How not to live in Washington

Well my mute (and possibly nonexistent) audience. I thought that you might enjoy an old piece that i wrote about my living situation here in DC. I am going to overhaul it at some point in the near future to add what actually ended up happening. In the meantime, i would welcome any feedback you may have. Enjoy!

How not to live in Washington

Like most foreigners in Washington, I got here on solely nepotistic grounds. Abuse of the same nepotistic connection secured me free housing that I managed to milk for the better part of a year.

To start with, in my unemployed intern state, the family friends who had first lured me to this land of milk and honey were willing to put up with me living in their basement rent-free.

As I managed to finagle my way into a paid position and continued to stay, their tempers started to wear thin. Here I was, living at their leisure while I shamelessly squandered my earnings on alcohol and bad literature. It was too good to last, and eventually my repellent hygienic habits caught up with me.

The only solution was to take on the Internet and the challenge of Craigslist.com.

This was a daunting prospect. Countless colleagues and vague acquaintances had warned me that to dabble in the black art of Craigslist was to uncover a dark and usually hidden underbelly to Washington.

I figured I had a British accent, and what more could I really need.

And as it turned out, I was right. While friends told me tales of facing rooms of five or more peers peppering you with questions about the most intimate details of your private life, I found myself shamelessly manipulating my British accent to connive my way into an established boudoir run by three girls.

It all seemed too good to be true. The rent included all bills, and amounted to less than half one months salary. The apartment was fully furnished and came with a television with a truly American amount of channels. The added bonus of the female roommates was a tendency to populate the living room with other nubile young creatures, all equally sweet smelling and tidy.

Sadly, it was all too good to be true. Within a month, I discovered that the landlady was in fact caught in the last throes of a painful separation from a physically imposing husband who had previously harassed my new roommates in the early hours of the morning. He had demanded to be let in to recover his patrimony, they refused, and he would only leave under police escort. The girls had been in turn been called to court to testify against him, and provide witness to his unhinged nature.

As it turned out, they backed the wrong horse, and the restraining order that the landlady had had imposed on her husband was duly lifted. She evaporated to Tennessee. He materialized downstairs with a new, younger bride.

I made a very careful point of not expressing an opinion in the entire matter. The girls took a somewhat different perspective. They were mildly disconcerted by the fact that they were now living, and paying rent to, a gentleman they had testified against in court. They became increasingly skittish, and eventually fled en masse with most of the furniture and the bountiful television channels to a small flat on the other side of the District.

This was an extraordinarily bothersome turn of events. I was now obliged to re-people my kingdom with people that answered advertisements on Craigslist, and was exposed to the darker side of what I had perceived as a benevolent website.

The first batch to answer the posting were a surreal bunch including a gentleman who blankly detailed his love of obscure photographers while he asked whether I minded that he was unemployed. He was swiftly followed by a disparate selection of over-eager youngsters with absurd accents from the nether regions of the United States who didn’t understand that the fact I had flagged the “no pets” box on the website meant their mangy poodle was not going to be welcome.

Eventually I slimmed down my requirements for a roommate to their very barest necessities. I needed a roommate to be able to pay rent (without dealing narcotics or anything else from the household) and not feel some dark desire to chop me up and consume me in some sort of satanic ritual while I slept at night.

Thankfully I had underestimated the desperation of the Washington young professionals, and I was able to locate a group of individuals in dire enough straits to be able pay regularly to move into my dilapidated household.

In the meantime, I spent my time locating a pliable young creature in the district with a television, sofa, and warm bed. Having found all four conveniently located in the same place and near the office, I promptly expended all my charm into persuading her to put up with me, and I shifted to her apartment.

Now I needed to plumb the depths of Craigslist one final time to locate my replacement.