It starts innocently enough. The proverbial Prodigal Son arrives on your front porch in a crumpled-up hoodie carrying a beat-up leather duffel back filled with every poor decision he has made since high school. What he does not bring with him is a car, a job and money. He is also not toting around any other back-up plan other than you…his parents. You stand in the doorway like a deer in the headlights, wondering whether to dart away or stay and get hit with the reality that you know is coming. These headlights resemble that of a Mack truck.

The reality is accessory dwelling units, mother-in-law apartments, detached casitas and basement walk-outs featuring a small kitchenette have technically been around for ages. But lately, at least here along the Wasatch Front, a trend has started rolling down the mountains like a January inversion cloud…bringing our adult children with it.

These children are not just coming home from college for a summer. They aren’t just couch surfing for a few nights after a breakup either. This is a full-blown, “Hey can I crash here for a while.” Translated, from adult-child dialect would mean somewhere between six months and the Rapture.

Parents throughout Northern Utah are suddenly scrambling to create independent living spaces for returning adult children. The reasons cover the gamut; divorcees with Labradoodles, unemployed kids with their own gaming chair the size of NASA capsules and on occasion, a fiancé nobody knew about. This is happening so frequently that I have coined an acronym to describe it: FLU–short for Failure to Launch Units (clearly the “to” is silent).

Listen, I’m not judging. The reality is this economy is rough. Rent prices have climbed faster than a mountain goat on espresso. Starter homes now require either two and a half incomes, a trust fund or a kidney available for resale. Add inflation, student loans, layoffs, the price of gas and an occasional quarter-life existential crisis, and suddenly that old bonus room above the garage starts looking less like storage space and more like an emergency housing strategy.

I get it. In fact, I’m right in the midst of it all. A few weeks ago, I found myself staring at that awkward bonus room over the garage. Most of the room is home to some seasonal decorations, a box of plastic gravestones, a couple of mismatched dumbbells, some nostalgic paraphernalia from high school and a lonely box of tangled up Christmas lights. I climbed the stairs and started asking myself those dangerous homeowner questions. You know, the ones that end up costing several thousand dollars and a hired work crew.

Could I carve out a three-quarter bathroom in the walk-in closet? Perhaps I could somehow squeeze in a kitchenette sans stove to prevent the aforementioned wildfire initiating in my very own garage. It wouldn’t be luxury by a long shot. In fact, it would be more circa 1980s styled studio, including a full-size bed, a couple of patio chairs and a used card table as well as a 1993-era floral loveseat filled with decades of trapped Cheerios, purchased from the Deseret Industries. There would be no giant 85″ HDTV in this FLU. It wouldn’t fit. But it would certainly accommodate a vintage 19-inch portable RCA complete with rabbit ears and aluminum foil wrapped around one antenna. After all, character building is part of the process. We don’t want them to be too comfortable. Not because we don’t love our kids. In fact, that love runs fierce, deep and protective. It is because we do love our kids that we want this venture to be temporary. We let them land and then help them create wings so they can fly once again.

After all, life is nothing if nothing if not messy.  However, the late-night conversations, the accidental dinners and the second chances rebuild relationships. Either way, the FLU may be something you catch as well. It may become one of the defining home trends along the Wasatch Front for the next decade. Make it a win/win.

Jen Fischer is an associate broker and Realtor. She can be reached at 801-645-2134 or jen@jen-fischer.com.