Caring advice from Sensitive Ned: The Homeless Inhabitant

by Sensitive Ned

Dear Sensitive Ned,

I let a homeless man move in with me, and now I can’t get rid of him.
It’s not like I picked him up off the street. I’ve known him for 20 years. Once he was my boyfriend. He lost his job because of alcoholism, he’s been in and out of detox, and he’s contracted Hepatitis C. He helps out with housework, but makes no financial contributions and won’t get a job.

The other day I contacted him while he was out and told him not to come back and to find someplace else to stay. He came home anyway, telling me that he had no place else to go. I just want to go back to my old simple life of living alone with no worries. He has destroyed my carefree lifestyle and invaded my home. I worked hard to get to where I am in life and he is sucking me dry.
I've tried discussing it with him and had no luck. How can I get rid of him?

-- Housing the Homeless*

Dear Housing the Homeless,

What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? You must be nuts. This guy has Hep. C and you’re sharing peanut butter knives with him? How do you know the bum isn’t salivating on your pillow while you’re out, in hopes that you’ll drool in your sleep, your two salivas will mix, and a Petri dish of little baby Hep. Cs will colonize like the Spaniards did in the New World? Don’t you remember what happened when the Spaniards came over? They brought Hepatitis C and it wiped out all the Indians, Blacks, and Jews, leaving the Seven Cities of Gold empty and for the taking. That’s where all the Six Flags theme parks came from. Well, my soft-hearted friend, YOU ARE THE INDIANS!

Here’s my advice to you: First, call the cops and tell them there is a homeless guy living in your house, and that you don’t want him there. They will probably think you’re crazy (which you are) and that you’re probably just trying to get rid of an ex-boyfriend (which you are). But if it is your house, they’ll come haul him away and either drop him off in Ogden to fend for himself (may God have mercy on his soul) or blind fold him, spin him around a bunch of times, and put him on the first Fun Bus to Wendover.

Second, file a report with Utah Extreme Situation Control Services and a bunch of guys in hazmat suits will come over with all sorts of special chemicals, quarantine your house, and rid your abode of any and all dangerous microbes in a way that only the government can—with chemicals so dangerous you’ll have to move in with your sister for three weeks. It’ll look like the scene from the end of “E.T.” when there are plastic bubbles and scary guys in white all over the place, and Elliot and E.T. love each other so much that their bodies feel what the other is feeling. They rejoice together, they cry together, they laugh together, they get sick together. Oh, that our society may attain that level of love. It would never work though, because in the end the bond that E.T. and Elliot formed breaks, and E.T. goes home to his people in outer space, telling them all of our secrets. They then return in “Terminator 2: Borg Trek,” and wipe out the entire human race, except for Axl Rose because he had a hit single on the soundtrack.

Hopefully helpfully yours,
Sensitive Ned

*While this question was originally addressed to Cary Tennis of Salon.com, we here at The Regal Seagull feel that Sensitive Ned gives a more thoughtful and appropriate response.

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