donut.nu

One thing that drives me absolutely batshit when combing through housing ads is the discrepancy between actual useful information prospective renters actually want and what actually ends up in the ads. It annoyed me so much that I made an angry list about it.

That will show ‘em.

What I’m looking for when I read housing ads

1) Information about the current residents and their partying and/or drug-consuming habits.

Look, I want some warning if I’m going to come home to the cops raiding my house or find an exceptionally drunk college freshman pawing through my closet. You need to be upfront about that shit.

Also, if you’re habitual gaybashers or spend a lot of time having your mom bail you out of jail, I’d like to know that as well.

2) General location of the house/apartment.

First of all: Seattle is a big place with many different neighborhoods. Living in certain neighborhoods can make your public transportation life living hell.

I know this because I spent years having to catch the bus at 6:30 AM to get to my 8:30 AM class even though my college was less than seven miles away from my house. In other words, I spent four hours on the bus or waiting for buses to spend three hours in class every day. Given my tendency to attract epic creepers and crazy women that like to spend forty-five minutes sharing with me the names they have for each individual dreadlock attached to their skull. I’ll never forget you, Testimony. You were my favorite.

It’s also awesome emailing about a listing only to find that someone decided it was relevant to post room openings for Hong Kong in the Seattle section. Yeah, you’re really reaching your target audience there.

3) Information about the living space.

When you said “room available” did you actually mean “You’ll be sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs”? Will I be sharing a room with a crack fiend or just a bathroom?

4) How much are utilities and other monthly expenses?

I love when the cheap rent sounds great and then you find out that they spend 250 dollars every month so they can have 1800 channels–many captionless in languages no one in the house actually speaks.

5) When is the room available? When does the lease end? Do you require a deposit and if so, how much?

You know. Minor details such as…how long before my ass needs to find another place to schlep all my shit to?

What’s actually in housing ads

1) Information about the “rad dumpsters nearby” for prime dumpster-diving opportunities.

What I find moderately disturbing is the sheer amount of Craigslist ads that actually list this.

2) Information about their plots of world domination politics.

From a recent Craigslist ad:

[L]ooking to start infoshop in basement and work with the community to find ways to topple oppressive systems.

Look. I like plotting to overthrow the oppressive power structures in my spare time as much as the next girl, but I just want a place to store my shit, cook, and sleep. I’m not looking for a revolution in Craigslist housing ads, okay. Particularly not when you’re only advertising a one-month sublet.

3) Endless paragraphs about their cats.

Information I want about your kitties:

A) Can I cuddle it?

B) Can it eat a tiny ice cream cone while wearing a tiny hat?

My neighborhood looks like Narnia. This would be awesome if snow hadn’t completely cockblocked me from seeing Deathly Hallows for the past 4+ days.

Due to a lack of a winter coat and like. warm clothing of any sort beyond a pair of cotton rainbow gloves, I have not played in the snow. Instead I’ve been staring at it wistfully through my window, praying my power doesn’t go out (again!), and trying to devise a good hot chocolate recipe that doesn’t require me to go get random funny ingredients I don’t keep in my house. (Let me know if you have a good recipe that’s simple. >.> I’m still working on mine!)

The part where the snow is impeding some of my job hunt is probably more important than preventing me from seeing Harry Potter, but it does not feel like it.

My priorities are obviously awesome.

I feel like I should sleep to prepare for the amount of yams I plan on consuming tomorrow, but my terrible sleeping habits persist. I fully expect to fall asleep somewhere around 6:30 AM. I’m just not going to lie to myself. I can always take advantage of the holiday and take a tryptophan-induced nap tomorrow, right?

Again, my priorities. Don’t worry, I’ll judge myself for you.

Yeah, you read that right. I’ve transformed into my dad. As my dad is a self-admitted crazy man, as Rachel (and countless others who have met him in real life) can vouch for, this distresses me greatly. :P

However, thankfully, the particular issue that has forced me to utter this haunting phrase, is just that I can hit my snooze button for hours.

My mom and I used to mock my dad because his alarm will start going off at 5AM and he would still be laying in bed at 9AM! Worst part: He doesn’t even hit the snooze. He will just let his alarm clock go off for four goddamn hours.

I UNDERSTAND NOW, DAD. I apologize.

At the beginning of this quarter, I was waking up around 7AM every day, no problems, and getting extra work done in the morning. I thought not having class until 11AM (although that means I have to catch my bus at 9:45AM because I live so far from school) meant I’d have more time to be productive in the morning!

Yeah, no. I apparently don’t know myself at all. Alarm starts going off at 7AM. I set three separate alarms¹ on my phone and it generally goes off every 3-5 minutes. By the time 9AM, I’ve probably hit snooze about 30-40 times. Perhaps choosing the Firefly theme song, “Piazza, New York Catcher” by Belle & Sebastian, and “Willkommen” from Cabaret as my alarm clock tones wasn’t the wisest idea I’ve ever had.

So I just purchased the world’s most annoying alarm clock, except I purchased it from Amazon despite my love for ThinkGeek. Saving $15USD, plus free shipping demolishes all brand loyalty.

Am I the only one who cannot force themselves to get up? Also, for those of you who can’t get your asses out of bed, are you also severe procrastinators like I am? I think there’s a correlation there. ;)

1. Mostly because I can do that weird iPhone swipey motion in my sleep and turn off my alarm entirely without actually opening my eyes. *facepalm* ↩