Since today is basically a Friday, and the last day of the year, I've decided to recap this terribly sad, though sadly funny year of Craigslist scouring and apartment-hunting schadenfreude. No doubt, if I so much as opened Craigslist and did a quick search I could, as I have just about every week, find something awful, depressing, and/or suicide-inducing within 10 minutes. But it's New Year's Eve! It's a time for looking back on the year that was, and looking forward to a brighter tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, in 2016 I'll run out of material for this column. If only.

These are ranked from least sad to most sad, so, enjoy the sadness.

8. A Closet in the Fillmore
Way back in March I came across this listing for a (no joke) walk-in closet for rent in a two-bedroom, with two other roommates. The roomies were only asking $625 a month for this "semi-large walk-in closet" in which there was room for a twin mattress and a small dresser which was formerly the crash pad of a graffiti artist. On the plus side, they weren't trying to rip anybody off and it sure beats sharing a bunk-bed room with three other people for three times the price (or a closet masquerading as a room for 2.5x the price with 50 other roommates). On the minus side, your home is a closet, and this isn't New York. At least, it wasn't until very recently.

7. A 216-Square-Foot Studio In Noe Valley
Crazily, this was the post that launched the column, which I didn't even intend to be a regular column at the time. Looking back on it (this was actually over a year ago, in December 2014), it's almost quaint by comparison to all the dreck we've looked at together in the year since. It's clean, the floors are new, it has a window. Sure, it's barely big enough for a queen bed and that "kitchen" may not even be legal, but living alone for $1425 in an apartment that is not an actual closet in a not-terrible neighborhood is a rare opportunity — and you can see in the comments on that very popular post that many debated whether $1425 was a joke or maybe a decent deal. It's a micro-studio to be sure, and you'll be eating a lot of microwaved food that was cooked inches from where you sleep, but hey. You're living in the city for less than $1500.

6. A Bare Cell In Portola
This chilly looking, tiled cell that I compared to The Show from Orange Is the New Black is just one half of an illegal unit in Portola for which the landlord was asking $1050 a month back in June. I think this was supposed to be the "kitchen" half, though there was no kitchen. Just some tile and a counter, with a faux-wood floored room beside that was the "bedroom." Maybe one of you lives here now, and if it weren't so cheap, I might feel more sad for you.

5. A Four-Bedroom Outfitted To Sleep 13 In the Richmond
Of all the bunk-bed situations I poked fun at in this column — and I'm even including this horrific child's bed shared with an IT guy in that — I think I hated this one most because it was a clear example of sheer greed on the part of the landlord. It's a four-bedroom house in the not exactly convenient locale of the Richmond into which he or she had crammed eight beds. And he or she was charging $10,000 a month for it, hoping that someone else would come along and find 12 other people to live there. Because, in this configuration, the place could sleep 13, with three sharing that room above and another four sharing a room in which two queen beds were basically side-by-side. More than some tech "hostels" that seem geared toward transient occupancy for just 8 or so people, this place felt especially geared toward cult occupancy — that is if it weren't so fucking expensive.

4. A Room In a Tenderloin Retirement Home
Some of the saddest offerings got saved for the end of the year, including this one from just a few weeks back. It is an actual senior citizen's independent living facility which has recently been marketing to young people on Craigslist, keeping the fact that most of the people who live there are elderly in the fine print. Hey, they serve three square meals a day in the dining hall downstairs! You'll never go hungry! You will, however, be sharing a toilet with people your grandparents' age, and that, well... I'm not sure this place could be discounted enough for that.

3. Furnished Hovel In Lower Nob Hill, Comes With Douche Nozzle
The thing with this sublet is that this not-very-cleanly woman wanted $1785 a month for you to stay amongst her clutter and filth. The shower photo included an obvious douche nozzle, and subsequent photos revealed a stripper pole in the bedroom that appeared to be removable, but was right beside the bed. Worse than the monthly rent and move-in cost she wanted (a total of $5570) was the fact that she apparently got away with Airbnb-ing this mess. Ugh.

2. Bayview 'Murder Basement'
Worse than a lot of options you could possibly end up with on a budget in these dreary times was this atrocity in which the landlord hadn't even bothered to finish constructing what he or she was trying to rent for $800. There were a number of rooms that appeared in this column this year that clearly had not been proper, habitable rooms before, had bore the evidence of the duct tape and ticky-tacky it took to throw them together. But this one took the cake with its staple marks and drywall seams and don't even get me started about that door. Sad. So sad. All of it. And, remarkably, I don't see it on Craigslist six weeks after this ad first went up, so either some sad soul took it, or the owner decided it was too embarrassing and took it down. I'll bet the former.

1. North Beach Flophouse With Actual, Documented Bedbugs
I have to say this takes the cake. The Europa Hotel in North Beach had already been on SFist's radar because of some hilariously terrible reviews it got on Yelp, but then two years later it pops up on a site that markets inexpensive housing to students and young professionals, trying to pass itself off as any average SRO. But no, as Yelp reviews from just a few months prior described, the place was and is fully infested with bedbugs, and travelers who had the misfortune of ending up there took photos of live bugs captured in plastic cups, and bites they got from their first night's sleep there. They wanted $1450 a month for this hell pit, which is conveniently located upstairs from the legendary Condor strip club. I wonder if they got it, or if they have been sued for anyone's medical bills. In any event, when it comes to this column, bedbugs trump everything.

See you next year.

All of Apartment Sadness.

via Craigslist