that's craigslist people, not craigslist itself. the idea of craigslist, a place were people can trade and sell anything under the sun, for free, is great. i don't know if it's because it's such a hippy idea, or because when people get something for free they don't attach any value to it, but these people won't show up, no matter what it is they're looking at. when we moved, i gave away my 19" CRT monitor and my sony 5 CD changer, because i knew they wouldn't have a place or a use in the new apartment.
people just woudn't show up. no call, no e-mail. just me, sitting around the empty apartment by myself. wtf?
simultaneously, we listed our apartment on craigslist, which appears to have been a waste of time.
those people were even worse, showing up late, or not showing up at all taking applications with no intention of filling them out, rather than just saying they weren't interested. we advertised in the reader, (cf. the trib) too, but no help there, either. except that the apartment people called us to say they help people sublet for a fee of one month's rent. $725 is pretty steep, but when you're facing down 5 more months of it, it's not bad. plus, if you rent it on your own, they only charge $25 in admin fees.
i don't know how, but the apartment people did in one week what we couldn't in a month. they got someone to turn in an application, which lakeview then approved.
and since i briefly mentioned web stats, i'll jump on the analytics bandwagon, and say how happy i am that google made its urchin software free for personal use. as happy as i am that my hosts give me webtrends stats for free, it's crappy and old, only viewable in internet explorer, which i never use (and you shouldn't either, its "like having unprotected sex with a crack whore, not a good idea, ok?"), it only differentiates between IE and "netscape based" browsers, and it's geographic and language stats don't work. i hope analytics will give me clearer results. pretty much anything would be.
7 Comments
A couple of things:
Firstly, the taking of applications. While I think a couple of people genuinely had no intention of handing in the applications, I think others were going to look at a mess of places and just took the applications for all of them so that they could choose a place when they came home. The taking of applications itself bothered me far less than the one guy who said he’d hand it in the very next day then didn’t. Again, though, that’s what happened to us with that place in Wicker Park. We were certain when we left that we wanted it, but in the course of the evening the circumstances changed.
Secondly, I think if we ever do give stuff away on craigslist it would be a good idea to get the phone numbers of anyone claiming to be coming by to pick them up, and telling the second in line that someone’s already claimed the item, but if they want to be on standby for a no-show you’ll take their number. That way there’s less sitting around wondering where people are.
I just don’t understand the two people who were over an hour late to view the apartment. If it were me and I was running that late, I’d 1) make sure to call the second I knew I was going to be late and 2) give a really good estimate of what time I’d be there. This “oh, I’ll be there in 15 minutes” for two hours solid doesn’t sit well with me.
1. i guess, the brothers who asked where the bedroom was came to mind also, as people who had no interest whatsoever.
2. i had intended to do something like that with the cd player, but forgot that i wouldn’t be able to check e-mail from the old apartment. the problem with calling people is that it’s a really long feedback loop.
first person hasn’t showed in half an hour, call the second person
second person hasn’t showed in half an hour, call the third
third person says they can come by, but only in an hour. you wind up blowing a whole night, and only getting through four people.
i tried to do that with the cd player people, and it was just sucky. so i erred on the side of telling too many people to come get the monitor, and wound up pissing people off.
I think the answer is to say yes to the first person, then to EVERYONE else to say, “someone already claimed it, gimme your number so I can call you if they don’t show up”.
Then, if person #1 doesn’t come call them and if they don’t answer tell them you’re giving it to someone else, call person #2, if person #2 doesn’t answer, move on to person #3, and so forth. With each person who says they’re going to come, let them know that you’re travelling across town so if they’re not serious about coming don’t pretend they are.
Either way, next time we try to get rid of everything before we move, mkay?
agreed. trying to give stuff away from an apartment we didn’t live in was pretty silly on my part.
Hmmm. I’d never heard of Craigslist before. Interesting. When Bethany and I were trying to get someone to pick up our apartment we tried for 4 months or so, then did what you did and turned it over to the apartment people and they rented it in a couple weeks. Weird.
BTW, your feed works fine. I’m viewing it in NewsGator and I get a full feed from ya.
yeah, the apartment people have crazy weird voodoo renting magic.
craigslist is only useful if there’s a craigslist for your city. it started in SF, but now there are sub-sites for most major cities.
and yeah, apparently the feed was only down for a short while.
i say down, but it was working, it was just spitting out old entries
Post a Comment