Vancouver Rental Opportunity: A $1,225 Window-Free Shed

It's well known at this point that one of the fastest ways to make yourself feel like shit as a young person living in Vancouver is to scroll through the city's apartment listings on Craigslist. Most places run approximately $1,000 over a sane person's budget ($1,940 is apparently "average" for a one bedroom) and that may still somehow land you sleeping in a hammock and/or in a mouldy basement.

Imagine then, the extra indignity felt when you realize you can't even afford to live in a windowless shed in the garbage alley behind someone else's house. For anyone trying to keep their rent under a grand, this tiny wooden "flex space" that almost certainly once housed a lawn mower and garden hose listed for $1,225 was the ultimate slap in the face.

Let's recap all the amenities this East Vancouver rental had claimed to offer. According to the post, which has since been taken down, the shed came equipped with a fridge, sink, washroom, toaster oven, hot plate, microwave, and "a small loft space for a bed."

The post's author listed the size as both 475 and 525 square feet in different places, but photos suggest those are both generous estimates. In an apparent appeal to a minimalist East Van creative type, it claims past use as a music and yoga studio. The author makes no mention of the view because, duh, there aren't any windows.

For the people of Twitter, this was not the vision of affordable housing that young people needed. Some critics seemed surprised the author didn't cynically played up the shed's "privacy," while others did the math on how a minimum wage worker could possibly afford to live this way (conclusion: they can't).

After the wave of social media outrage earlier this week, the owner took down the listing and said it was a "mistake." According to a Metro reporter who visited the still-under-renovation property, City of Vancouver inspectors are now investigating a bunch of violations.

"Our property use inspectors have opened a file on this and plan to re-inspect to see if they in fact do stop renting it," Kaye Krishna, the city's manager of development, told Metro. Krishna said the shed sent up several red flags, for it's size, its missing windows (the UN's standard rules for treatment of prisoners requires natural light), unprofessional wiring, and lacking full kitchen amenities.

At least it's not haunted.

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