The Downeaster Alexa

Ah, Craiglist, my old friend and enemy. I know you all to well.

Yep, that’s right it’s the time of year again where I talk about what apartment I’m going to move into next.

Oh and by “year,” I mean season. This will be my fourth apartment in the 16 months that I’ve lived here.

Oh Billy, why don’t you just face the facts? There are only two feasible outcomes to our relationship. The first being you get that restraining order, but the second, and I like to think more realistic choice, is that I become your fourth wife and we life happily ever after. So why don’t you just ask me to move in with you already? I’m not above living in sin if it’s with you! Please give me a house and I’ll be your cabin, your castle, and your… your instant pleasure dome?

“Instant pleasure dome” was the best choice of lyrics you could come up with for an otherwise perfectly sentimental love song?

Regardless, I’m willing to go there!

Well, until Billy takes me up on my proposal I suppose I should give an update on the craiglist roommate search. The place I’m currently in I’ve been subletting from a friend while she was in Europe. I didn’t have to worry about hitting the craigslist trifecta of a decent place, decent area, and decent people. Instead, I was guaranteed a decent place, great area, and amazing people. That being said, it’s been quite the shock to the system to be thrown back into the apartment search vis-à-vis the sketchiest/jankiest website in America.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of normal people advertising their places, but the bad ones always stick out in your mind. So here goes my advice for what to look out for when you’re looking for an apartment.

1. Sometimes at the beginning of the ad the person will state they are looking for a female roommate and sometimes at the end of this ad you will see the phrase “The only catch is…” Now this statement could be followed by a lot of things: I’m a vegetarian and you can’t cook any meat in this household, you absolutely cannot go a day without showering, the shower is in the kitchen, you cannot cry in my presence because I despise little bitches, ect., all of which are reasonable “catches” as far as craigslist goes. In fact I have answered ads before with each of those factors (except the little bitch one). However, if the person says “The only thing I ask is that you occasionally don’t wear clothes around the apartment, no sex,” you should probably not answer. This ad will be posted quite frequently in different locations and for different prices. Still, don’t answer.

2. If the person writing the ad writes “small bedroom, kitchen, bathroom,” that’s exactly what they meant. They were not accidentally leaving out “living room”. So when you go to see this over priced, badly located east village rat hole, do not be surprised when it’s a kitchenette that can’t even fit one person, a 9 by 9 bedroom without a closet and it has no couch, no common space, and no table to eat at. Oh and your expected to share this space with your roommate who lives on the other side of the hallway that serves as a kitchen.

3. Occasionally you will come across an ad that goes like this “$850 for an East Village apartment on (a street that is an amazing location). A big bedroom, living room, a kitchen…the thing is I’ve been using the bedroom as a studio for my photography and I would still like access to the room. Absolutely nothing sexual will go on there and I will not touch your stuff and will give you plenty of notice if I need to use the room.” A red flag went up for me when this man said “nothing sexual,” as I hope it did you, but still I was intrigued. Big bedroom! Two bedroom apartment in (AMAZING location) for an almost decent (by Manhattan standards) price! Well, I went ahead and emailed him using my junk email address. The reply I received went something like this:

Hi Tolly! Thanks for your interest, blah blah blah, 28 year old male, blah blah blah, I work as a fetish photographer and filmmaker. I’ve been using that room as my studio. Blah blah blah

Ah yes, nothing says doing “nothing sexual” like make fetish porno -- or rather -- films.

Billy, any time you want me to move my stuff in, I’m available.