I finally get why people become homeless. My search for a Chicago apartment has made a refrigerator box seem awfully inviting, provided it has central air and a view of the lake.

Finding a place in college was never this hard. When I was an undergrad I picked a real estate company, its sales staff showed me some properties, and I chose the one that smelled least like a train station restroom.

In Chicago this method doesn’t work, mostly because rent is so high I can’t afford the train station restroom itself. Instead I turned to Craigslist, the Web site that helps people find apartments and then stock them with prostitutes. Read the rest of this entry »