If you're looking to live in Buena Vista/Ashbury Heights with four to eight of your closest friends, all of whom are gainfully employed, have I got a steal for you!

I wasn't sure what I'd find in looking through the Craigslist candidates for Apartment Sadness today — it's been a while since I've scrolled the apartment pages and for all I know things have gotten much more fairly priced since San Francisco went through a pandemic and two years of being constantly portrayed as a forsaken hellhole in the national press.

But it didn't take long at all to spy this pernicious listing for a "Victorian" that's priced at $9,999 per month. Fully furnished and with an alleged five bedrooms with king beds, and with no lease term stated, this is a rental that seems to be seeking quick cash from some transient tech workers or the like — or someone entrepreneurial who wants to play master tenant for a household of five and perhaps live for little or no net rent, even though that might not be on the up and up.

It is billed "The Largest Victorian In Buena Vista," which, prove it.

And look, it has a completely charmless and tiny kitchen to be shared by five-plus roommates and whoever they're dating! So much for the largest kitchen in Buena Vista!

I only see four placemats and ten bucks says that kitchen table is shoved up against a wall to the right, so you and your four roommates can't even sit down for dinner together all at once. Lord knows one of the five "bedrooms" was originally a dining room.

Is $10,000 a month the going rate for furnished five-bedrooms in SF right now? I have no idea! But given the dearth of decent photos — we only get a glimpse at one nice-ish bedroom (below) and one sort of shitty bedroom (second photo below) — this does not seem like a good deal at all. $2,000 a month, times five roommates, to live with that kitchen?

At least one person gets a bedroom with a (non-working?) fireplace, some IKEA sheets, and a bay window.

At least one of this Victorian's parlor areas is being used a common space, complete with a wall-mounted smart TV and dorm-style furniture. There's seating for a cozy six or seven for movie night! And if you spill Schlitz on those sofas, they wipe up real easy.

In other parts of the country, $10,000 a month would get you a palace with like, a putting green and tennis court and possibly a golf cart. Here, it's sad dorm furniture and — oh my god — only one full bath.

Yes, the bathroom below, with a shower curtain that sure was a choice, is the only place for five roommates paying two grand apiece to shower. There is another half-bath, not pictured in the ad, where someone could take sponge-baths I suppose.

You might be able to secure a year lease, but doubtful you'd get more at this place. The lack of investment in, like, anything but some paint and IKEA furniture would suggest either hope for high turnover, or a plan to evict everyone in a year or two and sell this place as a TIC. Or something like that.

Also, I'd put money down that some long-term tenants just got evicted before the latest paint colors and shower curtain went up. So the other scenario is that the owner knows they can't convert this away from rental housing without a major headache, so they're hoping just to make some money on the unit for a few years before selling, after getting rid of whoever was paying $1,200 for the whole thing for the last 30 years.

It could be yours for $9,999/month and a $35 application fee!

But I'd just recommend dreaming bigger, kid.

All previous editions of Apartment Sadness on SFist.

The iOS version version of the new Craigslist app shot to No. 10 in the App Store shopping category less than 48 hours after its launch, while the Android version is still in beta and requires you to 'Become a Tester.'

We at SFist have always enjoyed Craigslist as sort of a funhouse mirror version of San Francisco, a place where people seek such strangeness as dom-sub living arrangements, Pokémon Go bodyguards, or people with whom to conceive babies during lunar eclipses. But in reality since its 1995 founding, SF-based Craigslist has generally been a fabulous convenience and one of the tech’s rare ethical disruptors. While it may have killed off legacy business verticals like print classified advertising and Rent Tech, the site’s founder Craig Newmark has always been generous to nonprofits, and the Craiglist Foundation (now LikeMinded) continues fundraising for worthy causes. Yet surprisingly, Craigslist has never had an official app in the smartphone era, creating a 'missed connection' that huckster devs have taken advantage of with copycat ripoffs or Craigslist scraping apps.

Effective yesterday, Craigslist has launched their app, according to Gizmodo. As 9to5 Mac notes, this development arrives 11 years into the App Store’s existence. The iOS Craigslist app is official, whereas the Android version is in Beta and invites you “to a testing program for an unreleased version of the craigslist app.”

In true Craigslist fashion, the app is visually simple and massively easy to use. The app does request your location on set-up, but if you want to avoid location-tracking, you can just enter your zip code. As TechCrunch also notes, you still get full functionality without creating an account, letting you just cruise the posts anonymously.

As of press time, the app already ranks at No. 10 in the iOS App Store Shopping category. But expect that ranking to rise. Just four hours ago, Gizmodo reported reported it was at No. 14 in that same category. The design is apparently a hit, with an average 4.6 out of 5 rating from 79 reviews.

Craigslist has come a long way since it’s old-time mid-1990s email listserv roots. It’s lost some of its most entertaining features like Erotic Services, Casual Encounters, and Strictly Platonic, but Craigslist’s refreshing stubbornness to evolve seems to remain intact in the new app version.  

Related: Craigslister Who Wants A Burning Man Ticket For His Treadmill Probably Isn't Going Anywhere [SFist]

Images: Craigslist app for iOS

An ad that went up on Craigslist this week from a rather demanding — perhaps delusionally so — San Francisco couple for a personal assistant was absurd enough to make many wonder whether it might be fake/satire. The entitlement and intense lack of self-awareness of certain New San Francisco denizens is ripe fodder for satire, after all. But no, the thing appears all too real, and the couple — or one half of the couple, anyway — has actually responded to several requests for information from some bloggers in the last few days, and they would like everyone to know that they are unfazed by the negative attention, and maybe their critics need to "check their own entitlement."

All we get by way of further identifying info is that both halves of this couple work in biotech, which is something they've added to the updated job posting — which, by the way, has changed the compensation promised from $25-$30 an hour, to $15-$35 an hour. The poster responded to SFGate's inquiries saying, "The job ad is honest and transparent and on top of the cash compensation the person who fills the role will gain some amazing work and life experience." They've also changed another detail: The original ad said they were a 30-something couple, and now it says they're 40-something.

And by "amazing work and life experience" s/he appears to be referring to cleaning up dog vomit, chasing said dog into the ocean, arranging flowers, doing dishes, cooking, giving manicures, conducting "investment research," "taking notes" while they're on important business calls, and updating the couple's social media.

As for that latter task, the poster clarified to Ars Technica's Cyrus Farivar over email that "The social media is mostly for the dog. We hate taking photos and interacting with social media but it's also nice to have a timeline of great memories with our cute dog [whom they don't have time to walk or bathe], which our family and friends would love to see as well." Just imagine if they had children!

Farivar posted the whole reply on Twitter, and it also includes some defensiveness about how they've gotten twice as many "legit" seeming applications for the job as they have hate mail, and "Unfortunately, none of the hate mail had any helpful criticism. It was all along the lines of 'I'm too good for that job at that price' or 'you should get a wife' or 'you are terrible people.' I think all reflective of either jealousy, sexism or entitlement."

S/he says that they are open to hiring more than one person for all the duties laid out, but s/he says, "We're pretty confident it can be handled in 40 hours a week."

Perhaps what made the ad so funny to most of us, and so horrifying, is that we don't live in an age of Downton Abbey-style indentured servitude anymore, and most employers (even in Hollywood) aren't typically so transparent about the breadth of their needs and wants in a personal assistant/slave. Not to mention that yes, while $30 an hour would be "twice the minimum wage," as the poster says defensively, that's closer to the top of the range they say they want to pay, and the extent of the demands here probably calls for a lot more money — a well off Noe Valley couple, for instance, advertised a similar position last year that paid $175,000 a year. If you're going to be on-call 24 hours a day and perhaps risking your life to save a dog who swims too far into the ocean, that salary is getting closer to a reasonable one.

Slate notes that the ad "strikes several bizarre notes that border on offensive (most specifically in its all-caps insistence on English-language FLUENCY) and scream micromanager." On a positive note, they say the ad is evidence that "even annoying people in Silicon Valley have begun to realize the value of housework."

But if this is just an indicator of the kind of entitlement and absurd asks that are being rolled into all kinds of job ads these days, Employment Sadness may just have to become a regular column here.

Previously: Employment Sadness: SF Couple Seeks Assistant To Do Absolutely Everything From Manicures To Instagram

We won't get to see the total solar eclipse here in the Bay Area, but it will be visible through a swath of northern Oregon, and at least one local man wants to use this event to its fullest cosmic advantage: He wants to have sex with a woman and conceive a child at the moment of the eclipse. In Oregon.

In a post to Craigslist (obviously), the 40-year-old Martinez man insists, with no awareness of how racist it sounds, that he's a "caucasian male from Europe" and his "heritage is strong and pure." Also, "My looks, instincts, knowledge and strength is 100% pure and 100% lethal."

Lethal, huh? Anyway, he's looking for a "worthy female with strong genes, beauty and smarts" to join him in experiencing "the totality" with "simultaneous orgasms." Also, he has a grand idea, perhaps one that came to him while not exactly sober that "we will conceive a child that will be on the next level of human evolution."

And it gets grosser! "We will make love together, with me and my penis directed towards the sun. Everything will be aligned in the local universe. Both of our cosmic orgasmic energy will be aligned with the planets. In a brief moment of ecstasy, we will understand everything, and together, create a new universe. Full of love..."

But here's the funniest part: "You must like cats. Drugs are OK. Nitrous Oxide while we climax and experience totality and conception, is OK with me."

So I guess the cat will be along for the ride in whatever disgusting RV this guy has for making this trip?

As The Oregonian points out, after chuckling about this ad, conception doesn't happen right at the moment of orgasm, and can actually take anywhere from a few hours to five days after sex to occur. So it's a nice dream, but not exactly one that's scientifically possible, this eclipse baby.

Now you can go back to calming down your astrologically inclined friends who think the eclipse is going to cause a nuclear war or whatever.

Occasionally, Craigslist offers us a naked glimpse into the world we live in now and the insufferable private lives of its inhabitants, much as it offers us a window into the horrors of SF rental properties. Today this comes via a job posting that went up around 1 a.m. this morning for a personal assistant in South Park that basically sounds like indentured servitude and psychological torture for $25-$30 an hour, depending on your tolerance of either of the above.

The posting comes from a 30-something couple who describe themselves as executives who have crazy work lives these days "which means that we don't have time to maintain our personal lives." What that amounts to (and I'm going to assume the poster is female for reasons you'll understand) is that this couple has resorted to eating "unhealthy take-out and processed foods," "personal social media accounts are neglected," they don't go on date nights because they don't have time to open an app and make a reservation, and vacations aren't taken because "there's no time to plan them." The dog needs walks and brushing. The dishes need washing. Also, "nail polish gets chipped and remains chipped, investment opportunities go un-researched," and "I buy fresh flowers but don't have time to trim daily and change the water."

[Update: The couple appears very real, they've responded to various media inquiries, and now they admit they're actually "40-something."]

Basically their lives are utter hell, and they need someone with a litany of characteristics, sensibilities, and abilities to do their errands, clip their toenails, post to their Instagram, and attend to their every whim so that they can sit on their laptops and work work work, and hopefully go to dinner sometimes.

Now, while it's a given that the job of personal assistant — especially in Hollywood! — takes a certain kind of person with a great deal of patience, a subservient streak, and a high threshold for abuse, the requirements for this job, and the description of the ideal candidate — which is really an unvarnished look into this one person's manic psyche — is pretty special:

You aren't dramatic or tightly wound, however, you're also not lazy or sloth-like (nothing against sloths). You're level-headed and your friends think you have great judgment. You're down to earth, not cocky, humble, and always willing to admit when you're wrong. You aren't too stubborn to apologize. You don't get defensive and deflect. You own your mistakes and see them as opportunities to improve. You have confidence in yourself and although you are very empathetic, you rarely get overwhelmed by your emotions. You aren't dramatic and you aren't having regular melt-downs. You're warm, welcoming, and always down for a good time. You take pride in your work quality (no matter what it is -- big or small) and believe everything you create is a reflection of you and your character/abilities so you want it to be good. You notice inefficiencies and tend to find ways to save time, streamline, or automate where you can. You're observant and detail-oriented. You always know where your keys are or where your wallet is because you make it a point to place them in the same place. You have a great memory and rarely have to say "Oh, I forgot." You believe that there's a place for everything and everything should be in its place. You're naturally organized and clean. You don't like messiness. You feel compelled to straighten items if they're crooked. Aesthetics, design, and beauty in life are things that you notice and appreciate. It genuinely makes you happy to help others and make others smile. You find it rewarding to do things for others. (If you don't feel this way, you will either hate this role or it will be awkward for us because you won't seem happy.) Your friends think that you're the one in your group who has their act together the most in terms of being responsible, responsive, and risk-averse. You take pride in working smart vs. working hard. You do things well AND you do it as quickly as possible. You consistently strive for both quality and speed. You like to laugh and your friends think you can be funny. You smile and/or laugh when you tell a joke or say something humorous (dry senses of humor need not apply)! You care about visual presentation and delivery of your words. You enjoy making things look nice. You enjoy making things smell nice. You have a kind heart and try to not be selfish. You are generous with your attention and love. You are a strong communicator and can tell an engaging story. If something needs to get done, you find a way. You're very comfortable with technology and devices. You use your smartphone all the time. You use your laptop all the time. Google is your best friend. You take pride in how you look -- whatever that "look" or style may be for you. At the same time, you also want to be practical and functional (e.g., you're "bohemian chic" but avoid the giant wedges that will prevent you from hustling around town, you're "cool hipster" but don't wear the super tight jeans that won't leave you room in your pockets to hold my dog's potty bags, you're totally "minimalistic modern" but avoid the white on white look so you're not afraid to get dirty when cooking, etc.)

And that's not all!! The commitment is basically seven days a week, with on-call required 24-7 for "urgent" matters. And you're required to swim into the ocean if the dog ever swims out too far, to fetch him. You also had better enjoy giving mani-pedis, have a good sense of style, watch Game of Thrones, work out regularly when you're not tending to this couple's every need, and not drink more than FIVE DRINKS PER WEEK. It doesn't even pay as well as this $175K/yr gig that a rich Noe Valley couple was offering last year.

REQUIREMENTS: ----------------------

* Written and spoken English language FLUENCY
* Able to maintain strict confidentiality
* No smokers (cigarettes, marijuana, other)
* No heavy drinkers (max of 5 drinks per week)
* No drug users
* No past criminal record
* Must love dogs and animals
* Valid drivers license (car will be provided if necessary for work) with experience driving in SF
* Experience with GSuite, MSOffice, Adobe Suite
* Experience with MacOS and iOS (computer and phone will be provided)
* Touch typing 60+ WPM
* Prior experience as dog owner
* No injuries or physical constraints that would impede your ability to rearrange furniture, lift a 40 lb dog up several flights of stairs, carry heavy grocery bags or luggage, etc.
* Able to swim well in the ocean (dog likes swimming; you may need to get him when he goes out too far)
* Able to protect a dog from being attacked by another dog
* Willing and happy to clean up occasional dog vomit and/or diarrhea

BONUS POINTS:
----------------------

* Multilingual
* Experience as a personal/executive assistant
* Experience with a high-maintenance dog (long haired, allergies, etc.)
* Experience with long hair in general (you have long hair and know how to brush tangled hair without causing pain)
* You are a great cook and know how to make both rich, savory vs. lean, healthy meals
* Enjoy giving manicures/pedicures
* Well-traveled
* Experience in high-end/luxury retail or hospitality industry
* Good eye for design and style
* Prior experience reviewing and negotiating contracts
* Prior experience with home redesign, remodel, contractor management
* Physically strong
* Lift weights and/or tone as exercise
* Practiced in self defense or fighting styles (you can protect someone who is in danger)
* You like fashion
* You watch GoT and/or Silicon Valley
* Former or current aquarium owner (know how to set up a tank and create an ecosystem)

And (Jesus Christ), they ask as part of the application process that you write an email describing how you're both perfect for the job and imperfect, and "record and attach a 5 min video of you answering ALL of the following: What did you like about this posting? Confirm if this posting applies to you 100% (including personality description, qualifications, schedule, responsibilities, etc.)... Can you cook us delicious food? What else should we know about you?" and more.

Are these the worst people in San Francisco? Should we take this as an example of what New San Francisco hath wrought on this city where once upon a time the joke was "San Francisco is where young people go to retire"?

I'm going to say no, because a) I'm sure there's someone worse, and b) perhaps this job posting came out of the mind of an extremely stressed, overworked person who believes in the magic of fictional servants like Mary Poppins and Pepper Potts, and who really just needs a Xanax and a bottle of wine before she hurts someone.

Know anybody with absolutely zero pride or self-worth who really, really needs a job? Bonus points if they have no life of their own and are willing to perform sexual favors for one or the other half of this couple when the other is too busy sending emails.

Related: Extremely Fancy Noe Valley Rich People Seek $175K Pantry Organizer

Vik Paruchuri, who runs a data science tutorial company called Dataquest, was concerned. Moving with his girlfriend from Boston to the Bay Area, how would they find an apartment in one of the most difficult, expensive housing markets in the country? Maybe, Paruchuri thought, he could apply his technical expertise. He decided to build a program and, in the process, write a tutorial about it on his website as a sort of testimonial for his work. After just a week, they found an apartment in Pac Heights for below median rent and signed a lease.

Four months later, Paruchuri tells SFist "it's been great, we love the city, we love where we live here." But while he's convinced that they found the place thanks to his code, I'm not so sure. Instead, I'd suggest that the couple succeeded in the same way anyone else does: Through a combination of factors including luck, perseverance, and having enough money and the right credentials to get, and then pay, for an apartment.

We read that landlords hold open houses, and that you have to bring all of your paperwork to the open house and be willing to put down a deposit immediately to even be considered. We started exhaustively researching the process, and figured out that a lot of finding an apartment comes down to timing. Some landlords want to hold an open house no matter what, but for others, being one of the first people to see the apartment usually means that you can get it. You need to find the listing, quickly figure out if it meets your criteria, then call the landlord to arrange a showing to have a shot.

To give him that shot, Paruchuri built bots on Slack, the messaging app, that would send the couple listings as they met certain criteria on Craigslist. (He includes the entirety of his code for your perusal.) Those were neighborhood, price, and so on — just things listed on Craigslist.

But those in the apartment hunting game probably know that Craigslist's alert feature will email you listings based on criteria you set, in real time, as they're posted. And frankly, there's little that's different about the complicated, reinvented wheel that Paruchuri put together. When I chatted with him on the phone, he did note that "A couple of people have said you could do this a simpler way," and when I asked what differentiated his bots from existing alerts, he said "I don't know how Craigslist email alerts work... I didn't spend hours researching what's out there, I just made something that works."

Paruchuri says that being the first person to see what's now his apartment was important."The code was really critical," he tells me, "and if that hadn't happened, we wouldn't have had real time listings." However, another user with a Craigslist alert or just perusing the site would be able to see it at the same time, and hell, maybe even get to the spot faster with an Uber or better timing and luck.

I wish Paruchuri had hacked the housing search process! But I don't think that can be done. Often, for example, landing cheaper rent means moving in to an established apartment with roommates who have been there for some time. You can't write some code to get along with them or meet their requirements or to get the right word-of-mouth tips.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is, to those who might have seen Paruchuri's technical know-how in his tutorial and thought "cool!" I'l try that!" Go for it, it sounds like good practice and it can't hurt. But if you thought to yourself "I can't do that, how am I going to find housing?" don't despair, either.

Previously: New Startup Turns Renting Apartments Into eBay-Like Bidding War

Pokémon Go was developed right here in San Francisco by Niantic, Inc., so it seems only fitting that the next big disruption to come to the world of augmented reality gaming should also come from our innovation-gilded streets. We're talking, of course, about a post on Craigslist offering up the services of a Pokémon Go bodyguard.

It's difficult to tell if the listing, picked up by Capp Street Crap, is serious (an email to the poster has gone unanswered as of press time), but it's not too hard to imagine that it's more than satire. Keeping in mind the very real difficulties, like getting robbed, one might encounter while wandering around the city with a face glued to a $600 phone, the ad's opening is believable enough. It's where things go from there that begs the question as to just how deep into the Pokéworld we've all really gone.

"Trying to catch them all, but worried about getting robbed in the process?," the ad asks. "That's where I come in. My name is Larry and I am a professional bodyguard who is here to protect you while you search San Francisco for Pokemon."

OK we're with Larry so far. After all, even the San Francisco Police Department has warned about the dangers of getting jumped while playing the game.

"I live across the street from a battle arena and have seen several people almost get robbed or jumped for their iPhone," Larry continues. "DON'T BE IDIOTS PEOPLE! Is that Caterpie really worth it? NO."

Again, Larry is spot on. The chance to capture a digital worm is not worth getting jumped for. And hey, the $20 an hour listed price seems like a pretty good deal. It's where things go from there that has us scratching our heads (emphasis added).

I have been working on a leash system that allows you to be connected to me at all times. We can adjust the length of the leash so you can roam freely around the park or city with the comfort of knowing I am right behind you ready to kick some ass if needed.

I am also willing to discount my rates for multiple players. I can comfortably connect up to 3 leashes to my Poke-belt. I don't have any great photos of the belt :/ but did find something online that shows the idea. I would be the badass dog in this illustration, you would be the girl looking at her phone.

Unfortunately bodyguard "Larry" didn't respond to our email, which, in addition to straight up asking him if this is BS, inquired if he'd had anyone reach out to him about securing his services.

We may know for sure one way or another anyhow — it'd be pretty hard to miss someone walking around multiple Pokémon Go players on a leash. Which, if you see this, please, please send us photos.

Update: The person behind the posting returned our email, and, while the listing turns out to be a joke, it is one rooted in the author's own experience.

"I actually made this for fun to share with friends as a reminder of how dangerous Pokemon Go is," explained Jessica (not Larry). "I am an avid player and have found myself in some pretty dangerous situations by not paying attention to my surroundings. Today I actually ran into a tree branch trying to catch a Pokemon."

"While the leash is a joke idea," she continued, "you really do need someone watching out for you if you are totally focusing in on the game."

Our question as to whether or not any prospective clients have reached out to her was not answered, however, with the game continuing to grow in popularity, we would not be surprised if a cottage industry did in fact spring up around it — Pokémon bodyguards possibly included.

Related: SFPD Forced To Issue Pokémon Go Safety Tips
Pokemon Go Claims First San Francisco Mugging Victims

An Outer Richmond man who thought he'd lined up a buyer for some unwanted laptops ended up with a worse deal than he'd hoped, after the purported buyer robbed him instead.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the 36-year-old aspiring laptop seller had been advertising his wares on Craigslist, when he got a bite: A man in his 20s who agreed to purchase the seller's laptops.

The seller wisely arranged to meet the buyer in public on Wednesday evening, according to SFPD spokesperson Officer Grace Gatpandan, but the buyer stood him up.

The rejected seller headed back to his abode on the 600 block of 33rd Avenue (that's between Anza and Balboa Streets) at around 10:12 p.m.

That's when, police say, the supposed buyer appeared and robbed the seller of his laptops at gunpoint. The thief then fled in an unknown direction, and remained on the loose at publication time.

According to Gatpandan, it's unclear how the ruffian learned the laptop seller's address. She also reminded the Ex that any time you set up a sale on Craigslist or elsewhere, there's the possibility of a mugging like this one.

“When you’re selling things there’s always that risk that you could be subject to [become] the victim of a crime,” Gatpandan told the Ex.

“Definitely do not conduct the transaction at your home" she said. Instead, Gatpandan suggested, consider meeting at the lobby of your local police station, which is "available for such purposes 24 hours a day." So, remember to head to your friendly neighborhood police station the next time you decide to sell your couch, bed, or carpet! I'm sure they'll be thrilled to host your transaction.

Ahmed Salah, a former Egyptian democracy activist and the author of You Are Under Arrest for Masterminding the Egyptian Revolution: A Memoir, seems to like San Francisco okay. In an excerpt posted to Pricenomics, Salah shares details of his activism in Cairo and his life now, formerly working as an SRO desk clerk and now teaching Arabic to get by.

In summary, writes Salah, "For years, I led protest movements, organized demonstrations, survived a hunger strike, torture, and prison, and trained activists to lead rallies on a day of revolution. It all culminated in the best day of my life: February 11, 2011, when Hosni Mubarak resigned and Egyptians sang songs and set off fireworks in the street. "

Salah had been involved in activism for many years beforehand, he writes, and hardly was any of it celebratory. After his encampment was raided on one occasion, Sala writes that "I spent six weeks in prison, indefinitely detained and on hunger strike. Guards beat me, held mock executions, and told me my death would just be a bit of paperwork. Before the guards released me, the head of State Security threatened to bury me in prison if I showed my face at a protest again."

Even after Mubarak's defeat, there was an assassination attempt, criticism in the media, and further threats. As Salah explains, "For the last three years, though, I have lived in self-imposed exile in San Francisco. I was fleeing assassination attempts and newspaper headlines that smeared me as a traitor. I found safety—and the pain of dislocation and loss."

Why here? "I chose San Francisco because I knew it was a hub for activists—and I thought I would face fewer racist comments about Arabs and Muslims in California." Salah also appears to have a loose connection here in an Occupy Wall Street activist whom he had met in the States. But so far from home while much work remains to be done in Egypt, Salah appears frustrated.

I have a place to live, and while I am in debt, I’ve managed to make enough money from teaching Arabic to keep going. I like this city and the fact that I can go to the ocean, even though it fills me with survivor’s guilt. I do not know why I should live free while brave Egyptians suffer.

Indeed, the contrast is stark. As Salah writes, "Once I spent my days hustling between protests, interviews with journalists, and meetings with foreign diplomats. My goal was to free Egypt." And now? "on any given day," Salah says, "I struggle to make enough money to afford a slice of pizza. My goal is to avoid homelessness."

Sex, love, and other mysteries in the city your mother warned you about.

I left my heart in San Francisco, and it's the weirdest thing. It keeps turning up in places I don't remember leaving it.

In 2007 I could have sworn it was gone for good. That's when — rookie mistake — I started to mix up the ideas of loving a San Franciscan and loving San Francisco. I might have left it at my ex's favorite burrito spot or go-to video store, I'm forgetting, but I went to both religiously then. When it was over, I'd still go back to check for it every once-in-a-while, until the video store closed and Gordo's burritos got even worse.

I barely heard a murmur for a while there, so I even considered posting to Craigslist. Missed connections? Personals? I didn't want to seem desperate, but I was close. This, I imagine, is what Tony Bennett channelled when he crooned "I left my heart in San Francisco," for the first time in 1962, earning him a Grammy and eventually local sainthood. "High on a hill, it calls to me," he sings, but since there are a bunch of hills here, part of me wants to tell Bennett to be a little more specific if he wants to find this thing. Maybe tag an address in this Craiglist ad of a song, you know?

But maybe Bennett isn't being clear for a reason — maybe he can't be. "My love waits there in San Francisco," he sings, making it seem like there's some actual person he loves in SF. But then he's like "When I come home to you, San Francisco / Your golden sun will shine for me." Now he's singing to the whole city — the fog, the light — all imbued with his love.

It's a well-known hazard with romanticized places (looking at you, Paris) that a person in love can get confused between the object and location of their affection. They're interrelated! But theres no love in the heart of the city — just people, and that's precisely it.

What I'm saying, bear with me here, is that if you love San Francisco, you're kind of polyamorous, as we all naturally are to some degree. Yes, you love SF in part because of the architecture and the hills, cable cars, and dope ramen shops. But that's just the backdrop. What, or whom, you've really fallen in love with is the people. Maybe you've done it in a serially monogamous way, or perhaps not quite, because nothing is ever neat and tidy. But, if you're doing it right, you'll leave your heart — at least in pieces — all over town.

As you might expect, I've misplaced my heart many times now, and have no real plans to stop. I left my heart on a stoop and spotted it, from a distance, at the beach. It turned up on a dating app (I swiped right but got totally ghosted). I even caught a glimmer of my heart in the rain last night. It took off, to where I'm not sure, but it's bound to find me somewhere soon.

Previously: Eff-ing In SF, Vol. 1: How To Use Tinder

Finding an apartment on Craigslist is hard work, all the harder in a tight market. The endless emails that never seem to get returned, the weird phone calls, the showing up to a crowded Victorian, jockeying with fifteen other potential renters for the attention of the master tenant, only to then be told you have 30 seconds to record a "roommate pitch" into a video camera that all your potential-future housemates will watch later that evening, probably while drinking wine and laughing at your sad attempts to make yourself sound interesting (true story) — it's enough to make someone give up hope. But not one young man, who this past weekend posted a job listing to Craigslist offering to pay someone $17 an hour to do it for him.

The listing, which was deleted by the author at some point today, was an attempt to outsource one part of the housing search: the writing of all those damned emails.

Hi, I'm looking for someone to help me peruse craigslist and other apartment rental sites and submit roommate application emails on my behalf. I'm a mid 30's male and I'll provide you all the search criteria that you need.

The listing goes on to clarify that even though the poster can't be bothered to write the emails himself, he's not about to abandon his rigorous standards of excellence.

Preferably you'll have a pretty good grasp of the English language; you don't need to be a Stanford scholar but please know the difference between "then and than," "you're and your," etc.

Which, I mean, yeah, bad grammar is a definite turnoff in a future housemate. But come on, $17 an hour? You want to pay someone to be your personal copywriter/pitchperson all the while digging through the terrible, terrible muck of Craigslist apartments for $17 an hour?

Is this what we've come to, San Francisco?

Eager to hop off life's treadmill and go play on the playa, one Craigslister has been hoping to trade in his literal treadmill — an expensive one! — for a ticket to Burning Man. Bartering, after all, is very much the ethos, no?

But lingering for nearly a week on the site and spotted by an SFist tipster, the proposed trade might not have been too enticing. After all, you could probably sell your BM ticket for cash and get another, perhaps nicer piece of exercise equipment than this one.

Furthermore, the festivities in the Black Rock desert kicked off yesterday with dust (and some sage advice from Burner bro Susan Sarandon). This is cutting it close by now. Perhaps throw in a few barbells or an exercise mat to sweeten the deal?

SFist has reached out regarding the deal and will report back. One other strange detail, however, seems worth noting. If injury has prevented the Craigslister from using his treadmill at all — even walking on it? — how do they plan on navigating the shifting sands of Burning Man? Perhaps via an art car?

Though the Craigslister confirmed to SFist that there haven't been any offers (yet), it's still #playaorbust. There's still hope, they say.

Related: Stern Advice To The Woman Too Injured To Work But Crowdfunding Her Way To Burning Man

Putting the "sub" in "sublet," a man recently posted to Craigslist about an "ideal living situation for [a] dominant, open-minded/selfish str8 guy!"

Sure, in this market, $650 a month for a room in San Francisco is pretty ideal. And if you're "a real man's man," a "straight white guy (18-33)" who "hates doing house cleaning and other things he doesn't have time to do," the deal keeps getting sweeter.

But there is a catch that could turn creepy or at least occasionally awkward. In this "legit, but somewhat unique, living situation" you'll be the "'man of the house'" giving orders to your "personal *bitch*." Other perks include "no annoying stairs to climb" and a "sunny" apartment with "easy access to bars... near public transit and lots of retail places and eateries."

If you keep up with Craigslist you might suspect to find half a dozen fetish dungeons on your block alone. Ads like this, whether they be m4m, m4w, or tucked into the apartment shares are a dime a dozen in the Bay Area. And surely there are stranger fetish-y housing arrangements than this one out there. As the author himself notes: "No need to be weirded out, this can be a really fun, and helpful, living experience for you in a city where things aren't exactly 100% normal or mainstream, right?"

The post has been "flagged for removal," so these are just screenshots. But if you have a tight budget and a high tolerance for creepy gay men fawning over you, keep checking Craigslist because I've seen this posted and deleted a couple times in the last couple days.

And good luck explaining this to mom, if she ever visits.

In a Craigslist Christmas miracle that fell a few days after the holiday, San Francisco was graced with a visit from the itinerant Brooklyn artist behind the series Set In The Street, Justin Bettman, who collaborates with Gözde Eker to create unusual sets in unexpected places.

The installation on 18th Street at Valencia was assembled from free Craigslist items to evoke Christmas morning. And, with typical San Francisco rental market gallows humor, Redditors joked that the "room" could rent for $2,400 thanks to its location (utilities not included).

Naturally, this was a hit with Instagrammers strolling down the Valencia corridor, with many employing the hashtag #setinthestreet. Here's hoping it'll be back again someday, but until then, you can check out some of Bettman's other work here.