When I started writing this column a couple months ago, I didn't expect the sheer volume of depression-inducing examples of sorry accommodations that have come our way, either through quick Craigslist searches or over the tip line thank you, by the way, those of you who are out there suffering as you look for a place to live and sending us the sorriest examples you come across. This week's edition is no better or worse than the rest, but it certainly is hilarious.
What we have here is an apartment share that lacks an actual bedroom the advertisers, two tenants who say they are "mid-20 engineers in tech" are calling the space a "flexed room" and a "converted living room," and as you can see it has a sad curtain situation that also features some cardboard U-Haul boxes forming a handsome dual-purpose wall-closet.
They call it a "china wall," by which I think they mean Chinese wall, which is a type of imaginary, informational wall in business and legal dealings, and I think they really just mean "fake wall." And as you can see, above right, the previous tenant needed to drink.
One can guess that these two engineers in their mid-twenties are paying upwards of $5000 or $6000 for this beige-carpeted, duplex SoMa palace (they note their bedrooms are upstairs, and the new tenant will have "the first floor to yourself"), so they're just trying to offset their ridiculous rent by creating this ridiculous "room" for some desperate sucker who will never bring home a date and may very well have to seek counseling if he accepts this living arrangement and endures it for very long.
Did I say "he"? Of course they do not give their gender or specify a gender for their desired roommate, but it's obvious these are two guys. And we all know there aren't that female engineers are like unicorns, so... I feel safe with the assumption. And no woman is ever going go to answer this ad.
Yep, definitely dudes.
The new tenant, who'd be paying $1500 for this 100-square-foot half of the living room, is promised "full PRIVACY" in capital letters, because obviously floor-to-ceiling curtains make this totally PRIVATE.
And this tenant also will get his own bathroom, which is nice, because this is apparently a two-bedroom with two and a half baths but wait, now I'm wondering if this isn't actually a three-bedroom, and these two tech bros (/nerds) just turned an upstairs room into their man cave or something and decided it'd be better to stick the new roommate downstairs.
Also, this is one of those buildings with a party room, and a game room, and a big roof terrace with barbecues, so it's definitely upwards of $5000. And if you decide to move here you will need those communal spaces for entertaining, because this apartment no longer has a living room, and this is what's described as the "Small dining room with table for 4 people," on the other side of the curtain from your awesome bedroom:
Just think. After you move in you won't have waste time posting pictures of your new pad on Facebook, or sending photos home to Mom, because it will be too soul-crushingly embarrassing to do that. Nope. You just moved to San Francisco for a cool new job and you found yourself this barely adequate foothold in town, living with a couple of selfish engineers who don't know what a Chinese wall is and who stay upstairs in their man cave playing video games all the time while you're lying on your memory-foam mattress, staring at the ceiling and quietly sobbing. Ah, the prime of your life.
Comes with free memory-foam mattress!
