As some might know, I’ve spent the last two months living in Ferndale Washington.

I like Ferndale. It’s the kind of unassuming little city that Bellingham used to be before it became encrusted with hipster activists and junkies.

Now, when I say I lived in Ferndale, some of you might be thinking…. “Oh! He moved in with some friends or something.” No. No, no, no, no, no. Someone I used to think of as a friend allowed me to park my van in her driveway for two months, promised the situation would change to one more comfortable, collected money under those pretenses, and then shit all over me in favor of a sexual relationship with her TWO state sponsored and paid caregivers who have filled her house with piles of garbage and filth.

OK… so my friend is a cancer survivor. And it wasn’t an easy cancer. Colon cancer that required so much treatment there isn’t much left in terms of, well, guts. She’s constantly suffering infections that require a lot of medical attention. I can attest when she requires daily changing of dressings and some medical attention, her young caregiver WILL assist. But at all other times, that fat prick won’t even get out of his night gown most days, and spends his time sitting in his private, air conditioned office that is filled with an almost four foot pile of …. garbage and junk.

The living room is always cold and dark. Because my friend’s caregivers prefer it that way. They have two cats. The cat box can’t be in their bedroom because THEY have breathing issues. So it stays in the living room, where their client (an immune-compromised woman almost 60 years old) has to breathe in the clay and the fumes of cat piss and shit.

One of the caregivers (the only one who is actually licensed) wanders around the house farting caustically and making constant moaning and groaning sounds, complaining about how OLD she is and how every single movement is just so hard because she’s so OLD. (She’s twenty years younger than her client).

The other caregiver is partnered to the first. He’s their little project! Caregiver 1 is mommy and Caregiver 2 is a mindless little brat who stomps his feet and throws a fit, including swearing at his client. He has blamed the “women folk” (he doesn’t say it, but he acts it every single day) for telling him what to do, NOT telling him what to do, and – my personal favorite – not doing all the pre-work and setup necessary for him to do what they want him to do.

The rest of his time he spends smoking weed and blowing it into the already toxic atmosphere, lounging around in his nightgown and lecturing on things he’s too stupid to know anything about, refusing to study for his caregiver licensing exams (and subsequently failing them), demanding his client drive him places (little scooter can’t drive and can’t be bothered to learn), and shoving his fat face so full of food late at night that he has to barf all over the shower every single morning to get it all back out.

These people are gross as fuck. ONE of them is a sex offender. That person claims to be “RSO” but also to have a sealed record. So who knows what the reality is. The other is a passive-aggressive nightmare of shadiness. I’ve met her once before in my life, when she was known as “Kate”.

And they are both leeches who attached themselves to a woman who had just lost her abusive partner. My friend cooks the meals. My friend does most of the driving. My friend provides them a house to live in through a personal connection they wouldn’t otherwise enjoy. They thank her by keeping all the common areas filled with their garbage, too cold and dark for her to enjoy (because mommy grew up in Minnesota so fuck everyone else), and they take her medical equipment to soothe THEIR symptoms, all while collecting money from the government to care for the same woman who is doing way more to care for them.

Oh…. and they’re a “thruple”. My friend is a lesbian. Now, she’s just another sister-wife to a loud mouth broheim who blames all his problems on people with tits, talks to both of them like they are too stupid to put on a shoe without him to do it for them, and sits around in his nightgown all day barfing.

I just can’t.

I watched my friend throw away thirty years of her life in a totally abusive, narcissistic drunk. The situation was so bad her house literally fell down around her. Entire rooms couldn’t be used. Like… the kitchen, for example. When her partnered finally died on the couch one night, my friend was finally free.

But no! Now, she is involved with these two people – both of whom she saved form homelessness – and both of whom condescend to her and manipulate her like strange hybrids of Dolores Umbrage and Nurse Ratched.

My friend is not OK. I’ve always come last with her, and that’s all right. It’s not, really, but what are you going to do, right? I told her I won’t watch her wind up in another garbage-filled cesspit while she sits in a corner or sleeps all day because she’s too depressed to do anything about it.

My friend thinks she “grew” from her abusive relationship. But she didn’t. The house fell down around her – HER HOUSE – and she took the abuse until the couch-bound drunk finally died. She thinks her current situation is better… but it’s still a house filled with garbage, ants, cat poop, dust, ant infestations, and people who care way more about their slightest whims then their client (and supposed lover’s) very dire health issues.

They’re just waiting for her to kick the bucket, thinking they’ll have the house to themselves.

I filed a report with Adult Protective Services and left. I can’t watch this again. I don’t think my friend is competent to make her own health care choices as she lets everyone walk all over her, and then winds up in the hospital.

But she’s never cared about my feelings or my opinion, so I’m not the one to convince her. I just hope someone gets these blood-sucking ticks away from her so she can finally figure out that her artistic block is caused by the narcissists she constantly leans into to make all her decisions for her. Invariably, they wind up fat and high and on their asses while she does all the work.

Yay team.

Not this time. Die if you want, and I’ll mourn your passing. But I’m not going to watch you bring it about like this. Not like this.

So it’s back to the streets for me. I choose homelessness over a situation that sick and twisted. Plus, why should I pay people $300 a month and STILL SLEEP IN MY VAN?