In an attempt to be servicey (and atone for our sins), we posted the awesomest Craiglist apartment-seeking ad ever—it was a riot of nerdy kookiness. Musician Ed Shepp (our erstwhile advice columnist Tionna Smalls' buddy) was absolutely deluged with responses! To refresh your memory, he was looking for something cheap, "like seriously cheap, like under $700." (In case you think that's impossible, come to my place—I have achieved it.) Read on, because Ed has, too—"Thanks in great part to Gawker!" He's also included a computer rendering of what he hopes to turn his backyard into, complete with a menagerie of plastic lawn ornaments.

"I found a home! I dropped off the deposit last night, so it's all on the level now. It's in Brooklyn, at the 15th St. Prospect Park stop; it's under $700 (actually a great price, but I don't want to publicize that widely). It's a great brownstone with two cool roommates, Haiyen and Lindsey.



I didn't have to look at many places, either. Here's how it went down:

My first two places: the buzzer didn't work at the first, so I stood around looking a tourist or something, wishing I had a pink cake to cry into...

Then my friend was having lunch at some restaurant, and the waiter told him that there was a room avail in his building. We saw it that night—a GORGEOUS loft in Bed-Stuy, right off the Morgan stop, I think... The rent was something that came out to just over $500 for 4 people (and we had 4 people), so I said, "We want it."

This I said in front of someone we'll call "Blustafson," a very good-looking but quiet guy sitting playing on the computer. The person leaving the apartment said that "technically it's Blustafson's call, because he's here now..." And I had to whisper, "Is that Blustafson?" I think he finally looked up at this point, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees in the room.

...The next place I looked at was a $500 room... It was also in an interesting neighborhood, right on the Nostrand stop on the A, which felt in some ways like a Caribbean version of Canal St. I went into some great sneaker store and got these awesome sneaks for $19.90. A lot of great sneakers for uner $20. Don't know how they do it—don't care.

Then I went in one of those cheap stores that sell everything, and they had deodorants that I'd never seen marketed in mainstream stores and shorts for $5 and the like. Then I went into this oil and candle shop—because I'm a scent nut—and I was looking at the large selection of oils, and I asked if I could smell them. The guy said they were "not for perfume; for special purposes." But the perfume oils, of which there were a MUCH smaller selection, were on the other shelf. I turned back to the "special purposes" oils and he reiterated his previous point, adding that they were for "religious purposes." Oh. I should have known, considering one was called "voodoo."

The next day I saw the place I got—a gorgeous brownstone on the outskirts of the Park Slope area."

Congratulations, Ed! Oh, but one caveat: the house comes with this: