Michael Winter

USA TODAY

A fired live-in nanny who had refused to leave a Southern California home and threatened to sue has disappeared, the family said Friday.

Marcella Bracamonte told ABC News that 64-year-old Diane Stretton left the home in Upland, San Bernardino County, on Thursday morning and hasn't returned. She left behind her belongings.

"I don't know what happened," Bracamonte said.

The story of the nanny who wouldn't leave became national news this week.

Bracamonte and her husband, Ralph, told how they had hired Stretton in March to help care for their three children, ages 1, 4 and 11, in exchange for free room and board.

Stretton was "awesome" the first few weeks, but then suddenly stopped working, blaming chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Marcella Bracamonte told ABC News earlier in the week.

The Bracamontes said they put her on notice twice earlier this month before firing her. They cut off her cable TV and Internet, and even padlocked the refrigerator.

The couple had tried to evict Stretton, and even called police, who said they couldn't intervene because it was a civil matter. KCAL-TV reported Wednesday that Stretton was served with a three-day notice to leave or face eviction, a potentially long legal process.

The Bracamontes said Stretton had also threatened to sue for breach of contract, wrongful termination, false imprisonment and elder abuse. Last year, the state enacted a landmark Domestic Worker Bill of Rights.

"So this lady is welcome inside my house, anytime she wants," Marcella Bracamonte told KTLA-TV. "I'm now a victim in my home, and it's completely legal."

"If we're to lock her out of our house she could sue us, if we're to grab her stuff and throw it out of our house she can sue us," her husband said.

ABC News said Stretton reportedly has been involved in three dozen lawsuits and is listed by California courts as a "vexatious litigant" for abusing the legal system. A Diane Gail Stretton is named in two cases in San Diego Superior Court, one each in 2005 and 2006, but it could not be immediately determined whether they are the same person.

Stretton has avoided the media.