This blog eats me
As mentioned yesterday, we’ve been shopping around for a new place to live. The process over here is to look on Craigslist. They are stupid crazy over Craigslist for some reason, despite, y’know, all the Craigslist murders.
Searching through the “rooms, shared” board is draining, especially because we’re looking for two bedrooms and it’s hard to narrow your search for two separate furnished bedrooms and get decent results. So we’ve placed ads in the “rooms wanted” category.
Our ad basically read: we’re looking for two separate furnished rooms at a place that’s walkable to a subway. When you place an ad is you’re given an anonymised address (az56523178324@craigslist.org, for example) and when someone emails that, it’s forwarded on to your proper email address. You can’t email from that address, so you have to use your own email – so that’s where the anonymous privacy stops. That’s why you only write back to decent offers.
Such as the one we received from someone called Judy. “I have a 2 bedroom apartment in my home which is located 5 minute walk to Eglinton West subway station,” it read. It carried on, and she sounded like a pretty nice chick with a suitable apartment for us.
So I wrote back a basic reply using my mail@joshdare.com address, saying the place sounded great and we’d like a viewing. The problem being, of course, that my email address is derived from my website – so if anyone had the wherewithal to even care, from the email address you could figure out there’s website at joshdare.com. And if you did have enough sneaky sneaky about you, you could visit that website, see the links and realise, oh hey! He has a blog too!
And then proceed to read it in meticulous crazy stalker detail.
Then reply:
Thanks for your reply.
I was reading your blog. I don’t want to find myself or my home described on your blog…About the loud music, I hope it won’t be an issue. I didn’t quite understand what you were saying about the person who hit you.
It is possible to see the apartment as long as you agree not to write about it on your blog. If you don’t like it, that’s fine and that should be the end. When would you like to come by? Phone me or give me 2 or 3 times you might be available. When do you want to move?
What. Do. You. Fucking. Mean.
She’s gone ahead and over-reacted over the two most recent posts where I described the houses we’d viewed, and how the hostel told me off for music that wasn’t actually loud. She missed the point of both entirely, but I suppose the two posts she referenced could be construed as somewhat relevant to a landlord.
However, casually trying to clarify what my opinion was of the person who sent me into a coma and a month of rehab: you fucking crazy, lady. On which planet would that be OK? Why is it any of your fucking business? And get to that post, you would’ve read my more morose posts where I acknowledged the somber gravity of what happened; and how much it fucked my head. Why you think it’s even polite to bring it up in conversation – when I don’t even know you – is a concern.
At the end of the day, I put the blog posts up for the whole world wide web to read, so shouldn’t be surprised when someone does. It’s just that I don’t put them up for prospective landlords to read. If she’d read it and kept it to herself, fine – but I certainly don’t put them up so they can serve as fodder for a paranoid grilling.
So, from now on, think I’ll just go back to using my Hotmail.
Searching through the “rooms, shared” board is draining, especially because we’re looking for two bedrooms and it’s hard to narrow your search for two separate furnished bedrooms and get decent results. So we’ve placed ads in the “rooms wanted” category.
Our ad basically read: we’re looking for two separate furnished rooms at a place that’s walkable to a subway. When you place an ad is you’re given an anonymised address (az56523178324@craigslist.org, for example) and when someone emails that, it’s forwarded on to your proper email address. You can’t email from that address, so you have to use your own email – so that’s where the anonymous privacy stops. That’s why you only write back to decent offers.
Such as the one we received from someone called Judy. “I have a 2 bedroom apartment in my home which is located 5 minute walk to Eglinton West subway station,” it read. It carried on, and she sounded like a pretty nice chick with a suitable apartment for us.
So I wrote back a basic reply using my mail@joshdare.com address, saying the place sounded great and we’d like a viewing. The problem being, of course, that my email address is derived from my website – so if anyone had the wherewithal to even care, from the email address you could figure out there’s website at joshdare.com. And if you did have enough sneaky sneaky about you, you could visit that website, see the links and realise, oh hey! He has a blog too!
And then proceed to read it in meticulous crazy stalker detail.
Then reply:
Thanks for your reply.
I was reading your blog. I don’t want to find myself or my home described on your blog…About the loud music, I hope it won’t be an issue. I didn’t quite understand what you were saying about the person who hit you.
It is possible to see the apartment as long as you agree not to write about it on your blog. If you don’t like it, that’s fine and that should be the end. When would you like to come by? Phone me or give me 2 or 3 times you might be available. When do you want to move?
What. Do. You. Fucking. Mean.
She’s gone ahead and over-reacted over the two most recent posts where I described the houses we’d viewed, and how the hostel told me off for music that wasn’t actually loud. She missed the point of both entirely, but I suppose the two posts she referenced could be construed as somewhat relevant to a landlord.
However, casually trying to clarify what my opinion was of the person who sent me into a coma and a month of rehab: you fucking crazy, lady. On which planet would that be OK? Why is it any of your fucking business? And get to that post, you would’ve read my more morose posts where I acknowledged the somber gravity of what happened; and how much it fucked my head. Why you think it’s even polite to bring it up in conversation – when I don’t even know you – is a concern.
At the end of the day, I put the blog posts up for the whole world wide web to read, so shouldn’t be surprised when someone does. It’s just that I don’t put them up for prospective landlords to read. If she’d read it and kept it to herself, fine – but I certainly don’t put them up so they can serve as fodder for a paranoid grilling.
So, from now on, think I’ll just go back to using my Hotmail.
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