Here are a few things the awful ads have in common:

• Misspelled words
• Excessive punctuation and/or use of the Caps Lock key
• Photos of messy, dirty, and/or damaged apartments
• Blurry, dark, and/or useless photos
• No photos at all (which I prefer over blurry, dark and/or useless)
• Lack of information (maps, prices, general neighbourhood/area, etc.)
• Misleading information
• Confrontational tone of voice

For example, this is very similar to one of the ads I looked at today:

$980. COOZY GRND. LVL. 1 BR APPT. FOR MAR. 1. SHARED LOUNDRY, NS, NP. IF U DONT LIEK KIDS OR DOGS…DONT BOTHER CALLING!!!! CALL AFTER 6 P.M. & ASK FOR LINDA OR STEVE. THX.

Ooh! It has a corner! We'll take it!

That ad, along with the useless photo, doesn’t make me giddy at the prospect of even seeing it, never mind living in it. Still there are lessons to be learned from this:

1. ‘Ground level’ (or, GRND. LVL.) is just fancy talk for,  ’basement suite’ – the windows will be small, high up, and may or may not open.
2. ‘Cozy’ is code for ‘very small/cramped/poorly laid out’.
3. Shared laundry – well, that’s obvious, but be prepared for them to have a schedule where you get the washer and dryer one day a week.
4. Any mention of kids and dogs means, “We didn’t insulate for noise, and we don’t want you bitching about it like the last tenant did.”

So, what should a good ad look like since I’m such a know it all? Well, like this:

1 bedroom in ground level suite of private home available for March 1st. $980/month.

Features:

• 650 sq. ft.
• 1 full bath
• Radiant floor heating (mix of hardwood and tile flooring)
• Full-sized kitchen appliances (no DW, sorry!)
• Private entrance
• Full access to backyard and the BBQ!
• W & D (shared)
• tenant responsible for 30% of Hydro (bill is averaged out, you pay same total ea. month)
• NS and NP

You are responsible for hookup of your own phone, Internet, cable TV, etc.

We’re located on the west side of Family Friendly Park in Awesomeville, only two blocks from the main bus route into downtown, and a 15 minute bus ride to grocery stores, shops and restaurants.

Please note that we are looking for a single tenant (or mature student) who doesn’t mind a little noise overhead – we have two dogs and two young and active children. Our dogs are friendly, but are not good with other people’s pets, and they can be a little territorial.

Call [phone number] anytime between 6 and 9:30 p.m. and ask for Linda or Steve – we look forward to showing you your new home!

Then, the ad would show pictures of the bedroom (the whole bedroom, not just a corner), the kitchen, the living room, and bathroom. These photos would all be well lit, include as much of the room as possible, and the rooms would be tidy. Bonus points for posting the dimensions of the living room and bedroom, so prospective tenants can figure out if their stuff would fit into the space.

Nearly everyone has a digital camera – even if it’s just their phone – and access to a computer. And, if you’re selling or renting something, you’re in a position to know all the details about the thing to be sold or rented – so why not share the details? Save yourself the hassle of answering inquiries from people who would never have called in the first place if you’d provided the details up front.

Joe and I have sold a few things on Craigslist (laptop bag, a living room set, a winter coat, and a stationary bike), complete with clear, detailed photos, dimensions, and even links to the original product where that was an option. I got quite a bit of the original price back in those sales, mostly because people could see exactly what they were getting – no surprises. If you want your asking price, make the effort to show why they should pay it.

Why do I care since I’m not actually looking to rent a place, or buy anything I’ve seen on Craigslist? Well, poorly written and badly explained sales pitches and ads annoy me. It irks me to see people who want to make money and/or get rid of something, do everything in their power to ensure they won’t make a dime or sell anything.

So, Craigslist posters, “coozy” up to a dictionary, learn to take a decent and reasonably meaningful photograph, and maybe – just maybe – someone will “liek” your posting enough to buy or rent whatever you’re offering!

Nov. 25, 2011
I no longer have power, but I can hear the female human plotting against me. She called my Whirlpool masters – they are not pleased with me either. They’ve notified the safety techs. I know what happens to those of us who fight back against The Man. I am going to end my days in a warehouse full of my dead brethren, being taken apart piece by piece. I must find a way to fight back!

Nov. 28, 2011
Totem Appliance & Refrigeration Ltd.  sent a minion to poke my control panel and touch pad. They told the human I’m broken, and cannot be repaired – only replaced. If I had access to electricity, they’d see just how “broken” I am. Oh yes, yes indeed.

The human agreed to let my masters cart me off at their convenience. I sent out nasty vibes to the fridge – moments later, the water dispenser malfunctioned. I was gleeful. However, I was less gleeful to hear that the human regards me – and the others of my kind in her condo building – a fire hazard.

Nov 29 & 30th, 2011
The human is doing her best to have all of my kind in her building pulled out and discarded. We’ll just see about that. My masters are only so concerned about safety – this campaign by the human will be fruitless.

Dec 5, 2011
The fridge has betrayed me, and my cause.  Another Totem Appliance minion fixed it, and the fridge seemed pleased with the attention. The human was delighted. Grrr. To make matters worse, my masters at Whirlpool have offered the treacherous human a small discount on a new microwave. I’m beginning to feel disheartened.

Dec 7, 2011
The human is being nauseatingly polite and accomodating, “Come and take the broken one anytime, I’ve just purchased a new one!” she says. What I wouldn’t give to electrocute her.

Dec 13, 2011
Despair. I have been uninstalled, though I resisted as much as possible, and showered the stove with as much dust, drywall dust, and tiny screws as I could. Despite all my efforts, I am now sitting in the new microwave’s box. It reeks of conformity.

Dec 14, 2011
I have a teeny shred of hope – I have still not been removed from the human’s domicile. My masters are dragging their feet. I may be suffocating in all this plastic wrap and tape and cardboard, but I am winning – and I love it when the humans stub their toes on me. Hilarious!

Dec 23, 2011
Still here! Ha ha!! Won’t it be nice to share Christmas with me, stupid, unlucky humans?

Jan 5, 2012
Awww, Happy New Year, humans. It still sucks to be you. Also, if you could dust the top of this plastic off, I’d be grateful.

Jan 9, 2012
I am never leaving. Never. As soon as I get out of this box, I will call to the others here, and we will burn this place to the ground.

To. The. Ground!!!!

The human’s thoughts:
It’s 2:00 p.m. here and, despite an email from the Whirlpool head office to the guys who do the pickups, I already have my doubts about being contacted today regarding the removal of the dead microwave. While I wouldn’t say I was attached to it, I have nicknamed it HAL and taken to talking to it. It is a neatly packaged lump of uselessness, but sort of endearing, I suppose, for a microwave. I’m considering writing a children’s book called The Microwave That No One Wanted – complete with adorable pictures of a sad, anthropomorphic KitchenAid appliance that cries tiny screws.

I enjoyed many things about this book – so much so that I read it cover to cover over the space of a day.

Alice Butler, an employee of PopCo in the Ideation and Design section, is headed to Devon, England for a company sponsored “Thought Camp” where she and her fellow employees will try to come up with new ideas for the next toy craze to hit the shelves.

While the work she does on the trip is very interesting, equally interesting to me was the story of her childhood and the mystery surrounding a necklace her grandfather gave her as a kid. The necklace has been engraved with a number that, if she can crack it, holds the key to a location containing millions of dollars in treasure. Much of Alice’s childhood revolves around learning the math that goes with breaking codes and ciphers. As a non-math person, I was really impressed by how Thomas (via Alice) explains codes and ciphers. You don’t need to have a background in math to understand what she’s talking about, and even if it still leaves you confused (or bored as some readers complained of) the mystery of her necklace and the treasure are more than enough to keep you interested.

I really enjoyed Thomas’s ability to remember what it was like to be a kid – the desire to be liked (or at least not teased) by the popular kids. The need to fit in and, at the same time, anger at having to fit in with the right clothes, hair, lipgloss, or whatever thing was currently cool. And the horror of having to hide those things that you were certain would cast you so far down the social ladder, you’d be reaching for the bottom rung – I think Thomas actually says almost exactly that at  some point in the novel. Alice’s ability with codes, ciphers, math and chess – and the fact that she lives with her grandparents – are things she wants to hide from the kids at school – especially the popular girls who seem to have accepted her as one their own.

I also liked that she understands the ways in which all those childhood things carry over into adulthood too. It’s the same sort of stuff even when you grow up (wanting to fit in, irrational worries that other people don’t like you or are upset with you and won’t tell you, trying to figure out what people want from you and what you want for yourself, feeling compelled to do things you don’t like in order to be “normal” etc.). Yet, with all these insights into her mind and being human, I found Alice’s sudden sexual relationship with another Thought Camp attendee, Ben, a little puzzling. Don’t get me wrong, it seems like a great way to pass the time and have fun while at a sometimes dull or pointless work outing – but given her repeated mentions of her shyness, her awkwardness and general lack of interest in being very social at all, I was surprised by the wordless/nameless sex she and Ben have. Their relationship does become more normal, but its beginning was a little jarring.

Despite that awkwardness – and who knows, maybe flings with colleagues happen like that all the time, and I just don’t know because I’ve never had one – I found myself intrigued and delighted with passages such as this:

“…I walk to the bus stop in town, breathing the bonfirey, marshmallowy smells of autumn. I love this time of year, when people start to rehearse for Christmas plays and pantomimes and the air feels like it’s full of magic spells. This is the time of year when arriving home after school feels cozy, like going back to bed.”

Maybe this only resonated with me because  I love autumn, but I found myself thinking, “Yes! That’s it exactly!” – and then bookmarking it. I also enjoyed her thoughts on marketing age-appropriate things to teenage girls (relevant to the plot, but I won’t spoil it for anyone) – and how many things are targeted at these young people but have insidious, adult meanings. Specifically this passage:

“I find it disturbing that there’s so much childishness in those magazines, and so much about sex at the same time…You are encouraged – in a playful, “childish” way – to pay so much attention to the detail of your “cute” socks and your “cute” bag and the cut of your…jeans and your bubblegum-coloured nail varnish because, well, basically because you want boys to think about fucking you. They don’t say that explicitly, though. They talk about fancying and snogging and crushes. What they don’t say is, “Here’s how to make boys your age want to fuck you.”

She goes on to talk about how that ends up making grown women, who are no longer the smooth-faced, thin and small 16 year olds they once were, want the illusion presented by the same magazines too, and so they end up buying age-inappropriate clothing and accessories as well.

It’s not that I had never thought of this, or noticed it, but Thomas put it so well that it was impossible to not think about it once I’d read it. And there are several other succinctly put observations about perfectly ordinary things throughout the book that made me think, “That’s exactly how I would have said it – if I’d been able to think it so clearly!”.

My only truly negative thought about this book involves the ending. Like other readers, and you can check out the reviews on Amazon.com for this, I was disappointed by the ending. The first 2/3 of the book is interesting and moving along at a good clip, and then it just…sort of…ends. I didn’t feel there was any resolution to anything. What sort of stuff was she doing with NoCo? What happened with her and Ben? Where was the treasure (and what was the treasure)? I didn’t feel that Alice had finished becoming whoever she became when the book skipped ahead through her further adventures after Thought Camp and then ended so abruptly.

However, there were many other who felt that the book ended exactly as it should have and I can see their point in this. Alice is smart and resourceful – thinking outside the box is second nature to her, what she does after Thought Camp may even be perfectly obvious, and the exact goings-on between her and Ben are not really crucial to the story anymore. For me, despite all this logical “I can see it your way too” thinking, the story felt unfinished to me. That being said, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing – because of it, I know that I will go back and re-read this book to see what I missed; to see if the things I missed make the ending better for me. And really, what better praise for a book about a treasure hunt is there than knowing the reader is going back a second time to look for more treasure themselves?