L2Write Good Housing Ads
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?
O Hai >.>
Ever let stuff pile up so long that you just want to ignore everything and hope it fixes itself? I just did that for quite a long time. It didn’t work so well so now I’m just trying to reorganize my life. It’s actually rather refreshing. Reorganizing this website is one bit I’m starting with–I really miss having an outlet.
Some Stuff I’ve Been Doing for the Past Year
1) Hanging out with my great grandmother. She decided not to get her pacemaker replaced when she found out it was dying so, unfortunately, in August, she passed away at 101. She was an awesome, hilarious, ridiculously strong lady and I feel horribly sad for anyone who never knew her.
2) Making the World’s Best Chocolate Cupcakes. My mom doesn’t even like cake or frosting and she effing loves my chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting–both homemade and amazing.
3) Playing entirely too much World of Warcraft. I’m excited for the new expansion on December 7th. >.> Lemme know if you play WoW. :D
4) Having completely epic conversations with many of my friends. AIM, how I love you and your support of my capslock fests.
5) Making a lot of jokes involving your mother and/or your face. Or just other people’s moms in general. It’s a weakness, I’ll admit it.
Stuff I Want to Do
1) Get a job ASAP. \o/ I like monies and I need MOAR MONIES to go back to school eventually and to buy a new computer.
2) Bake and cook more. I have a ridiculous love for cooking blogs with flashy photography, not going to lie. And right now I want jambalaya more than most things in the world. The things I do cook are generally awesome, but my cooking repertoire is sorely lacking variety. I’d like to work on that quite a bit.
If you have any favorite cooking websites or blogs, I’d love to hear about them, even if they’re specialty or vegan or focusing on meat, I don’t care. XD I love all sorts of food.
I love baking in particular and I inherited my other grandmother’s recipe box when she passed away eight years ago this month. I’m UNSTOPPABLE. You haven’t lived until you’ve had her maple cookies with maple icing. I’ll post the recipe when I next make them and can take pictures. :)
3) Move to Bellingham. I moved there on a whim in the summer of 2009 and loved it. I love the town, I loved the nature, I loved the rent prices… I plan to move back after I’ve saved up a bit of cash.
4) Get into photography. I’ve never really owned a good camera or a camera at all until sometime last year. I’ve always wanted to get into photography because I can’t draw or paint or any of that, but I frequently have these really strong visions in my head that I feel the need to capture or recreate or sometimes I just see a scene that I’d like to immortalize. After I’ve saved enough money to move and get a new computer, I think I’ll save a bit of extra money to get a decent camera. I’m not sure what to start out with though but my budget is pretty limited.
5) Blog and write regularly again. I’ve always assumed I was going to be a writer, but I’ve gone about this dream by avoiding writing which seems like entirely the wrong thing to do. This is as good of an outlet as any.
I’m filled with nerdrage and rant relatively frequently. Long ago I used to post these in my LiveJournal and it seemed to be the posts people enjoyed the most–as well as the posts I enjoyed writing the most.
As I mentioned above, I have all sorts of little projects I’m getting into (cooking, photography, etc.) and having a place to log that would be fantastic.
5) Get more involved with my online communities again. In addition to the blogging community, I want to get back into my LJ social circle, etc. Life has been crazy and pulled me away, but I’d like a stable foundation in my online groups again.
Hmm, that list ended up a bit longer than I thought.
EDIT: I realized I have two number fives on the second list but I think I’ll leave it that way. <.<
This Week Was Awesome Because… (Vol. 1.3)
On Monday, the power went out so my mom, our family friend who lives with us, and I all ended up playing gin for hours with Disney villains playing cards. Sometimes it’s just simple things like the power going out that is needed to bring your family a little bit closer together.
On Wednesday I had a slice of pesto pizza from Hot Mama’s (just off Broadway in Seattle’s Capitol Hill) that actually made me stop walking and say, “Holy shit.” Delicious.
On Thursday night at 11PM, I ordered the world’s most annoying alarm clock. Despite using free shipping, it was delivered to my house on Friday around 4PM. 1) What the hell and 2) awesome!
On Friday night I saw one of my best friends’ faces for the first time in the month. Epic times were had!
Today I watched How I Met Your Mother for the first time…and promptly finished the first season today as well. And am currently watching the beginning of season two. Yeah, I’m addicted. NPH is amazing. :D
Why was YOUR week awesome?
