Off Peeled

MBPJ is going for a neighborhood-wide Gotong Royong later this month at my workplace.

A target of this Clean Zone programme: To clear those pesky illegal advertisement and the likes.

You know them: Personal loans. No guarantor, Blacklist also CAN, Adult toys kinda ads.

When I first joined the job market, these illegal adverts were among the best - sometimes the only - avenue if you're looking for room to let at a very, very afforable rate and preferably with minimal deposit to be placed.

The tear-off, self-printed ad jobs were everywhere. More often than not, strategic locations where the advertisers think the room seeking lads and ladies would converge.

You'd see them at bus stops, phone booths, empty (no longer when one ad appears as others will follow like mushroom after a bout of rain!) walls...

Not public toilets, though. Those are the different kind of ads. Specific ones, too.

Anyway, the lure of the tear off ads is understandable as they are pretty cost effective in getting the most number of response.

So, was my first one rented room led by similar source? Nope, I was lucky to have a friend who is already renting and could afford a squatter who soon heard of another vacancy close by.

My second was such, however, and I got myself a house and a housemate that could spun tales whole novel long. Loads of memories from there. Mostly the bad sort. Maybe something for another time, another post.

Nowadays though with the internet providing a far easier, more cost effective not too mention the widest of audiences, I wonder why people still resort to these pasted (some even hung) ads.

The cost of printing them, paying somebody to go around pasting, hanging them etc must be marginally more (ie more than FOC) than posting on the many free-ad service websites.

Those looking for rooms and houses are quite pampered nowadays with some pretty specific sites catering for just such needs.

Be careful of doing some actual checks on your housemates, though.

I've been there, and its quite the goosebumpy experience to be had.