Fun with Craigslist, part one of a possible series

I love Craigslist. It's been a great website for me over the past five years on which I've found places to live, sold furniture, sold used textbooks, and tried to unload some extra Advent calendar chocolate. I consider myself a fairly savvy, smart user of Craigslist, so the occasional terrible incidents that occur to some users of the website do not deter my use of the website. For example, when I was trying to sell my car on Craigslist, I got an offer from a guy to buy it, but unfortunately, he was only available to look at the car after 10 p.m., and he wanted ME to bring the car to HIM in some parking lot in Silver Spring, MD. His e-mail even mentioned that "if he were a female, he would be suspicious and probably wouldn't go." I have a super active imagination and would have thought of that same scenario on my own, so of course I didn't go, and I wound up selling my car to CarMax. And hey, my car wasn't stolen, I wasn't kidnapped and/or murdered, and I even got to put some money in the bank!

Sometimes when I'm looking for something specific on Craigslist, it's easier to post what I'm looking for and let people respond to me with their offers. When we moved to New York, Joe and I, with the help of the Newtster's father, posted an ad on Craigslist looking for people to help unload our moving truck. Within 5 minutes we had to take the ad down because of the huge response. Now that Joe and I are certain that we're moving back to DC, I posted an ad on Craigslist looking for an apartment in a few specific neighborhoods.

I've posted ads on Craigslist looking for apartments before. In posting these ads, I've found that many people cannot read, do not read, have trouble reading, or in their excitement to be on the internet, just disregard what they've read. In my ads, I'm very specific about my price range, date on which I want the lease to begin, and neighborhoods in which I'm willing to live. The ad I posted today was no different, and in it, I even requested that if the apartment wasn't in one of the three listed neighborhoods, to please not waste their time and my time by responding with an apartment located somewhere else (like fabulous Silver Spring!).

I received this response to my ad from Wendi within about two minutes of posting: "Hi, was wondering if you're still looking for housing." The subject of the e-mail was "Re: $1400-2400 Need apartment starting July 1 (Cleveland Park/Mt. P/Columbia Heights)."
I decided to respond to Wendi's e-mail solely because she used the correct form of "you're." That's right, I discriminate based on spelling. I responded, asking for specifics of the apartment she was offering.

Wendi again responded within two minutes, and said, "Hi there, nice to hear from you. Well that's good because I have many
places available for you in the area. What's your exact price range? How soon were you looking to move? Before I show you any listings I'd like to get a feel of what you'd qualify for, we can do this by getting your credit score. Our office has a relationship with a credit report company to give our clients free credit reports, if you'd like to get one through our partner go to http://creditreport365.net/?clientID=232842 or you can get one through your own means, just please get this to me and we can get you into something. I look forward to speaking with you." Please keep in mind that the subject line of this second e-mail was again, "Re: $1400-2400 Need apartment starting July 1 (Cleveland Park/Mt. P/Columbia Heights)."

Well, well, well, Wendi! Isn't this so helpful of you, trying to expedite the process by getting me to immediately submit my credit report. I'm glad that you also have so many places available for me in the area. It's also nice that you wanted to know my price range and how soon I'm looking to move. It's always smart to triple-check, you can never be too sure.

I figured I'd do Wendi a favor, in order to give her a slightly better chance of drumming up business from people like me in the future, so I sent her this response:
"My exact price range and the time I'm looking to move were actually in the subject line of this e-mail, and were in the ad that you responded to. Based on your not noticing that and/or not bothering to read them, I'm unsure of your level of competency to help me find an apartment. Best of luck to you." I haven't heard back from Wendi, but I'm sure she'll get back to me as soon as she's finished responding to every other "housing wanted" ad on Craigslist.

I do realize that sending snarky responses to people who respond to my ad but haven't read it is a waste of my time, but sometimes I just can't help myself. Besides, I'm fairly certain the person on the receiving end of the e-mail isn't reading it.