for assault and battery (toward me). At that time I didn't press charges, however, the state automatically takes over cases of domestic voilence in Mass. Later though, the charges were dropped when he went to court for a pretrial.

There was also an incident where he threw a cup of water at me, while I was holding the baby. It soaked both me and our son and upset the baby quite a bit. Until that moment, I'd never heard our son shriek like that!