Worst Apartment Rental Ad Ever
David sent us the following alleged apartment for rent listing from CraigsList. It's a shame—I would be more than willing to wear the ID bracelet at all times and submit to unannounced inspections, but that yard is too small to do my prison workout in.
Date: 2008-12-19, 6:05PM PST
I am a born again Christian. Why is this a problem for people????! I have a house that's MINE and I PAID FOR IT. I also have a basement apartment for rent. It's a great space [and] I'm charging very little for it, $480 monthly, for the right tenant. I know it's ILLEGAL to require a Christian in the apartment, against the human rights. That's why I NEVER put this in my ad. Why then does it keep getting taken down?
HERE IS THE AD I POSTED, AND THE AD THAT KEEPS GETTING REMOVED:
Available Immediately – Broadway and Commercial – Showing Saturday and Sunday – Email for directions and additional information.
What kind of apartment is it?
- One bedroom basement apartment with separate entrance
- Tastefully decorated with modern décor
- Approximately 650 square feet
- There is even a window! Security bars installed for your safety and to prevent unauthorized activity
- Closed circuit camera installed for security and safety. One in your suite, one at the entrance, and one in the exercise yard
Rent:
- $480.00 per month
- First month’s rent + ½ month security deposit due at move in
- Small pet allowed with approval and payment of additional ½ month pet damage deposit
- One year lease permitted, option to renew lease at end of the term with no increase in rent
- LANDLORD’S SPECIAL! Move in before January 1st and don’t pay for the remainder of December! That’s significant savings.
Included in the rent:
- Electricity
- Heat – Maintained at 21 degrees with lock box to prevent unauthorized tampering. Additional heating available for $20.00 per extra degree of heating per month. You may not use your oven to heat the apartment. If you do, you will be fined $50.00 per occurrence.
- Air conditioning – Maintained at 25 degrees during the summer with lock box to prevent extra cooling from being dispensed. Additional cooling for sale for $20.00 per degree of cooling requested per month.
- 25" Zenith color television set with basic cable service - INCLUDED IN RENT!
- Wireless internet (with content filter applied to block forbidden/immoral websites) - INCLUDED IN RENT!
- Provision of coin laundry services - You will have your own personal coin laundry washer and dryer machines. Washers and dryers are paid using a token system. Tokens can be purchased through the landlord. Washer tokens cost $4.15 each and dryer tokens cost $3.60 each. You are not allowed to use foreign currency or slugs in the washer and dryer. Violators will be fined $100.00 per infraction.
About us: (Landlords)
We are conservative, bible believing, God-fearing, born again, evangelical Christians. We interpret the bible literally in every way possible. We live a strict moral code and observe God’s laws in our everyday life. My wife stays at home and teaches our home-schooled children. I work as a pastor at a local congregation and am active in the faith community.About you: (Tenant)
- You are employed
- You do not participate in lascivious deviant sexual behavior
- You do not choose alternative lifestyles as your lifestyle
- You do not have any criminal history
- You must have excellent character references
- You do not smoke, drink or take drugs. Mandatory drug screening required.
Additional Rules/Conditions:
CLEANLINESS: You are responsible for the cleanliness and orderliness of your apartment. Beds are to be made before leaving your suite, countertops must be wiped down, and you must remove all trash. Upon inspection, if the tenant's basement suite is not clean, the cost of cleaning services plus a fine of $100.00 will be levied.
LIGHTS: The lights in your basement suite and in the day room are not to be tampered with. If a light needs repair, report the condition to the Landlord.
WAKE-UP: Wake up will be at 5:30am each morning. All ceiling lights in the suite will be turned on automatically.
LIGHTS OUT: Ceiling lights in the suite will be turned off at 11:30pm.
CONTRABAND: The following items are considered contraband – alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco, weapons, lock picking equipment. If any contraband is discovered to be in your possession, you will be subject to a minimum $1,000.00 fine. In addition, your items will be confiscated permanently. Second offense – you will be evicted without notice. A bailiff will escort you and your belongings off the premises. Your security deposit will not be returned.
SMOKING: The basement suite is non-smoking. Anyone in possession of tobacco products of any kind or any lighter or matches, will have their contraband items confiscated and will be fined $100.00.
INSPECTIONS: The Landlord will conduct unannounced inspections to ensure that these rules and regulations are being followed.
VISITATION: Visitation periods will be on Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. All visitors and their vehicles are subject to search while on landlord property. Refusal to allow a search can result in their being barred from all future visitation privileges. All visitors must sign the Visitor's Log. Unauthorized visitors will be escorted from the property, and the tenant will be fined $250.00.
I.D. BRACELETS: Each tenant will be issued an I.D. bracelet with his/her photograph. It must be worn at all times. If you lose your I.D. bracelet or it is broken, you will be required to purchase a new one at the nominal cost of $5.00.
EXERCISE YARD: The tenant will have access to the exercise yard in the area to the back of the property for 2 hours per day from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. The tenant is not allowed to bring any personal property to the exercise yard. Once the tenant leaves the exercise yard on a particular day, he or she may not return. No boisterous behavior is allowed in the exercise yard. There is no smoking allowed in the exercise yard. Minimum fine for exercise yard infractions is $50.00.
* Location: Broadway and Commercial
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
"All the tenants I interview aren't good enough (Broadway and Commercial)" [CraigsList]
"omg" [LiveJOurnal]
(Photo: IndyDina and Mr.Wonderful)
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Comments:
Is this guy a prison warden?
when does the warden come around to do the nightly lockdowns?
Damn, I wanted to take part in some lascivious deviant sexual behavior.
...This is a joke, right?
Holy SHIT. If this is for real then DSS may want to pay a visit to his house to check on his kids. They're probably the beating type.
I think it's the dad from Sound of Music.
And why do I have a feeling this guy has installed a hidden camera right above the toilet and in the shower vent?
The whole place is under video surveillance? Lights go off and on automatically?
Is this the guy from SAW?
Is this person looking to start kidnapping his roommates if he doesn't get a willing applicant?
Creeeepy.
I saw this via StumbleUpon a while ago, and thought it was just a joke posting.. and since it appears to be a Canadian posting, you know how those canucks joke!
This is the scariest commercial/ad I've ever read. "immoral websites" Wouldn't that be pretty much everything?
@I work as a meth lab technician isn't really a meth lab tec...: You, too? The thought of a security camera INSIDE the apartment - yech. It's bad enough the cats have to see me having panic attacks, much less a stranger.
Did California get so desperate for money that they started contracting out our vast prison system to the evangelicals?
wow. and for 480 that's kindof a ripoff... there's got to be laws in place that prevent landlord tampering like this, seriously.. "lights out" and visitation times? GTFO.
So basically it's the cold place in hell?
21C (70F) in winter.
25C (77F) in summer.
That place sounds great. If it was real I'd waste their time and have to come look at the place while secretly recording it.
I'm a little confused. It's like half prison parody, half overbearing Christian parody, but the two don't really mesh. (There isn't some kind of Christian-run, morality-enforced prison facility out there, right?) Should've picked one or the other for maximum effectiveness.
Pretty good, though.
Technically you can rent to whoever you want as long as you reside in the building and there are fewer than 4 units.
That being said, this person is nuts. That might be the most expensive washer/dryer service on the planet. The eviction rules are illegal. The $100 fine for using a slug in the washer is probably illegal. The unannounced inspections are illegal. Except in the case of an emergency a landlord has to give you 24 hour notice before entering your apartment. I've seen landlords try a lot of these things though, although not all of them at once.
best of!
more than half of this stuff is illegal, like the temperature, the lighting, the inspections, etc. I would rent this appartment just to end up suing the landlord
That is just....crazy....
Oh, man! Just what I was lookin' for! Prison that I pay for! Where do I sign up?!
I like how they were so enthusiastic about the window and TV. It's like they've never seen these things before...you know, when they lived in that hole that one time...
Well they are all afraid of the dark so not sure if they would joke about lights being shutoff
I think it's a fake, the email address doesn't work at least (probably modified a valid one to make it look real).
this is clearly fake. anybody?
Not even Jesus is a good enough tenant for this guy.
Hint: He loved wine.
Are there any people from Vancouver or BC on here? Are there local/provincial discrimination laws? The poster is discriminating against LGBT people, maybe that's why it's always taken down?
Actually, after some research, I found the BC Residential Tenancy Act online:
I think these are some of the violations in the ad:
- All of Section 28 (Protection of Tenant's Right to Quiet Enjoyment)
- Section 29.1(b) -- No random inspections, Landlord must provide at least 24 hours notice
Can anyone find others?
Huh?
I wouldn't be so quick to call it a joke. I have run into a few landlords and a few evangelicals that are about that far off the deep end. Mixing the two could easily result in this kind of nuttery.
This is posted in Craigslists all over. I call fake.
Most of his conditions are illegal in New Mexico and other states.
"I'm willing to rent your apartment. But can I bring over some of my pot smoking devil worshiping friends? And let them blast KISS until 4:30 in the morning?"
@Claytons: Doubt it. I swear this ad could have been written by my ex-boss or almost anyone else in my old hometown, except the degrees are in Celsius.
That has to be a joke.
@dumblonde: According to the church my evangelical ex-boss made me attend, Jesus actually enjoyed grape juice because alcohol is for sinners.
(That job was the longest two years of my life.)
@bohemian: Exactly! This is so plausable it's scary. If the guy listing this is a troll he really knows his stuff.
I kept reading, it just kept getting worse and worse, and then I went back and read, to make sure, that he actually asked "Why then does it keep getting taken down?"
Wow. I guess it takes all kinds. But this guy needs to get a reality check.
Everyone knows that craigslist is just a front for people looking for deviant sexual behavior - even those specifically saying that they are AGAINST such things.