LOS ANGELES—Explaining that he had taken the measure to send a message that she could not stay there, L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti told reporters Friday that he was preventing his kid from lazing about by installing spikes on the family couch. “I’ve told her repeatedly that she can’t be sitting around occupying the couch all the time while working people are trying to live here, but she won’t act reasonably,” said Garcetti, adding that covering the couch and other sitting areas of the family home in sharp steel spikes would ensure that his 9-year-old daughter would not just sit around all day being an unproductive member of society. “We need to figure out a way to humanely deter our daughter, so her mother and I can move about the house freely and without having to look at any unkempt sleeping children. We actually used a well-known designer to make the spikes, and they fit into the architecture of the living room quite nicely.” Garcetti added that if the couch spikes did not adequately deter his daughter from lazing about the house, he was considering removing the roof of his home and exposing her to the elements so she would find somewhere else to go.