Looking for housing in the District is normally always a challenge, especially if you're a newcomer to D.C. There's no exact science. Foreign neighborhoods with odd sounding names! Fears that where you're looking will be in a bad corner of the city! There's that whole quadrant thing and then you get advice on how if you don't get a place near the Red Line, your social life in the capital will cease to function! Because how will you get to Dupont to meet your friends!?!? So many choices ... so many complications if you're new to the capital.

We were forwarded this Craigslist posting with this description: "Room for rent in hip rowhouse in a very dangerous area of DC." All for $1000 a month. Let's let the ad speak for itself.

But our place is hip, let me tell you. There's even some exposed pipes, which we feel bring a certain bohemian charm. Also, the one toilet that we share has a manual flusher. What do I mean by that? Well, you'll find out!

When you enter the house, you will find some whiteys (many of them gay) blasting Radiohead. When you venture OUT of the house, you will find yourself amidst an urban hell, the likes of which you've never seen.

The room for rent is $1000/month. It's an airless little cell with one small window which allows a small percentage of pollution-filtered sunlight to enter. You'd be wise to bring a laptop, because your lap is basically the only space available for a computer. A twin bed might work, though.

The house itself is a throwback to the 1920s, when DC apparently was a magical place, we've been told. The carpeting has been urinated on several times by drunken strangers we've invited in for parties. In our living room, we have a chandelier! That's right, this artist friend of ours made a chandelier out of twigs, glue, and pipe cleaners. We think you'll adore it!

Oh and one thing: the kitchen is vegan-mandatory. We even think tofu is cruel, but we might be able to look past it. You can forget about eggs, though. Eggs are essentially unborn baby chicks who never got the chance to live. Oh, but we should mention: pro-lifers, scram!

Sounds lovely, but it gets better. For those who have been through any sort of open house modeled after an undergraduate fraternity or sorority rush, here's something that adapts the selection process with a circle of bean bags.

We'll sit around on some bean bag chairs in our living room (Well, not you. You, specifically, will sit in the center of our "bean bag circle of judgment"). We'll drill you about your tastes and decide whether we want to keep you!

Though it all appears to be just joke (the location is at the intersection of Hip Street and Hip Street, which if you couldn't figure out doesn't exist), this reminds this DCist of the time our Zodiac sign (Leo) was apparently the factor that got us denied at a beautiful Mount Pleasant house three years back.

Potential Housemate: "So, what sign are you?"
DCist: "Sign?"
Potential Housemate: "Yeah, your sign?
DCist: "I'm a Leo"
Potential Housemate: "Ohhhh? ... [stuttering] Ahhh ..."
DCist: "It's that going to be all right?"
Potential Housemate: "Ahhhh ... I ... I don't know ..."

(According to this astrology website, Leos are: "Pompous and patronizing, Bossy and interfering, Dogmatic and intolerant." Ouch. But we're also "Generous and warmhearted, Creative and enthusiastic, Broad-minded and expansive, Faithful and loving.")

Instead we ended up in a dungeon-like musty cell in Glover Park next to the furnace room that spewed carcinogenic soot into the air. Life eventually worked itself out.

Do you have any interesting stories of looking for housing? Let us know! They are always entertaining.

(DCist photo by Mike Grass of apartment houses perched above Quarry Road on the back side of Adams Morgan/Lanier Heights. And no, with the photo we are not making any assertions that Quarry Road is hip nor dangerous. Hell, there aren't any rowhouses there anyway. Photo of "Leo" the lion taken from an excursion to the zoo this morning.)