After settling into her new apartment, Fuller found that listening to music loud enough on her headphones allowed her to ignore the rats chewing through her wires.
Photo by: Jessica Ma
San Diego resident Melissa Fuller turned in a housing application for a modest studio apartment last Thursday, and is feeling positive about the process. Fuller reportedly spent only 23 minutes in total filling out the application, experienced almost no stress, and gave little afterthought to her chances of getting the apartment once she finished. Additionally, she has yet to have a panicked dream about getting rejected, or having the application get lost or stolen by raccoons.
“It’s just nice to have such a straightforward and superficial metric for determining my potential as a tenant,” Fuller explained when asked about how she managed to remain so calm. “I mean, they only asked for minimal information, like my name, email address, employment, and a credit report, which is nothing. There’s no ‘describe your essence in 500 words or less,’ or ‘briefly state what you want to do with the rest of your life,’ or any of that shit to worry about. It makes things so much easier.”
After completing the application process with no computer malfunctions or last-minute forms added to complete, Fuller stated the experience was almost pleasant, in that it didn’t give her the overwhelming urge to run her computer through a juicer and flush the resulting liquid electronics down the toilet.
“I’d definitely do it again,” she continued, “since it wasn’t nearly as bad as that internship I applied for where I had to download an app to my phone and then sync it to my tablet before I could find out what I needed to send, or that time where I spent an entire interview wondering if the interviewer had noticed that my pants legs went up to my lower calf instead of just above my ankle when I sat down, because apparently that’s a sign that I’m unprofessional.”
Rosa Wilson, Fuller’s previous roommate, stated that Fuller had a mediocre credit score that should be “good enough” for her to rent a decent apartment. “It’s just really smack dab in the middle, there’s nothing remarkable about it,” explained Wilson, “but I guess it just is what it is. Like, there won’t be any surprises. Either it’s above or below the cut off. Or exactly the same I guess, but statistically speaking that’s highly unlikely, and I’m sure they have contingencies for that.”
Fuller concluded by saying that she was grateful to SD Realty for relieving her from so much pressure normally created by the application process. “It’s like a giant weight being lifted off of my shoulders and onto …
something else … whatever they use to go through the applications …
probably a spreadsheet of some sort,” Fuller stated. “I’m not very concerned about the outcome because I know it was just due to a simple series of numbers.”
“Wow,” Fuller continued, “those numbers would have to be really specific and effective at predicting good tenantship if leasers trust them so much. I bet they’re a lot more quantitative and rigorous than they seem. I wonder what metrics they use to calculate it. Is there a quick way to improve yours?”
Fuller paused briefly to stare at her juicer sitting nearby. “Oh god, if this is the only metric they use, why didn’t I work harder at getting my score up a few extra points?”
At press time, Fuller was sprinting to her local library in an attempt to check out their last copy of “Improving Your Credit Score for Dummies.”
Hannah Rosenblatt is an MQ alum. She was the 2017-18 Editor-in-Chief.
