Earlier today I spent about half an hour searching Craigslist apartment ads for apartment rental / finder / locator services –we call them bedbugs – that haven’t yet made it to our do-not-call list. I was prompted to do that by a landlord’s having told me that he was aware of at least 20 new services. It’s the time of year when they spawn like – well, bedbugs.
In that half-hour I identified and visited the Web sites of eight new bedbugs to add to our list. I’ve updated the list with these names:
- Apartment and Home Seekers
- ChiLife Realty
- Chicago’s Property Shop
- Live Well Chicago Realty
- Premier Chicago Rentals
- Spaces Property Group
- Vesta Preferred Realty
- We Know Realty Corp
It was dizzying to go through Craigslist rental ads one at a time. I sampled about 100, and during the time I was doing that 100s more were added. About 98 of the 100 ads I sampled were placed by rental services, one by a broker, and only one by a landlord.