Apartment Hunting in SF

We’ve been looking for a new place to live. It’s time to venture out of our little corner of the city and experience new coffee shops, new homeless people and new awkward hellos with neighbors. It’s been 2 weeks now and though we’ve made progress we still haven’t found the perfect place. It’s been an interesting adventure with creepy landlords, weird smells and monitoring of police blotters. We’d like to impart some of our findings to you, in hopes of making your next apartment hunt a bit easier.

Ten things to keep in mind when looking for an apt in SF:

1. Craigslist is still the way to go. There are a lot of pretenders out there but when it comes down to it Craigslist has the most listings and is the easiest to search through. Plus, if you get bored, it’s only a few short clicks away from this type of thing. Brilliant. (Thank you immoral compass)

2. Key words to be aware of: Adorable, Quaint, Charming, Cute – this means the apartment is really fucking small.

3. Other key words to be aware of: Opulent, Luxury, Residence – this means the apartment is really fucking expensive

4. If the landlord showing you around follows your wife too closely, recalls in detail the contents of the previous tenant’s garbage, won’t look you in the eyes when you ask about parking in the area and occupies the unit above…skip it.

5. When you’re concerned about storage space and the agent showing the apartment offers up the bathroom’s tub and shower as a “good place for your stuff” then skip it.

6. It’s nice to smell fresh paint. But when the fumes are so overwhelming your eyes are watering, it’s a sign of trouble. The landlord is covering up something. Skip that apartment.

7. Be wary of prices too good to be true. The last place we checked out didn’t have a dishwasher, laundry, parking, outdoor area or internet accessibility. And it was listed as a “GREAT FIND…this place will GO FAST!” Asswipes.

8. If the listing says Bayview, Excelsior, or Visitacion Valley then skip it. Unless you want to dodge bullets on your way to the corner mart.

9. If the listing says Seacliff or Sunset then skip it. Unless you can handle jokes from your friends like “How is it living in Daly City?” or “Are we still in San Francisco” when they come to visit.

10. Don’t click on the absurdly expensive properties. It’ll just make you angry and wanting to TP the fuck outta them like it’s 8^th grade again. I got my eyes on you Octagon house.