Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Putting my apartment out there...

...and getting a Craigslist roommate (this will be a 2 part entry, see the second part tomorrow)

For starters, the hardest part about not updating my blog in months is there is a lot of back story to getting to where I am today (and that is both a literal and figurative reference).

But okay, here we go.

I lived in the bottom of a duplex in a great old, east coast style house, washer dryer in house, and with a bedroom available with a huge closet, a private half bath, all hardwood floors, huge kitchen, parking space in a private driveway, shared with myself, my good friend B, and 2 adorable friendly cats. Cheap rent split 3 ways, cable and wireless internet already in house. See pictures below.










If that sounds like it could be a Craigslist ad, it's because it was basically a craigslist ad. The Craigslist ad for my apartment. B (a very good friend who moved in with me in April, but only really lived with me for about 10 days before he got into a motorcycle accident, thus leaving me with our very large 3 bed 1.5 bath house all to myself) and I had tried to convince our landlord to lower the rent of our apartment so we could rent it between ourselves and not have to get a third roommate, despite saying she was fine with it twice (I have witnesses) she ended up not lowering our rent to split between just the 2 of us. First off, it's not like we were asking for a 1/3 reduction, we were asking for 150 a month off, of our already over priced apartment. Alas no, so we decided in the interest of saving money, we'd find a third.

We tried all the not Craigslist ways first, asking people we know, posting it on facebook, asking people we know to ask people they know, so on and so forth. No bites, okay fine, Craigslist it was. I tried, half heartedly at first and got no bites. I tried a little harder and added more pictures and more description and I got some bites.

People actually came to the house to check it out, but what does one say when someone comes to check out the apartment?!?!!? What does one say about themselves as well? it's worse than a job interview, because at least with a job interview you are not being judge on your personal life, how you keep your house, you taste, and your ability to clean a kitchen floor that no matter how hard you try will just not stay clean for more than 10 seconds! After a couple of people came, we still got no where. No where at all. It was worse than online dating and worse than getting rejected from a job, well what is wrong with me, my house etc?!?!?

No idea, I cleaned the house, I lit candles, I even made my bed, I organized things just so, I made sure the house looked homey and I was welcoming. No idea what I was doing wrong. Sure, we didn't live in the greatest are of LA, but I got robbed in the valley and mugged at gun point in Hollywood...and never had any sort of problem in my little section of Koreatown...

It's like being rejected from a birthday party in grade school, it's like not getting a second date, it's like being turned down at bar! It's kind of insulting, why don't you want to live with me in our apartment? I started to wonder what was wrong with me, was I smelly? OMG did I become the smelly kid in class? Did I sound desperate and creepy, I feel like my friends would have told me if I was creepy. Do I look super poor? Omg! Maybe I should get a flat screen and a cleaning lady and a decorator? (nope, trying to get a roommate to save money!) Should I offer to cook dinner every night? Should I mention, I'm a workaholic and it's okay if you like the apartment and not me because I'm NEVER there? I don't know. Talk about feeling vulnerable and like a loser, at least on OKcupid I found guys who wanted to get in my pants, I couldn't even find a roommate on Craigslist who wanted to call me back after I offered them the apartment!

So after 2 months of trying, B and I decided screw it, we could find a cheaper place where we could have our own bathrooms, and a little bit more updated bright apartment. We even found a place I was going to check out Downtown.

Then I got laid off, and since B was on disability because aforementioned motorcycle accident, so despite the fact that we were upstanding nice people with good rental histories, we highly doubted the coveted Downtown LA apartment complex was going to take us without either of us having full time jobs.

So, once again back to Craigslist. I must have posted the ad above 15 times over the course of 3 days, breaking every rule of Craigslist, but we were desperate. Then the battle became how do I show this apartment, and not sound desperate. I was bad at this, and it showed, 3 people came to visit before I even had one person who was remotely interested. Then, when they showed even the slightest interest I'm pretty sure I scared them away.

Enter, 22 year old Fashion School fresh from the East Coast roommate candidate. She was desperate for a place to live, and I was desperate for someone to share the rent with us. She seemed normal, responsible if not a bit young, and willing to pay, so I gave her a pen and an application and we signed on the dotted line.

Someone was moving in and I would have a nice, normal, seemingly awesome human companion in the house until B returned and I would not yet become a crazy cat lady (though I actually really looooooooooooved having the whole house to myself for those 2 mos, no offense B!) and B and I had someone to take over 1/3 of rent.

Done and Done...


Or so we thought...

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