Saturday, August 23, 2008

The Roommate Search is On...

I've been toying with the idea of getting a roommate for the new place for some time. I discussed this idea shortly after moving into the house with fellow Winston-Salem blogger SarahSouth, who suggested that maybe I shouldn't be so eager to get a roommate, because often roommates are terrible people that suck the joy out of life. But then she thought about it some more and asked "how much would they be paying for rent?" and I said the going rate I was finding from Craigslist indicated that I might be able to get about $450 a month. Wheels turned, and soon the approximately $5000 a year of additional income snapped into her mind, and she asked "So... what are you waiting for?"

And it looks like soon, this will all be a go. A couple days ago, I posted an ad for a roommate on Craigslist, and ended up getting a number of responses. Auditions for the part of "DW's Roommate" will thus begin next week.


A Finalist in DW's Roommate
Search. Interesting guy!
I imagine little alarms are going off in some people's heads about Craigslist as a place for finding a roommate. And I have had my reservations. So how has this worked? In the end, the people I received responses from have ended up being both more and less crazy than I expected. This has been determined through Google-stalking. On the less crazy side, a couple candidates appear to be up-standing young professionals working in various capacities at my college. On the more crazy side, I had one person email me whose only match I was able to make from Google was to find his name on the list of people wanted for arrest by the Winston-Salem Police. Interesting...

In any case, the nice thing about the search is that you don't actually have to accept all the crazies that might have contacted you to be your roommate. As a person over-educated in the dark arts of studying people to peer deep into their souls and discover their true nature, I am hoping that my screening skills will be good enough to weed out the crazies. On the other hand, if these efforts and my Google-stalking efforts fail, and I do end up living with a wanted criminal, maybe they're offering some sort of bounty for turning these people in. And that might be another couple hundred bucks right there! Cha-ching!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Allow me to pop up here and serve as a walking reminder of how poorly you've chosen roommates in the past. Proceed with caution!

-DW- said...

Oh, I decided to go to grad school for the last ump-teen years precisely to learn how to avoid roommates like you in the future. No offense or nothin', Bross!

Lori said...

I found a roommate for the summer of 2007 through Craigslist, and he ended up being awesome. There were a few iffy ones in the meantime, though, including one theater enthusiast...whose personality fit the "theater kid" stereotype in every way. Oof.

I'm sure you'll be able to find someone sane--MAYBE even someone cool! Good luck. :c)

Anonymous said...

As long as you're prepared.

Lura managed to find a homosexual mortician with a kiddie-porn problem the last time she went looking for a roommate on Craigslist. Should've had you flown in to screen. (Awesome business model/reality show there, by the way. You should get on that!)