Oh the Adventures of Apartment Hunting, Literally, in San Francisco

For some reason, this video; the racing, the trickery, the straight hilarious, cheesiness of it all, was the first thing that came to mind after one day of searching for an apartment to call home in San Francisco. (Invision the Beastie Boys apartment hunting...)



Apartment hunting in San Francisco is worthy of it's own reality TV series, dedicated to the people of San Francisco and their perilous, agonizing search for a decent, safe, clean space in the city that does not leave them dead broke and naked.

I last resided in the Outter Richmond; I was new to San Francisco and not knowing any better, after having seen all the dirty, small spaces downtown, the new, clean, spacious flat with ocean views seemed to me like I had struck gold...until the half hour commute downtown and fog began to take it's toll.

The search for a new space has exposed me to this world I had never known of. This is kind of how it goes:

With hopes high, you anxiously search Craigslist, email a few places, fall victim to a couple of scams, get weird emails back responding, for example, one of my favorites, "the place is in high demand, so we must be honest, the building was recenly infested with bed bugs, but have no fear, we believe them to be gone now."

Open Houses. You speed through the city because for some reason many of these open houses are always during "work hours." Or you are trying to see as many as possible and they are all at the same time, either way, as you pass the place of interest, you see the line of people building outside, making you even more anxious. You play the parking game, you know, the one where you circle and circle, piss every one off behind you, then finally, 20 minutes later park 5 blocks away. Once you get to the open house, people, I'm talking 10-20 people, are lined up outside half an hour before the appointed time, you all walk into the place and the tension and anxiety is so prevalent, it's almost unbearable. We are all thinking the same thing, "How are they going to decide who gets the space? " There are sometimes 20 of us, usually all female, usually all around the same age, tired from trudging through the city, asking the same questions, seeing the same, dismal, disappointing living spaces.

People get aggressive. People panic, they get anxious, they run (think Black Friday). It becomes this ugly race, pining us all against each other. Only so many spaces, sooo very many of us.

Unfortunately, I've just started this race.
More stories to come, I'm sure...