Tag Archives: worst application

WORST APPLICATION EVER. A couple of cat tales.

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DO YOU RENT TO CATS? I once got a phone call from a woman inquiring about an apartment I had for rent. She said: “I saw your ad for a 1-bedroom apartment for rent. I have a question. Do you rent to cats?” I thought that was an oddly worded question, so I phrased my answer carefully. I said: “No, I don’t rent to cats, but I do rent apartments to people with cats.” The woman said, in a dejected voice: “Oh, that’s too bad” and hung up the phone. I never heard from her again. Although this happened many years ago, I still think about this incident occasionally and wonder what was on this woman’s mind.

A GERMAN SHEPHERD IS NOT A CAT. On another occasion, a man applied for this same apartment. On his application form, he answered the question: ‘Do you have a pet?’ with ‘Yes. Cat’. I asked him some questions about his cat, but he gave me evasive answers, so I told him that I wanted to see his cat. I asked him: “Do you have a photo of your cat on your cell phone?” He reluctantly said that he did and pulled up a picture. I looked at the photo and said: “This is a photo of you standing next to a German shepherd.” He said: “Yeah. Her name is Sophie.” I said: “I don’t understand. A German shepherd is a dog. Why did you tell me that you have a cat?” He said: “Well, in your ad, you checked off that a cat was OK, but you didn’t check off that a dog was OK.”  I said: “So you thought that if we agreed to call your German shepherd a cat, then that would make it a cat.” He said that was his line of thinking. I decided to rent the place to somebody else.

Worst Application Ever.

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“I Have A Question.”  I rented a house on Milvia Street 3 years ago. At the bottom of my Craigslist listing, I put: “I will be happy to answer any questions you may have about this house. Send your questions to (my email address.)” Here are my 3 favorite questions and my answers.

Q. Your ad says that this house has 5 parking spaces, but there’s no garage. Is the parking outside?
A. Yes. I do not permit my tenants to park their cars inside the house.

Q. Your ad says ‘No dog.’ What about 2 dogs?
A. That was my mistake. I’m sorry. My ad should have said ‘No dog or dogs.’

Q. Do I have to tell you my name?
A. If you want to rent this house, Yes, you will have to tell me your name. I cannot check your credit if I do not know your name.

Worst Application Ever

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My Dog Has Issues. At an apartment, where I advertised that I would allow a pet, an applicant told me that he had a dog. I asked him what kind of dog he had. He said that he didn’t know. I am always suspicious when an applicant for an apartment tells me that he has a dog but can’t describe it. That happens fairly often, and it always sets off alarm bells for me. I said to him: “I can see that your dog is in your car. Why not bring him inside so I can meet him?” The guy went silent. After thinking about it for a minute, he said:  “I don’t think that would be a good idea. My dog has anger management issues. That’s why I have to move.” I thought: “Uh oh! That dog must have done something really, really bad.” I said: “Well in that case, leave the dog in the car.” I didn’t call the guy’s landlord to get the gruesome details. I didn’t have to. I knew I didn’t want that dog in my building. I rented the place to somebody else.

Worst Application Ever

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Do You Rent To Cats? Many years ago, I rented an apartment in Oakland. The day after I posted my listing, I got a phone call from a woman who said: “I saw your ad for a one-bedroom apartment on McAuley Street. I have a question. Do you rent to cats?” I thought that was an oddly worded question so I was careful how I answered her. I said: “No, I don’t rent apartments to cats, but I do rent apartments to people with cats.” The woman said, in a dejected tone of voice: “Oh, that’s too bad” and hung up the phone. I never heard from her again. Although this happened many years ago, I still think about that woman every now and then and wonder what was on her mind.

Berkeley’s Hyenas.

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For over 30 years, U.C. Berkeley has maintained a hyena colony on campus up in the Berkeley hills. It is the only captive hyena colony in the world. Unfortunately, due to big cuts in federal science funding, U.C. Berkeley will be shutting down its hyena colony later this summer and will ship their hyenas to zoos and parks around the country. I have never seen the hyenas myself, but I have heard them. As you drive past the U.C. Berkeley botanical gardens, you can hear the hyenas howling and giggling. They make an eerie sound, and you can hear it at a considerable distance.

WORST APPLICATION EVER.

Did You See ‘The Lion King’?  A long time ago, I got a rental application for a house I owned on Shafter Avenue in Oakland from a group of 3 U.C. Berkeley graduate students. All 3 of them were involved in research at the U.C. Berkeley hyena project. One of the applicants told me that he was in charge of transportation. I asked him: “What do you mean by ‘transportation’? Do you ever bring hyenas home with you?” Now I know that sounds like a silly question. After all, it would be grossly irresponsible for anyone at U.C. Berkeley to let a grad student take a hyena home with him; however, I have known quite a few very smart and very well educated people in my life who were completely irresponsible. From my observations, it appears that there is absolutely no correlation between education and a sense of personal responsibility. Anyway, this guy didn’t answer my question and changed the subject, which made me suspicious. I am always suspicious whenever applicants give me evasive answers to my questions. Since this guy was not going to answer my question and was beginning to look annoyed, I decided to ask a different question.
hyenas
The Lion King. I said: “Aren’t hyenas dangerous?” The guy said: “Did you ever see ‘The Lion King’?” I said: “Yes, I did. I liked that movie.” He said: “Well, everyone who has seen ‘The Lion King’ has a very negative impression of hyenas.” I said: “Yes. The hyenas in ‘The Lion King’ were evil, but they were just cartoon characters. I know that. However, that doesn’t answer my question. What I want to know is this. Aren’t hyenas dangerous, and do you ever bring them home with you?” The guy changed the subject again. He told me how hyenas organize their society and raise their young. He showed me pictures of his hyenas. I learned a lot of interesting things about hyenas. For example, I learned that a hyena can eat 30 pounds of raw meat in 10 minutes. However, that wasn’t what I want to know. What I wanted to know was whether this guy was planning to bring wild, vicious, carnivorous animals onto my property.

Hyenas Are Good For You. My applicant also told me that “hyenas are good for people.” He said that hyenas control the spread of disease by picking off and eating sick animals before they can infect other animals and humans. That sounds believable to me, and while that may work very well in the jungles of Africa, there was an obvious flaw in his guy’s logic that he did not see. Here in the United States, we do not control the spread of contagious diseases that way. For example, when someone is admitted to Kaiser Hospital with a contagious disease, like tuberculosis for instance, the doctors there don’t prevent that person from infecting others by putting him in a sealed room with a pack of hungry hyenas and let the hyenas devour him.

I learned a long time ago that the owners of exotic and dangerous animals are very defensive about their pets, and that it’s best not to argue with them about it. Although these hyenas were not pets, these grad students were talking and thinking about them as those they were. I rejected this application and rented the house to a young couple with 2 cats.

Disney World. It looks like some of U.C. Berkeley’s hyenas will be going to Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando. That will be ironic. When Disney made ‘The Lion King’, animators from Disney studios came to Berkeley and spent a good deal of time here studying and making drawings of the hyenas here. The hyenas in ‘The Lion King’ were based on those drawings of Berkeley’s hyenas.

WORST APPLICATION EVER.

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“We’re Interns.”  I recently rented a 4 bedroom apartment in Berkeley’s South Campus. The first application I got came from a group of 4 guys who had all just graduated from a small (but pricey) liberal arts college back East. All 4 of them just starting working for an environmental organization based in downtown Berkeley. After reviewing their applications, I said: “None of you filled in the income section on your application forms.” The leader of the group said: “We didn’t fill in that section because we are all interns.” I said: “I am not sure I know what you mean by the word ‘intern.’ Does that mean that you don’t get paid?” He said: “Yes.” I said: “Do any of you have secondary jobs or some other source of income?” They all shook their heads No. I said: “You know, the rent on this apartment is $3,500 a month.” They shook their heads Yes. I said: “Well, I don’t understand. If you are all unpaid interns, how do you plan to pay the rent?”  The leader of the group (the brains of this outfit) said: “We are going to pay you by check. We all have checking accounts.” He showed me his checkbook. I said: “I don’t think I am making myself clear. I am not concerned right now with the method by which you plan to pay me the rent. What I want to know is where the money will come from.” The leader of the group said: “Bank of America. We all have checking accounts at Bank of America. That where the money will come from.” I said: “I still don’t think I am making myself clear. The rent is $3,500 a month – every month – but your gross income – between all 4 of you – is zero. Do you see the problem?” They looked at each other in confused silence and then looked at me and shook their heads No. I never did find out how they planned to pay the rent. I thanked them for their applications and sent them on their way.

I have run into this situation before. There are a lot of non-profit organizations based in Berkeley. Most of them have very little money, so they rely on volunteers and unpaid interns to do their work. I have met quite a few of these interns. Some of them have been working for years and years without pay for environmental or political organizations. I often wonder what they live on, but I haven’t figured it out.