Monday, July 5, 2010

I'm Assuming the Rent is Payable in Erectile Dysfunction Medication

Here's some unusual email correspondence I had over the weekend. Up first, me:
Hello, I am writing in response to your Craigslist ad ("3 Bed, 2 Bath | 2,100 Sq Ft on 0.95 Acres"). Could you please tell me the address of the house, and the date that it will be available? Also, are you interested in selling it as well, or just renting?
Reasonable! But here's where things took an unusual turn--the reply:
I did take your response concerning the advert, I posted on Craigslist. The house is still available, but presently I'm not around.. I did bid for a portion of petroleum land sometimes ago in West Africa, and fortunately I won the bidding, so I have to move quickly down to Africa to have my company set up because I will still have to bid again for it in the next 10 years. I came over here with my wife, we both bought the house when we got married. As soon as we settle down here I had a thought of selling the house, so I have to look for an agent, after getting one, we got a deal but later my wife advised against that. She said we may not be able to win the bidding next time, in other to keep our head when we return that we have to keep the house. I reasoned with her and accepted her advice. So I contacted the agent back and requested for my keys and documents. Later we decided to have the house rent out, we would have given the same agent this job also but the truth of the matter is that the agent would want to handle it professionally and the occupant may not be able to reason along with him later. If you notice, you will discover that the price we are offering is far below standard price, this is enough for you to know that we are not after the rental fee but the absolute care for the property. I know there is no way I can be sure that you are the right person to live in the house because we won't be able to see physical before sending you the keys and the documents to occupy the space. However, I just had a feeling that anyone who knows what it takes to put the kind of structure down should know that maintaining a building is mandatory, so if you believe you can take good care of the house and handle it like yours, then I will be more than happy to let you rent the house.
Wow. To break it down, here's my assessment of the statements that had the least statistical likelihood of appearing in a reply to my original email, in descending order:
3. "I did bid for a portion of petroleum land sometimes ago in West Africa, and fortunately I won the bidding."
2. "I just had a feeling that anyone who knows what it takes to put the kind of structure down should know that maintaining a building is mandatory."
1. "I reasoned with her, and accepted her advice."
The most surprising thing, though, is that the guy never revealed himself to have access to cheap Enzyte or replica watches, or actually be a Nigerian prince looking to liquidate his princely fortune by way of an American citizen who'll wire him $5000 USD to get the ball rolling.

3 comments:

  1. is this real? i'm kind of speechless.

    I'm guessing you guys decided to rent the place. obviously. seeing as your main priority was to find property you could take absolute care of... and form ties with someone who has petroleum land in west africa.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know a thing or two about taking absolute care of property, that's for sure.

    I'd like to rent the property (and maintain the building, as is mandatory), immediately start drilling for oil in the front yard, and then act all incredulous when them man tells me that wasn't part of the agreement.

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh dear. you should talk to kristen about this. if I remember correctly she had a similar sort of strange incident when she was trying to rent a place a few years ago. something about him being away in Africa.....

    ReplyDelete