Wanted: Freedom without Suffering

Okay, so maybe that's a little dramatic - but the rental market in Vancouver is the "pits," although I would more likely to use a rhyming word though Cheryl says I ought to break that horrible, very uncultured habit... Ya, well, I live with a hockey player, enough said, you're lucky I haven't picked up his French vocabulary too.

So the issue - housing - I'm being more or less kicked out and due to my parents marital status, it's one of the last places I would want to be anyways. Here's the issue - Jocelyn is still in Melbourne or somewhere MIA - so no word on that end of things, and then there's Leaha who needs to get out of her family abode for similar reasons. So no big worry I have a roommate either way - it's just cost right now. Craigslist doesn't seem to either have pictures or places without astronomical rent - I'm not paying $1000 month plus utilities to live in Burnaby - not when a studio on Beach Ave - with it's gorgeous view is $750, even Coal Harbour's rent is in the $800 range for a studio... so as of this moment Leaha and I have an appointment for tomorrow at 10am one block away from my gym - and it's $525 a month including utilities... (1050 in total for 1400sq ft) that surprisingly scares me. As long as it's dry, light and minus spiders I think I should do okay.

In light of all that - a repost from Craig's List, a translation of rental language, a note: some of the language will be questionable for some audiences.

"Garden Suite" - Basement
"Ground Level" - Basement
"Above Ground" - What are we? Hobbits?
"Own Entrance" - Basement, again
"Cozy" - Small
"Cute" - Small
"Efficient" - Probably really small
"Huge" - About 550 square feet. This standard was set in Yaletown
"Spacious" - About 560 square feet. See "Huge".
"Trendy" - Overpriced. See Commercial Drive.
"Funky" - More overpriced. See Strathcona. Oh and since we're here...You are in the Downtown East Side! Just because this is the only area that starving artists and Emily Carr students can afford does not make it funky! Although Strathcona has gone a little more yupscale in recent years, you'll never be fashionable until the fags move in and there are no fewer than 5 Starbucks in a ten block radius. I'm sorry that's the rule.
"Eclectic Neighbourhood" - Skinny Mary the crack whore likes to wander around the area late at night looking for her pimp or dealer. See "Funky"
"Executive" - You're gonna pay through the nose
"Kitsilano" - *shudder* Our incredible sense of entitlement makes asking $800 a month for the windowless crawl space under our house seem reasonable. Can't you see I'm wearing Lululemon?
"Short Term OK" - We're gonna sell it out from under your ass anyway
"Character" - We haven't updated it since the early seventies. Grandma died here.
"Suit small family" - Hetero white couples need only apply
"Close to schools" - See above.
"Family-oriented" - Landlords are right-wing Christians that support Steven Harper and the war in Iraq.
"Vegetarian" - We like lesbians and dirty hippies - Leaha you think we could pull that off?
"Convenient" - There is a bus stop outside your bedroom window. Don't breathe.
"Central Location" - Middle of nowhere.
"Luxury" - We spent $500 at Home Depot.
"Immaculate" - We cleaned the bloodstains off the walls and fixed the door from the last tenants.
"Bright" - Florescent lighting and one window.
"Quiet" - You better be in bed by 10.
"Furnished" - Landlord is storing some junk in your place. This one really picks my ass. You throw a crappy futon couch and some ghetto twenty year old mattress in a suite and you have the nerve to charge MORE? You should give a reduction because you're not paying for storage. Loser. Get your crap out so I can move my nice things in. Thank you
"Semi Furnished" - Landlord is storing less junk in your place. See above
"Peek-a-boo view" - This one is too easy, you figure it out
"Suit student" - Preferably one who doesn't speak english who won't bother us
"Suit single female" - Booyah! I'm gonna get me some as soon as her drain backs up
"Suit single person" - If I'm not having sex, no one is
"Suit couple" - Don't look at my wife
"NP" - What the f*ck is this? No parties? No pets? No pot? We're all grown-ups, just tell us. What don't you like? There is a big difference between a drum circle, a Bichon Frise, and a grow-op