My Adventures with Craigslist – Fort Lauderdale, Florida

For those of you that are not familiar with craigslist, (www.craigslist.org) it was started by Craig Newmark in 1995. When he started the site, he initially did most of the posting himself, posting social events in the San Francisco area and, primarily articles about the internet industry. By word of mouth, the site snow-balled into one of the most well known websites, and now services the entire United States. The best thing about Craigslist is that you can advertise for free. You can advertise: apartments for rent, just about anything you want to get rid of, for sale (there are some restrictions), jobs and services. You can read the complete history of craigslist and how it progressed throughout the years, on his website. The only thing I do not understand, are their restrictions in advertising marketing businesses. I have emailed them a couple of times asking, but never received a response. I have 3 businesses that I work. Two involve doing home parties, and one, selling through a website. I am not allowed to advertise those businesses opportunities on craigslist. I can understand that these should not be posted with the other “jobs” since we are looking to “hire” anyone. I see no reason why they can not have a designated spot where people who have these types of businesses, can tell others about the opportunities that are available. I am sure there are people out there that are interested, but we have no way to get our information to them on the site. I admit it, I have posted my businesses on the job site. I did get caught a couple of times and the posts were removed. I didn’t really have any results with the ones that made it through. If the website is listed as an organization and is free, so it should be free to everyone. I am perplexed over the fact, that they have a place for people to advertise for possibly questionable escort services, nude models, soft porn movies, and girls posting stuff like…Let me touch you in all the right places (what’s up with that?)… etc, but they will not allow people with legitimate businesses to post them on the site. How does that seem right?

My friend lives in Grand Haven, Michigan, her 21 year old son is out of work. Jobs are really tight in Michigan. I have found a few jobs on craigslist that I thought her son would be interested in and emailed them to her. He did apply for 3-4 of them, but he never got any response back from any of the employers.

I live in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area. Awhile back, I was looking for a place to rent. I searched on craigslist for a few months and did find some great deals, I answered ads that said animals were okay, but when they found I had a 95 lb. rottie-mix, they wouldn’t rent to me. The few people that I emailed, did get back to me promptly, and were very nice. They did feel bad about refusing to rent to me because of my dog, but I guess they didn’t want to have problems with their neighbors or their property. An elderly man that lived in a mobile home, was selling because he couldn’t stand his neighbors, because they were always complaining about his little dog. I can only imagine if I showed up with my 95 lb monster. He was so desperate, he told me he would sell me the home for $500. He said it had slight hurricane damage and needed a little work and he really wanted out of that place. I didn’t want trouble with the neighbors with my dog, so I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea. After a long search, I came to the conclusion that no one was going to rent to me with my dog, so I ended up buying a house.. I did find the people listing rentals were easier and nicer to deal with than dealing with rental agents.

I’ve had two friends, also in this area, looking a for roommates on craigslist. One didn’t have any luck at all. My feeling is, that she may have wanted too much just to rent the room. My other friend had no luck the first time she was looking. She did find a roommate through a friend, but the girl moved out, so she posted again. This time she had better luck and did find a nice roommate.

All in all, I think craigslist is a great site for people to use. Unlike the other auction sites, there is no cost involved, so you can relist things over and over again. At least, if the items don’t sell, you don’t rent your property, or no one applies for the job you posted,, you aren’t out any money. One on-line auction site is getting out of control, and raising their rates again, so selling things on their site is getting even more expensive. Craiglist is FREE, and FREE is my favorite price.