Live For Free In The West Village - But Only If You Walk On This Guy's Back Every Day

by Cary Randolph Fuller · April 2, 2010

    This Craigslist post came to our attention this morning, but, alas, the promise of rent-free living was too good to be true. Unless you think working AND living with a spoiled asshole who needs a daily deep tissue massage from an anorexic twentysomething sounds good. We don't.-

    Some of us at GofG are apartment-hunting so this headline jumped out. An entire floor of a $3 million townhouse, all to ourselves?! With a roofdeck, steam sauna shower, and $3,000 coffee maker?! For free?!!!!?! Give us a pen so we can sign that lease!

    Oh wait.

    Everything comes at a cost, and this "successful small-business owner" will make sure you pay your fair share, should you choose to shack up with him in that gratis apartment...in exchange for PA duties. Let's take a look at what the job requires. (Bold emphasis ours; all typographical errors his.)

    you'll spend ONLY ONE HOUR with me MONDAY - FRIDAY where i will tell you your new tasks, you will give me follow-up and status on your ongoing projects

    Oh really, just an hour a day? That doesn't sound terrible unless we have to do something awful like...

    that hour will be spent walking on my back (you should therefore weigh less than 110 lb as my last-last PA, inna, was great but hit 115 so cracked a rib once, i kid u not!) as i have a lot of lower-back stiffness, or if you are more than 115, you can just give me a deep masage or something like that. please note this is NOT ANYTHING SEXUAL i do not want anything like that, it's just part of your job as my PA, because that's what i need (one of my PAs was also a former dancer, so instead of the massage she just stretched out my hamstrings and quads professionally, which was fine as i think a lot of my lower-back stiffness is due to inflexibility of my hip flexors. but the intake/outtake must be done simultaneously to the massage/stretch, or i won't have time for either (which is why i need a PA in the 1st place)

    Okay, walk on this dude's back for an hour a day? That's weird (and we doubt it is truly not sexual), but we'd do it...for the free apartment. Unless we had to do other stuff, such as...

    during most weekends you will be OFF. but some weekends, like when i am going away to open or close my ski house, my beach house, or my other beach house, you will have to accompany me and assist with the opening/closing/cleaning (there are worse things in life than helping out at a ski or beach house part-time for a weekend, and skiing or sunbathing the rest of the time, by the way!), i'm closing on a 2nd beach home that's right on the water, so we would have to go there sometime in april to check it out and set it up for the season

    The weekend beach trips we could handle, but this guy acts like he'd be doing us a favor by letting us help him shake out the drapes. We'll suffer, however, if only for the heated towel bars. Unless...

    i am, by the way, single and looking, so part of your assignment will probably be to reactivate my match.com profile and troll for dates for me, as i don't really have the time to do this properly. you'll just edit my match profile and troll for dates meeting my parameters (sweet, smart, skinny, white, around 30, wants kids)

    We'll find you a girlfriend, but what's in it for us?

    my parents are immigrants and desperate for their only son to marry and have a child (preferably a boy, i guess), so if you do happen to miraculously set me up with a girl i marry, through match.com or your other resources (i am notoriously picky, by the way, as have multiple ivy-league degrees), my parents will give you a reward of $10,000 in cash, ie bills, so that's a bonus!

    Has this man ever had a date? Nice of him to improperly hyphenate "Ivy League", but we'll let it slide for that apartment...and the vacation homes...and the ten grand. Or will we?

    I also forgot to mention you should be good at renovation and dealing w contractors ie kicking their ass or they never show up, or show up late, or leave early, or don't finish their job, etc, so be good at that so we get our roof completed asap, it's been dragging onto 2 yrs which is one of the main reasons i want a PA in my living space, ie she will be all that more motivated to get the jacuzzi on the roof so we can enjoy it!:)

    He lost us at "Jacuzzi on the roof."