Things my friend’s caregivers do to take care of her health:

• IF my friend has a port installed, they will help her do her daily medication.

• IF my friend has problems with her ostomy bag, one of the caregivers will help out.

• One of the caregivers does the laundry for the three of them.

Things my friend does to support her caregivers:

Even though she has a hernia the size of a basketball, an ostomy bag that frequently breaks, a potentially untreatable and incurable infection in her intestines, COPD, is 20 and 30 years old than them respectively, here is what my friend does to support her caregivers.

• Provides them with a rental home at far below market value, thanks to her personal connection to the home’s owners.
• Volunteers at the Ferndale food bank every Saturday – even though she shouldn’t be lifting anything heavier than 15 lbs (and probably not even that, honestly) so that the three of them can fill out their monthly food budget (most of which comes from my friend’s SNAP benefits). One of the caregivers has a full-time job and contributes to household expenses. The other – the one who is getting paid to put in a set amount of work per month. Getting paid by the state – contributes nothing. He is completely supported by the other caregiver and his client.
• My friend cooks almost all the meals. Typically, there is no breakfast. Lunch is most often “every person for themselves”, but if not… my friend makes it. My friend makes dinner for four or five people six times a week.
• My friend’s primary caregiver – the one who couldn’t be bothered to study for his certification exam and consequently failed it – doesn’t drive, but has an excessive need to be elsewhere. My friend has to often pick up her caregiver’s friends to shuttle them back and forth so they can assist the caregiver, who is attempting to establish his own business as a forge smith in the back garage. My friend drives him to and from all his appointments.
• Absolutely no one cleans. And I mean… I lived there for two months. The kitchen was cleaned ONCE. There are no free countertops. Much of the space is taken by broken or unused items. There are ants crawling EVERYWHERE because no one can be bothered.
• To my knowledge, the ONE bathroom in the house was cleaned ONCE while I was there. I’m the one who cleaned it.
• My friend either sleeps in her room, spends time in her room at her computer, or huddles in a robe and possibly covered in a blanket, because her two caregivers prefer a cold, dark environment. One of them complains constantly about their allergy symptoms which seem to matter much more than the respiratory comfort of their client, who – again – has COPD and recently spent a week in the hospital with bacterial pneumonia.
• The cat box sits in the living room. Both of the cats belong to the caregivers, as well as one of the two dogs. My friend feeds the cats in the morning because her caregivers often oversleep. Then, she sits in the living room with the stench of the litter box, which can’t be in the caregivers room because of THEIR respiratory problems. There is often cat poop on the floor, which is sometimes hard to spot because of the many piles of empty boxes and other junk that the two caregivers “throw away” by tossing it wherever they happen to be sitting at the time, apparently expecting the magic cleaning fairies to pick it all up for them. (The last magic cleaning fairy was named “Rachel”, my friend’s caseworker, who had to lead them in a living room clean up like she was Mary Poppins and they were children who had to be tricked into cleaning up after themselves.)
• The yard is a literal dump. I took over the yard work since I lived in a van in the parking lot (a situation they promised would change, but then threw fits about and it never did). The two dogs belonging to my friend and her lovers/caregivers are let out to poop in the back yard. The yard, which is already a landmine of trip hazards, rusting lawnmowers, discarded furniture, and (for some reason) about 10 hibachi-sized grills hasn’t been maintained one bit in years. I know that because there were entire pieces of disassembled furniture I had to rip out of the ground because the grass had grown up and over them through the years. There are piles of dog poop EVERYWHERE. Often fifty or more piles in the walkway before one of the caregivers assigned to “poop patrol” will pick it up. (He maintains that keep up the yard is a symbol of the patriarchy….whatever the fuck that means.)
• The two caregivers are very very good at pretending things will change. They do lots of house meetings that result in spreadsheets (which I had to update for them), and then no action.
• Anytime Baby Huey is asked to do something besides sit on his fat ass while his two mommies make sure all his needs are met results in a temper tantrum. My friend tells me this is different than her last abusive relationship. The one that resulted in her house falling down around her head. Baby Huey can be controlled, my friend thinks, by letting him rant like a … baby … and then he’ll be more cooperative. He has some sort of certificate on the wall he claims proves he is “cured” and doesn’t have almost violent meltdowns anymore, despite all evidence to the contrary. So now when he yells, screams and swears at his two LOVERS, it’s their fault and they don’t understand how very stable and mature he is. He has a certificate that says so! (And Donald Trump has cognitive tests that prove he’s a “genius.”)
• Except he isn’t. Baby Huey pouts like a little brat until he gets his way. And when everyone in the house is doing exactly what HE wants, he puffs out his fat chest and struts around like a happy puppy. “Mommy loves me best!” is what he’s giving.
• My friend jumps to satisfy all his needs while he raises a fit any time he’s asked to do a single thing beyond sitting in his private office or working in his private work space, amidst piles of poop and garbage (because the dog poop collects for days or weeks until Baby Huey wants to have his friends over to his private forge). She supplies his housing. She is his personal chauffeur. She has to indulge his temper tantrums and mood swings before he will do ANYTHING he is being paid by the state to do.

My friend is an amazing artist. Only, when she was involved in her long-term abusive relationship that resulted in her house falling down around her and only ended in the drunken death of her abuser, she couldn’t muster the energy to do anything other than hide in her room. She didn’t draw for years.

Now, my friend spends most of her time hiding in her room, often sleeping. She has an “artistic block.”

And she doesn’t get why.

Yeah. I’m pissed that she won’t listen to me. That she shines me on with bullshit and promises she has no intention of keeping. My friend has always considered herself the ultimate trickster and manipulator. But the only person she successfully swindled out of anything was herself.

She doesn’t even understand her creative block. How the hell are you going to open an inner eye enough to bring beauty or truth into the world when you refuse to use the two eyes in your head to see what’s right in front of you?

My friend has always jumped from romantic relationship to romantic relationship. None of them have seemed particularly “romantic.” One was a straight friend of ours that was a mean and hostile drunk. Then came the romance of a lifetime mentioned about.

My friend is too afraid of being alone. Too eager to entangle her life with other people. She wants someone to be a shield between her and the world. She wants more time to create and to live.

She deserves it.

But she insists on taking up with people who instead make her their shield. Who put all their needs in front of hers, and who suck up all the space and the energy around them, while my friend plays Cinderella before the ball.

It’s heart-breaking.

Meanwhile, Caregivers 1 and 2 constantly complain about their own issues and health problems. One of them moans and groans constantly about every little ache and pain like their case of the sniffles is the worst thing known to humanity for years.

Sinus infections suck. Maybe try cleaning the cat box or NOT living in a room filled with dusty piles of your garbage. Maybe don’t blast arctic wind throughout the house when it’s 50 degrees outside.

The caregivers have about half the property completely dedicated to them and their belongings. They have by far the largest room to sleep in. Baby Huey (or would Dudley Dursley be a more appropriate metaphor for this day and age?) has to have his private man room as his office. It is filled with a gigantic pile of unsorted crap and garbage. His computer is connected to his favorite video games 24/7, whether he’s at the computer or not. The AC unit (the only one in the house and it’s in the window of his private office), runs 24/7/365. Everyone else is expected to pay a premium to keep the house cold and dark and smelling like cat shit because that suits the caregivers.

The living room space is mostly taken up with their belongings, and the empty boxes from their latest food and/or shopping binges. Did I mention my friend was considered to be a falling danger? In that house, a cement brick is in danger of tripping over some random pile of discarded packing material one of the caregivers couldn’t be bothered to walk the five feet to the trash.

I can’t decide if these are the most despicably negligent people I have ever met, or if they are just so entitled, spoiled, and shielded that the truly believe the little they do and the huge amounts they demand for it are their just due. It doesn’t matter in the end. The resulting spoiled brat energy is the same.

They blame all the problems in the house on the landlords. The landlords are friends of my friend. The wife has been my friend’s very best friend since grade school. They are working through their own problems and my friend occupying that house is good for all parties involved. But the caregivers have nothing nice to say about the owners and are constantly blaming the increasing amount of garbage on the fact that the owners won’t haul their own belongings away. But any resulting empty space would immediately be seized and filled with more of THEIR crap, so why should anyone bother? They just want more room to store last week’s toys.

They talk incessantly about the evils of capitalism (while one of them binge shops almost constantly on their phone), and the evils of the government (while one of them defrauds the government out of thousands of dollars by receiving payment for work he refuses to do).

These people act like they each need two or three caregivers of their own, and neither of them looks in the mirror and sees anything other than absolute perfection.

ok… I’m done ranting, I think. I’ve stated my case. I’ve alerted the property authorities.

It’s up to my friend from here on in. I’ve vented my spleen AND done my due diligence as a concerned loved one of the aggrieved. I have no control over the situation, other than the ability to walk away and not watch.

I hope to god someone with some responsibility does something before it’s too late.