Welcome back to another installment of the rental horrors that lurk on Craigslist. Before we dive in, we want to highlight one recent tweet that caught our eye from John Jones III, a single father of two in Oakland, that perfectly highlights the absurdity of the Bay Area rental market.
Responses to the tweet were full of commiseration. “This is more than my mortgage on a 3,000 sq. ft. house down near San Diego. What the hell is happening?” someone replied.
We reached out to Jones, an Oakland native and current director of community and political engagement at Just Cities—a social-justice nonprofit that works to influence policy that directly affects Oakland residents—to hear more about his rental search. Formerly incarcerated, he’s in the midst of trying to escape his own Craigslist nightmare: a two-room unit in a most likely unpermitted basement with no kitchen and a half bath (he has to go outside and to the upstairs living quarters, where five other people live, to shower and cook).
In looking for a new place to call home for himself and his two sons, he’s found that his situation as a single father who was formerly incarcerated puts him at a disadvantage in comparison to other renters, who work in tech and whose income surpasses what he makes. “Two years ago, we passed the tipping point,” he said. “At this point the damage is irreversible.”
Jones’s situation is not isolated. As we discovered while rounding up this series, countless renters all over the Bay Area find themselves renting out unpermitted converted living rooms, dining rooms, and even kitchen spaces.
Let’s take a closer look at what we found in the depths of Craigslist this month.
1. You Will Probably See Your Roommates Having Sex
The listing for this room for rent, located close to Lake Merritt in Oakland, starts innocently enough, describing what you’ll get for $1,550: a bedroom, all utilities included, an uncovered parking space (what a dream!), great views from the 14th floor, and amenities that come with living in a big building, such as a pool, a gym, and more. Keep scrolling down and browse through the pictures, though, and you’ll get to a shot of your potential roommates, a gay couple set to get married at the next Burning Man. The photo shows one of the roommates wearing just a towel around his waist and what may or may not be a boner. Also, as the ads reads, “You will definitely see us or hear us having sex from time to time.” And there’s the catch, y’all.
2. You’re Basically Renting a Closet
This “room” and all its 70 square feet of glory is located in the heart of the Mission District in San Francisco for $800. It’s inside a studio apartment, so you can imagine how small the rest of the place is. The main tenant works mostly from home, and one of the restrictions that comes with renting this so-called room is that you have access only to the “room” and the bathroom—the rest of the apartment is off-limits. You can fit a tiny twin-size bed—well, the mattress, really, because you probably couldn’t even fit a bed frame, let alone a dresser. Also, be ready to pay $50 in utilities even though you barely have access to the actual unit.
3. Free Trailer, but You Gotta Work for the Owners
This trailer in Vallejo, which comes with basic necessities, such as a mini stove and a bathroom, is free, but as we all know, nothing in life—or nothing in the Bay Area—is really free. “Would be needed to work on the property and for property owners,” the ad reads, without specifying what kind of work the owners of the RV want you to do or for how many hours. This kind of arrangement happens frequently in the Bay Area these days, raising a lot of legal concerns.
4. Perfect if You Enjoy Walking Around in Your Birthday Suit
The offer here is to share a two-bedroom apartment in Noe Valley with a nudist gay couple seeking a nudist roommate. There’s no description of the room, the amenities, or what exactly you get for a whopping $1,600 a month. They are clear that they won’t be asking “for sex or any kind of ‘favors.’” Apparently, all they want is a roommate who’s equally interested in the “honesty of nudity,” though they admit that the likelihood of finding someone is a long shot.
5. You’ll Get Your Own Electrical Power Socket!
This two-story town house in Daly City offers a shared room with three other housemates for $800 a month. Each twin bunk bed comes with a tiny lamp and a non-surge extension cord wrapped around the railing of the bed. It’s significantly cheaper than its San Francisco counterpart, the PodShare bunk beds that recently launched in San Francisco at $1,200 a month for a (slightly bigger) bed.
6. A “Semi-Studio”—Whatever That May Be
This single-family home in San Jose is attempting to rent out each room individually. The listing calls the room, available for nearly $1,000 a month, a “semi-studio” because it comes equipped with a hot-plate burner, a glass convection oven, a fridge, and a microwave. The bathroom, however, is shared with two other “semi-studios.” Last but not least, you get a full-size powerful microwave oven that can “warm up or cook your food in minutes,” the ad reads. The luxury!
7. Friends-With-Benefits Living Situation
Since the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist was shut down, pervy men have found plenty of other ways to post on the site, including the rental section. At least the person behind this post, which has been flagged for removal, was honest about his request: he’s looking for a beautiful woman who’s down to have a “friends with benefits” situation in exchange for a free room with a private bath in San Bruno. We hope that the folks over at Craigslist take notice and start cracking down on this type of post asking for a “chill girl” or offering “free rent.”
8. Rent a Kitchen Space
We’ve moved past the desperation stage where people are renting out their living rooms and dining rooms and apparently are on to people renting out kitchen space with no shame. This listing for a room in Daly City says it’s available for $450 a month and has a door, but it doesn’t specify anything else. Are you supposed to put your bed next to the stove? Are you renting the breakfast area? The listing is too vague for one to be sure, and no pictures of the space are available.
That’s it for this month’s hellscape of available residences. Remember—if you come across any creepy, scary, or dubious rentals, send them our way! See you next month with more.
