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?