I’m looking for a new apartment and it’s so irritating. It should be so much easier than it is. You would think with the internet being what it is that landlords would get a clue. Craigslist is free and easy to use. So far things seem to be about the same as 10 years ago when I was looking for my first apartment.
I remember picking up a paper one Sunday morning (I figured the fat one would have the most apartments in it) and looking through the apartments for rent section. I naively thought that all the apartments I would be going to see would be nice, like something out of a fairy tale. I was wrong.
There was no way to distinguish one apartment from another in the paper-they had no pictures. They had some words that didn’t really describe the places at all. So it was basically calling around to schedule appointments to see places that I had no idea what they were going to turn out like.
And the landlords left out some important things in their ads. Like one of the first places I saw should have said “you will be living with cockroaches” because I walked into the bathroom, turned on the light and one skittered across the sink. (It may not have been a cockroach because it was the first, and only, one I have ever seen. It seemed like what I would imagine a cockroach to look like.)
Another place I looked at should have included “live band practicing on the second floor above your head”. I’m glad I showed up at the right time of day to witness that. The landlord never mentioned it when talking to me on the phone and I wouldn’t have known otherwise until I had moved in and it was too late.
My point is, there are certain things I’d like to know before I move into a place. I understand that newspapers have a limit as to how many words can be in the ad. But we are past newspaper and on the internet now. The space on Craigslist is unlimited so get a fifth grade education and learn to include more than “2BR + 1BA, call if interested.” How the hell am I supposed to be able to tell if I’m interested from that?
Something that all landlords seem to include on Craiglist is that they have “new appliances”. Who cares? As long as they work and are in decent shape, I don’t care if they’re new. But I also don’t believe that all these landlords went out and bought new appliances, so quit lying to me anyway.
But where are your pictures, oh prospective landlord? Even if you could adequately describe the place, a picture would make things so much easier. Cameras are cheap and everyone has one, so if you don’t then you can borrow one. It doesn’t cost anything to put them up, so what are you hiding? If you’re hiding a mess, don’t you think I’ll notice it’s a dump if I could be bothered (which I can’t) to drive all the way to where ever it is to look at it? You would get much better results with freaking pictures!
The other thing that irritates me is a lack of a street address or just a general location. Are we talking Arbor Hill or New Scotland Ave? Huge difference. I don’t want to live in the ghetto and if you’re trying to hide the fact that it’s in the ghetto, you won’t be able to hide it when I need to come see the place.
It just seems like common sense. Apparently we lack that around here.
