Craigspeak
I can’t remember life before the internet, and of all the sites, craigslist.org is my favorite. There are craigslists for most of the major cities in the US, but I was unaware of it till I moved to L.A. You can find yard sales, used goods, apartments for rent, sales jobs, writing gigs, and kinky sex - all on craigslist.
Particularly, I love apartment hunting, even though I have no intention of moving for another couple years. There’s just something enthralling about running these searches for apartments. Sometimes I even go look at the locations physically, to get a feel for what property managers mean in their descriptions, and I’ve noticed a few euphemisms that crop up regularly.
The first phrase to beware of is “conveniently located”. This is a positive spin on the fact that the unit is a block away from the Viper Room, where drunks will pee under your window as they stagger back to their cars and undertake an evening of vehicular homicide. If you are “conveniently located” near Mann’s Chinese Theater, you are living on the ramp to the 101. Your life will devolve into a blur of tourists, homeless opportunists, and semi trucks that seem to be rumbling through your living room.
Another buzzphrase is “pets welcome!”. This means the place is a wreck and no one is even fighting it anymore. That’s bad. I want a place where I have to wrangle and bribe to get my cats in. I don’t want another yard that is mostly bald patches and dog poop, with suspicious smells in the hallways.
Finally, and I don’t know why this is, but “clean” seems to mean “small, cheap, and ugly.” It just does. Every time.
My next goal is to find out what “quiet” means. I mean… what it really means.
