By ALEX J. MANN

Last week I posted an ad on Craigslist called “Seeking an Arch-Nemesis Roommate.” I set the asking rent at $1. I wasn’t actually looking for a roommate, but I did want to see what type of responses I would get. Would people write back? What would they say? More importantly, what made someone think they’d be a good arch-nemesis?

My roommate requirements were fairly reasonable. “When I'm at work, you're at work. When I'm home, you're home. When I'm ready for battle, so are you.” That sort of thing. 

Here's my original post. Click to zoom in. 

Let’s take a look at some of the responses. Here’s the first one I received:

Hi weirdo, 
How much is this room per month (if it's still available)? I can nemesis (nemesize?), cook eggs interesting, keep a house clean, and I can't play guitar but I can play all types of percussive instruments. However, I'm on a limited budget—think the Joker as opposed to Lex Luthor. I'll be honest, so far I haven't seen any rooms in Williamsburg that I can actually afford, but I like the neighborhood and your ad made me laugh so I figured I'd take the chance.

She called me a weirdo, cited two villains, and coined the word “nemesize.” Good work.

Then, from someone else, I got this:

[evil laugh]

Simple. To the point. I asked for more in the form of a high school English class assignment:

Describe your evil laugh in 10 words or less. Please and thank you.

And I got this back:

Headlong. Pealing. Disarming decrescendo. Side glance. Stab.

I don’t understand any of this, although I think it’s a threat to stab me.

In an exchange with someone else, after having a long back-and-forth about creating “mini world wars inside the living room,” I admitted to liking dogs. To that I got:

I'm in my early 20s and i'd like to live with someone in a similar age 29 top. I'm into cats so… not gonna work, sorry. 

Cats were the dealbreaker, not the part about gouging each other’s eyes out with plastic forks.

The emails kept coming. Here’s another:

Hi so this ad is very interesting ha! Okay so how much would rent be for realsies? Okay now my play on your arch nemesis proposition, my name is Jacqueline I am 22 I'm a professional cook I would kill your omelettes! I'm artistic and I do theater as a hobby I can pretend to be anyone! That's another super power! Im awesome at doing a British accent! Im into archery, I could legit maybe kill you but I won't cuz murder is bad. In looking to move in October to accept a job, in moving for my career, a better life and now perhaps be an arch nemesis if you let meahahahaha. My favorite Disney villain is maleficent from sleeping beauty. Can you send pictures of the lair? Please? You may email me or text me XXX XXX XXXX. Hope to start battle soon. I am also an avid whovian, Tolkien head as well. Until I hear from you then…

“For realsies.” After some talk about crossbows vs. regular bows, she asked for a picture of me. I sent this:

She complimented my silhouette selfie.

Here’s another one:

This is bullshit! You can't say "be my arch-nemesis but don't actually be that which I find unpleasant." When you really want to meet your match, come find me—aimless & unpredictable freelancer, intoxicated more often than not (I will bring the party home because I AM the party, and this party lasts all nite sucka!) frequently forgets to pay rent (not that I don’t have the money, I just literally forget to pay most of the time). Messy. as. fuck.

There is nothing “authentic” about this pussy-ass faux bullshit. Or bullshit faux rivalry, since the bullshit is actually very real. 

Pshaw.

Also, fuck eggs! Animal proteins are cancer-poison!

LAME

What I took from this: drunk, leftist, uses the word “sucka,” which means she’s possibly a fan of 1970s blaxploitation films. Also, most offensively, she linked to a Macklemore video.

In response to someone else, I requested crucial information:

Tell me your greatest fear.

The answer was revealing.

Being forgotten.

He’s right.

To someone else, I made this request:

Send me a picture of you doing your best battle stance.

He came back with this.

A guy in a bee costume. Notice the lone cowboy in the corner.

This whole thing cleared up a lot of questions I had about New York, about Craigslist, about human nature.

Would people respond? Yes, many people did, as many as I’ve received for any “normal” Craigslist ad I’ve posted, and possibly more. Is finding an apartment in New York that difficult? Maybe. Are people willing to do anything to live somewhere for a dollar? Likely. Or, are people just enamored with the idea of superhero roleplay? I’d like to think it’s this one.

And how they responded—every inquirer seemed to be totally OK with regular battle/fight sessions, bathroom sneak attacks, and hostage situations. That, or they were just playing along. I don’t know—dollar rent is pretty appealing. It’s certainly not the weirdest thing to be offered on Craigslist.

What made someone think they’d be a good arch-nemesis? Everyone had his own reasoning. One girl challenged my ability to cook omelets, another threatened to never pay rent, and someone else just showed off his bee costume. (I do like the idea of my arch-nemesis having a costume.) The easy answer to my question is that Craigslist is the cesspool of the internet’s transactionary markets, where if you offer something—no matter how demoralizing or bizarre—someone will respond.

However, I’d like to think my quest for finding an arch-nemesis roommate says something more: We’re all heroes to someone and nemeses to someone else. Sometimes it just takes a Craigslist ad to bring them out.
 

Alex J. Mann is a writer, director and comedian living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Photo via JDHancock/Flickr

One thing you learn very quickly when apartment hunting in New York: There’s always a catch. If something sounds too good to be true, then it is—or someone else bought it while you were busy being skeptical. So what would you say to a bedroom in Williamsburg for $800 a month, if living there meant a suffering through an endless conversation about Syria?

That’s the deal offered by comedian Andy Bankin in an exasperated Craigslist post—as the classified ad site has become a go-to platform for conceptual humor—but is it worth trading your normally apolitical social life for rooftop access? Maybe, if it means moments of serene reflection like this one:

Plus, it sounds like you’d get to keep all of Bankin’s stuff! Here’s the glorious ad in full:

$800 Bedroom Available (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)

If anyone is interested, I'm renting out my bedroom in Williamsburg, Brooklyn immediately. I apologize for the short notice. The apartment features a kitchenette, a large (by New York standards, ha ha) bathroom, and a roommate that's going to have some opinions on Syria.

I'd like to return to my apartment, but I know that as soon as I do, I'll be confronted by a roommate with opinions on the Syrian conflict and a determination to share them with me. The apartment has high ceilings and exposed brick along the far wall. At only $800/month it's a steal for the location.

I won't listen to your god damn opinions on Syria, Mike. I won't do it.

Situated between the L, JMZ, and G trains, it's convenient no matter where you work and the neighborhood is loaded with great restaurants and bars. It never ends with Syria. It just keeps going until he's shared every opinion he has and then he just circles back and repeats. Utilities included.

As for me, I haven't been home in a week. I've been staying late at work, and then grounding myself at a bar until last call. Then I wander the streets until dawn breaks. Cold, afraid, and lonely; content only in knowing that I don't have to talk to my roommate about Syria.

Oh really, Mike? "Apathy towards the Middle East is bankrupting this nation's morality"? Stop using my shampoo.

The room is available immediately as I will never return. It comes fully furnished with a bed, a desk, my laptop, all my clothing, irreplaceable family photos, and little mementos from ex-girlfriends that I just can't bring myself to throw away. It's all yours. No security deposit necessary.

So please respond with a brief description of yourself and your usual schedule. Sorry, but there's no smoking inside the apartment, but there is rooftop access with views of the New York skyline. Perfect for sunbathing or just enjoying a beer -- though my roommate may trap you up there and suck you into a conversation about Syria. No pets.

Also I am currently in the market for a new apartment myself. So if you are renting out or know anyone who is, please let me know. I'm very flexible, all I ask is that there's some form of public transportation nearby -- providing access to lower Manhattan. And no roommate with opinions on Syria.

Personally, I’d have no problem tuning out a hipster who pretends to be an expert on Middle East geopolitics and diplomacy—it’s the shampoo thing that would really get my goat. But to anybody seeking out Bankin on Twitter in the hopes of more clever material in this vein, consider yourself warned by the man himself:

If you're following me because of that Craigslist post I wrote, it's only fair that you know...it'll be mostly dick jokes from here on out.

— Andy Bankin (@andybankin) September 13, 2013

Moving out? Who is he kidding—these dudes were made for each other.

Photo by Mac Design Studio/Flickr

The body of this 1987 Chevrolet Camaro is in "excellent cosmetic condition," according to its owner. Normally, that'd be a great asset for a used car. In this case, it's slightly mortifying.

For the low, low price of $4,800, you can drive become a Twix ad on wheels, thanks to a Los Angeles County Craigslist seller.

The interior is almost as garish. The blast of blood red may be hard on the eyes, but that's not even the worst aspect: There's an ALLIGATOR on the dash.

Its owner, D, claimed the engine is a "BEAST" and "everything is clean," so at least the car has that going for it. But it’s safe to say that for Twix, it wasn’t all in the mix.

Photos via Craigslist, remix by Fernando Alfonso III

"You'll never see another one like this," says the Craigslist seller of a "must see" leather couch he says he had custom-made for $20,000. Unfortunately, he got married, and his wife says it's got to go. 

It's hard to tell what, exactly, his wife doesn't like about it. This thing looks comfy as hell. 

Maybe the fact that it's a not-so-subtle ode to male and female genitalia?

A quick Tineye search reveals that the ladyflower sofa might not be as "one of a kind" as this seller claims. It was recently featured on a site called the Accidental Vagina in a post titled "Seven Vaginas for My Special Valentine." So unless this thing is the Traveling Pants of crotch couches, hopping around different living rooms and collecting blog posts along the way, it's probably safe to assume it's fake. 

I don't care. I offered $4,001 for it. It sure beats the IKEA Ektorp.

Photo via Craigslist

We all have our house-hunting horror stories. A “cozy loft apartment” that turned out to be a closet with a mattress on the floor. Creepy landlords. That weird roommate who wanted you to be his supervillain arch-nemesis.

The Terrible Real Estate Agent PhotographsTumblr takes a look at real estate that’s totally disastrous for the opposite reason: egregiously accurate marketing. As in, why on Earth would any Realtor in their right mind choose something like this to advertise a property?

What a fantastic depiction of a boarded-up nightmare house with a bunch of trash outside. You’d think it’d be better to just not include a photo at all, right…? Wrong. According to the various real estate photographers included on this blog, anyway.

It’s not so much that the properties are all so unbelievably awful. It’s that someone, either the owner or an actual, professional real estate agent, took a look at these photos and thought, “Yep, looks good.”

The wall is literally held together with duct tape? No problem, it’s part of the ambience, and therefore must be included in the advertising photos. Not to mention all those rooms that look like they belong in an episode of Hoarders, or have mysterious stains all over the floor. 

The creepiest one, however, has got to be this relatively innocuous image. Compared to the previous selection of haunted houses, weirdly-angled bathroom portraits and failed attempts at abstract art, this would’ve been fine. Except the advertiser decided to lurch straight into the Uncanny Valley and Photoshop a stock photo of a smiling woman into the picture. Why? We may never know.

All images via terriblerealestateagentphotos/Tumblr

Every woman who's ever been harassed on the street has likely had the urge to talk back. There are even channels for it now, like Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s “Stop Telling Women to Smile” public art project, and the activist site Hollaback.

Still, when you’ve been harassed, there’s often the post-incident push-and-pull: What should you have said? Over the weekend, an anonymous woman took out this Minneapolis Craigslistad to address her “missed connection.”  To set the scene, this happened at 4:30pm on a Friday, as she was standing at an intersection, waiting for the light rail:

“So, that's where we were. Me, minding my own business. You, apparently observing my ass. At that point you had options. You could have driven past me and said nothing. You could have turned up your radio and waved, ensconcing us in some beats and camaraderie. You could have shouted out, "Happy Friday! Yeehaw!" Any of those options would have been great. I probably would have waved, smiled, and started my weekend on the same high note as you.

“Instead, you chose the most pathetic option available to you: You leaned out of your window and made some ridiculous series of leering comments about whether I was wearing a thong, right as the light changed and you peeled off, pleased with yourself and saved from any consequences.”

She then gets to the central issue of street harassment:

“Let me make this abundantly clear, to you and to the other men reading this: when you comment on a woman's appearance, you are not doing it for her. You are doing it for you. It's not some great way to make a woman feel sexy and appreciated. It's not flattery, even if you mean for it to be. The only thing it is is a great way for you to create a shitty power dynamic, by which you have announced yourself as the arbiter of her value, and you've deemed her fuckable, and she is supposed to be happy or impressed by that. “

Interesting to see a missed connection used in this way. Hopefully it connected.

Photo via Jacobo Canady/Flickr

Would you like tickets to see a Florida Gators game? One local man is willing to hand them over—along with his stepdaughter!

Over the past couple days, visitors to the Gainesville, Fla., Craigslist have likely come across the once-in-a-lifetime offer. An unidentified man explained that his stepdaughter's companion suddenly backed out of their date to the upcoming Sept. 21 matchup between the Gators and the Tennessee Volunteers. Instead of swallowing the $150 loss, the man turned to the ultimate pimping board and offered any willing spectator a ticket, providing that they escort his stepdaughter.

Obviously, the date-less stepdaughter is pleasing to the eye. And (phew!), at least he's vetting applicants by requiring a photo and résumé. But one has to wonder what kind of mental stability runs in a family in which a man readily offers his stepdaughter to strangers. Can a lonely bachelor have a truly enjoyable evening with the adopted offspring of such a pimp daddy? 

More importantly, what are the chances of the stepdaughter—or "lucky winner," for that matter—making it home alive?

Diehard Gator fans are apparently throwing their personal safety—and scruples—to the wind and flooding the stepfather's inbox with offers. The suitor will be chosen by midnight on Sept. 19, so if you're a fan of college football and blatantly dysfunctional families, make sure you submit your own application!

If you miss out, don't fret; perhaps the man's wife will be available for a future game.

Photo via Bryan McDonald/Flickr

Crummy restaurants and subpar retailers in New York state may want to tread lightly when it comes to creating positive buzz online—get caught praising your own business on a site like Yelp and you’re facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced the success of “Operation Clean Turf,” a “ year-long undercover investigation into reputation management industry, astroturfing and false endorsements.” The term “astroturfing” refers to the practice of artificially raising your own rating in a forum designed for honest customer feedback.

All told, 19 businesses will pay a combined $350,000 in penalties for doing just that, and have entered assurances to discontinue their use of the tactic, which Shneiderman characterized as “worse than old-fashioned false advertising,” according to the New York Times.

What the investigation uncovered went far beyond a store owner giving herself a boost when it comes to services like Google Local and CitySearch: in fact, there was a thriving black market economy for falsely positive press. SEO companies and consultants are behind much of this:

Posing as the owner of a yogurt shop in Brooklyn, representatives from Attorney General Schneiderman's office called the leading SEO companies in New York to request assistance in combating negative reviews on consumer-review websites. During these calls, representatives from some of these companies offered to write fake reviews of the yogurt shop and post them on consumer-review websites such as Yelp.com, Google Local and Citysearch.com, as part of their reputation management services.

The investigation revealed that SEO companies were using advanced IP spoofing techniques to hide their identities, as well as setting up hundreds of bogus online profiles on consumer review websites to post the reviews.  

The IP tricks are designed to get around the aggressive screening processes implemented by Yelp and other ratings sites—where even legitimate reviews are sometimes flagged for looking suspicious. It wasn’t just the SEO companies’ employees writing these fraudulent reviews, either. The AG’s office found classified ads on sites like Craigslist that sought willing wordsmiths with viable, established Yelp accounts, or the ability to work from various different IP addresses. Writers “from as far away as the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe” worked  for “$1 to $10 per review,” gushing about places they’d never been.

When employment wasn’t a good enough incentive, plain old bribery did the trick. An SEO company called XVIO, “conducted a ‘secret shopper’ campaign where its agents received free or discounted goods and services from XVIO's clients in exchange for a review.” But the secret shoppers were instructed not to post unless their review was positive—and not to disclose that they had received a discount.

The businesses tangled up in these schemes ranged from teeth whitening services to a bus line, day spas, nightclubs and surgeons. It seems no sector of the economy is immune to the pressures of online reputation management—and that it’s incredibly tempting to cut that corner. When the alternative is making actual improvements to your brand or product, lying looks a whole lot easier.

Photo by Alex Bramwell/Flickr

Finding a suitable roommate in a major metropolis is hard—and, for the the most part, Craigslist doesn’t make things much easier. How can an ordinary, black-and-white classified notice show off your true colors and convey your personal brand?

Lauren Fahey, a recent arrival to San Francisco from New York had a simple but clever idea for how to stand out from the crowd of would-be cohabitators: up the production values a bit. Her listing contains all the ordinary particulars (age, habits, preferred neighborhoods) but comes along with what resembles a poster for a movie, or music festival, in full color, complete with splashy blurbs from friends and roommates past.

If you know anyone in #SanFrancisco looking for a #roommate, please RT http://t.co/BbRcHibHhZ@lmattia1@_allisonk@thatdarkgirl

— LoTwirls (@LoTwirls) September 23, 2013

“Lauren is a housewife in a hipster’s body,” raves one buddy. “She knows how to seriously cook, clean and party.” Others praise her generosity and sixth sense for finding out about cool new bands. She’s also “not neurotic.”

The image of Fahey posing with a faceless friend and the words “THIS COULD BE YOU,” in front of an incidental naked man, completes the picture. Apparently, the eye-catching advertisement snagged her a home in no time. How easy was that?

@angelader yes!!!!

— LoTwirls (@LoTwirls) September 25, 2013

Now it’s just a matter of getting her stuff moved in. Too bad Photoshop won’t help there.

H/T: Curbed SF | Photo by David Janssen/Flickr

In case you needed more proof that Breaking Bad is over, you can check Craigslist.

There, under the Albuquerque real estate, you can find the White family’s house for sale, located at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane.

It’s not real, unfortunately; it’s a clever ad by Century 21. (Frances Padilla, who’s owned the real house since 1973, doesn’t appear to have any interest in selling anytime soon.) The post itself is chock-full of Breaking Bad references—“two-car garage for a Pontiac Aztek, Chrysler 3000 or both. Water heater replaced in 2009.” Don’t forget about the crawl space (“perfect for kids!”). Sadly, no pizza on the roof. 

And the “Century 21” agent selling the house is named, conspicuously, Carol—same as the Whites’ neighbor who dropped her groceries in the season 5 midseason premiere.

Oh well. If not the house, at least you can still buy that Aztek.

H/T AdAge | Photo via MachinimaETC/YouTube

The hacktivist group Anonymous first gained national fame for “Operation Chanology” in 2008. The group hit the Church of Scientology with critical videos, distributed denial of service attacks and orchestrated pranks, like mass phone calls. 

After moving on to hit financial groups like PayPal, who refused to allow WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange to use their services in the wake of Chelsea Manning’s leak of classified war materials, then attempting to help Arab Spring countries and more, Anonymous has finally come home. 

Anons are targeting Scientology again, and this time, it’s personal. 

Sorry, typo. I meant, this time it’s in the personals. Craigslist, that is. 

According to Business Insider, a member of Anonymous sent the publication an email alleging that Scientology leadership is using Craigslist to recruit. 

"Anonymous has attempted to use Craigslist's flagging system to take down (the Church of Scientology’s) ads, as they are constantly violating terms of use with ridiculous amounts of postings in a number of cities across the United States and Canada,” the source wrote. 

The Anonymous member told BI that in New York City, San Francisco, and Houston, between 100 and 200 ads are posted in a given day. The group sent “repeated e-mails” to Craigslist but had allegedly received no response. 

So in reaction, Anonymous posted its own ads, hundreds of them, “using the same or similar titles to the Scientology ads, warning of the true nature of the ads in as many humorous or noticeable ways as we could."

These ads, the Anonymous tipster insists, have been flagged very quickly and taken down; flagged, in fact, “(e)ven before being live in the main list.” 

This can be done, said the writer, by using flagging software, “which is also illegal according to Craigslist and can supposedly result in permanent banning,” or by Craigslist itself.

We have contacted Craigslist asking for clarification, but have not heard back. 

H/T BI | Photo by Justin Cozart/Flickr 

People wash up at Craigslist looking for all kinds of stuff: jobs, apartments, sex, love. But all anyone visiting the website really needs, as far as a few ardent believers are concerned, is to join the Church of Scientology.

A Scientology recruiter, in fact, had such such success drawing new members to his mission through Craigslist—enough to annoy Anonymous, as it turns out—that he or she drew up a handy memo about best practices when it comes to “Cyber Dissemination Club.” (“‘Cyber’ means ‘using computers’ in this context,” the author helpfully informs us.)

The document, titled “Craigslist Hat Write-up”—“hat” being Scientology slang for a specific job within the organization, or as in this case, the instructions particular to a given church task—walks a newcomer through Craigslist’s mechanics and then demonstrates how nearly any subsection, from “groups” and “classes” to “politics” and “household services,” can serve as a launching point for the Scientology pitch. There are some tips for properly saturating the site without getting flagged, too.

The author of the memo claims to have sold a great many people on Dianetics courses with ads as varied as “Class for Dealing with Breakup or Divorce,” “Seminar for Stress and Depression,” and a “Lovers of Wisdom” activity group. When people call or email in reply, they’re told they need an L. Ron Hubbard book or an appointment with a Scientology officiant. But even so, Craigslist posters are warned about giving too much away: “Do NOT explain Dianetics or Scientology over the phone,” the guide stresses.

More importantly, it is crucial to pinpoint the customer’s “ruin,” i.e., “the one thing in his life he will pay almost anything to overcome.” Once that issue is identified, it’s a simple matter of convincing the recruit that their problem is one that Scientology can effectively treat.

While some ads, like “Free DVD: Scientology, an Overview” are fairly straightforward about the intention of distributing Dianetics materials, many others bear no sign of Hubbard’s imprint: a “Free Consultation for Local Singles,” to take one example, was deliberately vague:

Are you single?

How long has it been since you had a relationship?

Do you feel there is anything you would like to improve about yourself or about your situation in life in order for you to get into a good relationship?

You need to do a specific kind of personality test, which will show you what you need to improve about yourself to help you start a successful romantic relationship.

For a limited time we are doing free testing and consultation for singles. Call (916) 925-2545 to take advantage of this offer.

Another listing, with the headline “Reach your potential as an artist” omitted even a mention of the personality test.

Are you a creative person who is running into blocks?

Do you feel limited in your creative ability?

Whether it's writing, composing, painting, acting, dancing, anything, you run into barriers. Find out how to get rid of them. You are a powerful arists and you can reach your full potential.

Call (602) 954-1417 for more information.

Posts about self-help lectures and “reading partners” similarly obscured their true intentions, with casual references to a “non-profit organization,” meaning the Religious Technology Center (RTC), a body that controls the various trademarks of Dianetics and Scientology. “We are a non-profit group composed of people who are interested in life improvement, becoming happier, and more successful in life,” reads an ad under the heading “Let go of your past and make new positive friends.”

Where the author really cuts loose, though, is in the political discussion forums: Here Hubbard’s somewhat justified suspicion of the U.S. government, as well as his crippling paranoia about the field of psychiatry, are parrotted to grandiose effect. Readers are informed about the corruption of the country’s mental health system, conspiracy theories are spun around big pharma, and supporters of “universal human rights” are urged to visit a website for Youth for Human Rights International—another group established and overwhelmingly staffed by Scientologists.

This is not merely a commercial technique, either; it has a scriptural significance as well. In large type at the head of the document is a quote so badly worded it can only be Hubbard’s: “On the principle that if you don't communicate you aren't, it behooves us as an organization, if we are to exist in the public consciousness, to put out communication particles.” In other words, spreading one’s ideas around is almost as good as finding people to accept them.

The church’s genius has always been to attract converts with a wide array of promises and through as many channels as possible, and to all appearances, Craigslist happens to be perfectly engineered toward that strategy. The author claims that each of his featured sample ads has gotten at least one response. So the next time you’re hunting for a new roommate or just a nicer couch, keep your wits about you: Before you know it, you might be an Operating Thetan.  

Photo by Scientology Media/Flickr

It's a common mistake to lose a family member in a store. It's something else entirely when the relative is dead, and cremated.

Roughly two weeks ago, Charlie Nguyen, owner of Charlie's Liquor and Smoke Shop in Wichita, Kansas, noticed that a customer had left something on his counter. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the mystery object was no object at all, but rather a person’s ashes. A label on the bag read "Helen K. Dapron" and carried with it another distinction: "Grandma."

"This is somebody's grandma. I cannot throw this one away," Nguyen told Wichita television station KWCH-12.

Nguyen did what any of us would do: he turned to Craigslist for help. After all, people using the site to unload those that they no longer want in their lives, like a baby, is nothing new.

Fortunately, the reply Nguyen got from his ad, which has since been taken down, was not from a typical Craigslist creeper but rather from someone claiming to be a (very relieved) relative. According to KWCH, the relative should be picking up the ashes sometime on October 3.

If Grandpa Dapron ever passes on, let's hope that the family doesn't stop for cigarettes and liquor on the way to the funeral parlor again.

Photo via Katrina J. Wiese/Flickr

After the announcement of the government shutdown—but before news broke of shots fired in Washington, D.C., Thursday—some enterprising Craigslister put up the newly vacant U.S. Capitol building for rent.

“So my roommates all left because of a job thing and I need to make rent,” the D.C. prankster wrote.

Listed under Washington, D.C.’s “Sublets/temporary” section, the Craigslist post offers an airheaded take on renting out rooms left vacant by the federal government furlough. “Lots of room! Recently open!” it proclaims. “It's historic too! It was built in like 1800 something.”

Were it real, it’d be a pretty good deal: $1,000 for 775,000 square feet. It’s got valet parking, and is super-accessible by train.

Hey, whatever a federal employee needs to do to make money. Beats trying to sign up for unemployment.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Nashville may be the seat of Southern hospitality, but for many dogs who fall victim to the city’s persistentundergrounddogfighting channels, the kindness of strangers is out of reach.

But for one lucky pooch—a female pit bull “bait dog,” used to draw other dogs into the fights—the kindness of thousands of Internet strangers may ultimately save her life.

Mama Jade, nameless until she staggered onto a nearby porch Friday night, was battered, bruised, defenseless, and suffering from breast cancer when her rescuer found her. But fortunately for the weakened pit bull, she wandered into the life of a particularly angelic savior.

Not only does her rescuer work at an animal hospital, but she knows how to use Craigslist.

After bringing Mama Jade to the vet and discovering how extensive her injuries were, the rescuer took to Craigslist to attack Mama Jade’s abusers. The post was titled “Your pitbull found me and I won't give her back,” and featured harrowing images of Mama Jade and her injuries:

Last Friday night, your dog [wandered] up onto our porch. Signs of the abuse she had somehow escaped, riddled her body. The fresh bite marks on her muzzle, the scars that covered her body, the exposed pink and purple flesh around her neck, where she was obviously tied up with ropes that cut their way into her skin, over and over again…..

Upon examining her teeth to gauge her approximate age, I burst into tears. I found that you had pulled the majority of them out and the ones you left, had been filed down. And you did this without anaesthesia, this I am sure of. You did this so she couldn't fight back. You did this so she couldn't injure any dogs you had trained to fight, when you threw her in there with them. With each bite of her they took and each yelp she cried, they'd look at you for reassurance. Because all they wanted to do was please you. Loyalty is in their blood. Violence is not.

After realizing that on top of her other injuries, their new pit bull had breast cancer, the staff at the Nashville animal hospital resolved to put Mama Jade to sleep. And her rescuer resolved to fight back:

Tomorrow, Mama will finally feel peace. And when she closes her eyes and takes her last breath, I'll be there. I'll hold her big ol head and I'll tell her how much I love her.

And when her soul has left her battered body and I've dried the tears enough to see, I will document every bruise, every bite, every cut, scrape and gash. I'll photograph her teeth, or rather, where her teeth used to be. I'll turn in all the evidence and post it where EVERYONE will see it. I'll use it to educate kids in heavily crime ridden areas, on the horrors of dog fighting. 

But she hadn’t counted on the power of the Internet. After her post went up yesterday, thousands of emails from across the country poured in, with many people begging to be allowed to help pay for medical treatment to save Mama Jade’s life. 

Overwhelmed, the rescuer updated the Craigslist post and stated that due to the overwhelming numbers of support, plans to euthanize Mama Jade had been put on hold. By popular demand, Mara Jade got a new Facebook page for updates, where thousands of comments poured in with offers to help. By Thursday afternoon, the page had over 40,000 likes. Her grateful benefactor wrote: 

Again, words will never be able to express how thankful both I and Mama Jade are. The world has fallen in love with a dog that's only known love for 6 days.

Although dog fighting has received its share of publicity in recent years, it continues to be a major problem throughout the world. In August, the bust of a major Southern dogfighting ring led to the rescue of nearly 400 captive dogs.  A 2007 CNN report estimated that over 100,000 participants and 40,000 professionals were active in the sport in the U.S.  

The Humane Society provides tips on how to recognize dogfighting in your area, and offers a reward of up to $5,000 for tips leading to arrests. If you suspect an occurrence of dogfighting, call 1-877-TIP-HSUS. 

Do it for Mama Jade, and all the dogs who aren’t lucky enough to grab the attention of the Internet.

Photo via MamaJadeNashville/Facebook

If you’ve ever seen that one Folgers commercial, then you know that the best part of waking up is getting some sibling lovin’ with your morning cuppa. So it’s fitting that the unexpected plot twist of this Craigslist ad involves a hipster breakfast bar in Williamsburg.

Waffle & Wolf is exactly what you’d expect a waffle shack in Williamsburg to be. It has an Instagram account where it posts delectable images of fruit- and vegetable-stuffed waffles topped with mesmerizing ingredients like lemon marscapone and lavender-honey. Fridays it offers chicken & waffles. You can even get waffles and ice cream.

And for one lucky Craiglister with a fetish, Waffle & Wolf apparently serves up a whole lot of love.

The ad, entitled “I want to waffle your wolf,” purports to be written by a woman looking for a man in Williamsburg. It begins innocently enough:

hi i am trying to find the man who works at waffle and wolf in williamsburg. ...i am trying to find the man who works at waffle and wolf because you look so similar to my father. 

i lost my father in a drunk driving accident was i was 12 years old. but he had darkish reddish hair, wore glasses like you, and was thin. he was my best friend.

Sweet and hopeful, right? The plot thickens.

i am writing to you because i know that he had a lover in new york. before he died, he worked for the ny times and would visit her. i only know this because i found his travel receipts before he passed on and i threw them away so my mother wouldn't find them. it's too much of a longshot that we are siblings, but you look like him, which brings me to this...

Oh my goodness! Is it possible that the Craigslister could be reunited with her secret sibling? What could be more heartwarming, more beautifully uplifting, more—

my number one fetish is incest-fantasy. 

—more totally not going where we thought it would. Woah. Wait. What? Wait. What?

i don't want to have sex with my family, but i like role-playing this fantasy. my boyfriend is not ok with it. i'm not 100% comfortable with it either, and i dont know why it gets me off like it does. 

So she wants to have roleplay sex with her potentially long-lost brother?

i want to meet you and maybe have a non sexual encounter where you speak to me as my father and we can resolve my grief. if you are up for a sexual encounter, we can try that out too. 

No. Even better. She wants to have roleplay sex with her potentially long-lost brother while he’s roleplaying her dead father. 

A sibling roleplay within a sibling roleplay?

Waffle & Wolf, sign me up for the Bereaved Family special with lavender honey and extra cream.

A staff member at Waffle & Wolf told me they do have a staff member who matched the description of the man in the ad, but he wasn’t currently on shift. I started reading him the Craigslist post, but he quickly hung up. No one answered the phone after that.

A note of advice to you, unknown waffle guy: You might want to stay home for a while.

Photo via aloha75/Flickr

In a classic “you got chocolate in my peanut better” situation, Craigslist and Instagram have merged to form a new online marketplace called Hashbag. Well, sort of.

Craigslist isn’t actually involved in Hashbag, which just launched today. And neither is Instagram, which the site makes sure to clarify on the FAQ page. Rather, Hashbag exists on the idea that Instagram hashtags can, essentially, be monetized. According to the site, “Every year over 2 million pictures are posted to Instagram with the hashtag #forsale.” Hashbag is just the site that connects buyers and sellers.

Brooklyn designer Mike Bodge is the idea man behind Hashbag. Via email, he explained a bit about the conception and execution:

The idea came from me noticing a lot of brands and stores were posting things for sale on Instagram. It makes sense because your followers are often people that are your friends or customers. I was curious how many people actually did that so I looked up the tag #forsale and figured by the frequency that over 2 million photos were posted with that tag a year. I looked through the postings and saw that the way people sell things was not standardized...it was kind of a wild west. Some people would ask for you to text them, others would say hit me up on whatsapp if you want to buy, etc. I figured I could make an easy way for people to shop and buy.

Right now the site shows everything #forsale on Instagram and if someone is a member of the site you can buy it directly on Hashbag. If someone isn't a member, it simply sends you over to the person's instagram photo and you can comment there. It is 100% free to post something and create your own easy storefront of things for sale, but I take a $.99 fee for anything sold.

Currently, PayPal is the only means of payment, though Bodge is looking into other avenues.

In addition to an Etsy-like selection of clothing and accessories, you could also buy a 2013 Tesla Model S for just $96,508; tickets to see the Misfits; a bayonet; or a pair of Gucci loafers.

Since Silk Road has been shuttered, I was curious what images #drugs would produce. Hashbag prohibits illegal content, and “content in facilitation of the creation, advertising, distribution, provision or receipt of illegal goods or services.” However, this seller seems to be peddling pills and marijuana. Same with this seller. A lot of people are selling Xanax.

"Anything posted on Hashbag has to comply with Instagram's content guidelines," Bodge explained. "If you notice, you can't search for 'boobs' or anything sex-related because Instagram does a great job of filtering that stuff out. If we saw something on the site that slipped through the cracks and was illegal, we'd definitely take it down. Basically if Instagram allows it, it'll be fine to end up on Hashbag."

Elsewhere, Bodge himself is selling a brick from somewhere in Williamsburg for $50, he says, “for fun.”

Photo via Hashbag

John Fairhurst, lead organizer of the hacking collective Anonymous’ Million Mask March set to hit the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and other locations on Nov. 5, has been done an anonymous good turn. 

Fairhurst refused donations for the march’s costs, which include renting a stage and sound system, in service of keeping it 100-percent free. He quietly put his beloved motorcycle up for sale on Craigslist, hoping to use the proceeds to power his organizing efforts. But other anons doxed his do-goodism and were doxed in return. 

According to the Digital Journal, a lady called Fairhurst and offered to buy the bike for her son. 

The mystery caller was part of Project J, an internal Anonymous operation put together solely to help fund the march by covertly buying Fairhurst’s motorcycle, intending to give it back to him at the event. 

Alas, keeping things quiet around a bunch of people who are used to peeking under tarps was difficult. Within a day, Fairhurst found out he was the beneficiary of the op. 

The 159 Facebook shares for Project J may have had something to do with it, given the march’s official site is its Facebook events page. 

The money for the purchase, which totalled $690 prior to the lid getting blown off, was raised via a secret fundraising campaign on GoFundMe. 

Because the money was donated anonymously, it would have been largely impossible to refund it, so, touched, Fairhurst elected to accept it as a donation to the march, which he will, presumably, journey to on his motorcycle. 

H/T Digital Journal | Photo by Heather B/Flickr

With Silk Road a rapidly fading memory and Black Market Reloaded in limbo after an apparent security breach last week, you might think that the unregulated gun trade had dropped off a bit. But collectors who need a platform through which to buy and sell firearms semi-anonymously have long had an alternative to these dicey Deep Web networks: the surface-level Internet.

In a report for the Daily Beast, Brian Ries describes the ease with which guns are advertised on Instagram, the photo-sharing app Facebook bought for roughly $747 million. With no federal law prohibiting sales of firearms over the Internet, and the relevant local statutes riddled with loopholes, there’s little to fear in posting images of assault rifles with the hashtag #forsale and a phone number. Needless to say, these people are probably not conducting background checks on their customers.

Especially through a service like Hashbag, which allows one to search items that Instagram users have put up for sale, it’s a cinch to find the exact model of weapon you’d like, from antique pistols to cutting-edge sniper rifles to knives and other deadly instruments, many of them customized or modified by the seller. It’s equally easy to find a dealer willing to “ship anywhere.” Once initial contact has been made, terms of a purchase can be negotiated in a less public forum—but social media has proved too valuable a vector for building a client base.

That black market operators are behaving so brazenly on social media doesn’t mean they’ll always get away with it, of course. Rapper Matthew Best brought about the largest NYPD gun bust in history, with 254 firearms seized, when he bragged about his firepower on YouTube and Instagram. But what’s one bust when the Web is facilitating so many other potentially illegal sales and absolving itself of such trafficking in the process?  

Take Armlist, an alternative to gun-averse Craigslist that takes great pains to wash the management’s hands of any business conducted there. The user agreement states that they will not “become involved in transactions between parties,” or “certify, investigate, or in any way guarantee the legal capacity of any party to transact,” and that the user alone is solely responsible for “obeying all applicable enforcement mechanisms, including, but not limited to federal, state, municipal, and tribal statutes, rules, regulations, ordinances, and judicial decisions, including compliance with all applicable licensing requirements.” In one fell swoop, it excuses the possible sale of guns to convicts or the mentally ill—at least as far as its own legal liability is concerned.

Even Facebook, which allows violent imagery if it’s not glorified, is host to a thriving gun trade, with closed group pages like “ILLINOIS GUN EXCHANGE” and “GUNS 4 TRADE” attracting thousands of fans. “4 State Guns and More” is specifically geared toward the shuttling of firearms over the borders separating Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Once again, the admins take the stance that they bear no culpability for any deal that goes south, due to law enforcement or otherwise, and they ask that members be “courteous” and “DELETE YOUR POST ONCE YOU HAVE SOLD THE ITEM.” You don’t want people making bids on claimed merchandise, obviously—but you also don’t want to leave any digital trace of your dubious interstate commerce.

In light of these unchecked ventures, one has to ask: What use is the Deep Web to your independent gun vendor, legitimate or otherwise? It’s just as easy, if not more so, to peddle your wares in the open. The best part: no bitcoins.

H/T The Daily Beast | Photo by Black Mamba Airsoft Group Japan/Flickr

Deanna Ballman, 23, was nine months pregnant when she died. On July 31, 2012, Ballman called her mother a few hours after leaving the home to answer a Craigslist ad for a housekeeper. She told her mom she felt dizzy. The call was lost, and her family would never reach her again. Ballman’s body was found in her car the next day.

On Thursday, a former Ohio doctor pled guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Ballman and her nearly full-term unborn child, whose name would have been Mabel Lilly. The Associated Press reports that the doctor allegedly injected her with heroin after she answered a Craigslist ad to be his housekeeper. 

The man pled guilty today to her death and the death of her nearly full-term unborn child, reports the Associated Press.

Ali Salim, 44, faces 37 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter following a hearing in December. He is also charged with abuse of a corpse, rape, and evidence tampering, for erasing photos and videos of Ballman from his phone. He plans to plead innocent to the rape charge, according to the AP.

Ballman’s family is suing Salim and Craigslist for $40 million over her death.

Salim’s attorney said Ballman was prostituting herself to feed a drug habit. The AP reported there is no evidence Ballman was a drug user, though the ad was posted under “personal” and not “jobs.”

H/T Associated Press | Photo via AP