The Craziest Craigslist Encounters That Somehow Didn't Involve Sex

"Put a barely used, fairly decent exercise bike in the "For Free" section as I was moving and didn't want to deal with actually selling or moving it. This is in Los Angeles by the way.

I get 63 e-mails in the first 10 minutes. First come first serve. The guy and I e-mail back and forth and agree on a time later that evening.

At 7 p.m. sharp this very small Filipino gentleman shows up. I let him up and show him the bike. He asks if I have the AC adapter for it. I go looking for it. It takes me about five minutes to rummage through a box and find it. When I came back out, he was going through my dirty laundry hamper and pulling out my dirty boxers and socks and setting them aside. I asked him what the hell he was doing. He asked if he could buy what he had set aside. Offered $20. With an overly perplexed look on my face, I blurted out something like "wha.... no... just... take the bike..." He didn't say anything. He just hurried out the door and left the bike."

"My girlfriend and I got paid to sneeze on command. No, it wasn't a weird sex thing. We were desperate for cash. Some guy filmed us sneezing, which we did by snorting lines of pepper. Maybe it was a weird sex thing."

"I responded to an ad for a typist job. The woman who posted it was elderly and lived on a ranch her husband had left her after passing. Only there were no ranch animals, only cats. See, after inheriting the ranch she turned it into a cat sanctuary filled with over 100 cats throughout. She fed them out of barrels with bowls underneath, and whoever was chosen for the position would also be responsible for lifting 50-lb bags of cat food and hauling them to the barrels.

As for the actual job, I would be responsible for typing from dictation, in spontaneous bursts. What I would be typing would be conversations the woman was having... with her deceased husband, whose spirit she channeled. The result was to become a book entitled 'Conversations with Jack.' She also didn't know much about writing/editing, so I would be responsible for putting the conversations together into a readable narrative (writing and editing an entire book).

The reason, she explained to me, that she needed to write this book in the first place was she had run out of money since spending it all on cat food. She wouldn't be able to pay me until the book was published, but I would get editor credit and eventually royalties.

I actually decided I wanted the job because it was so batsh*t insane that I could write my own book/blog about the experience. Unfortunately, I was passed over in favor of someone with an English degree and 10 years of professional typist experience."

"I was going to buy a stove. Found one on Craigslist. Priced great. Picture looked awesome. Emailed to ask model number and age. [A] woman named 'Tiffany' replied and said it was a year old, didn't give me a model number. Said call for address.

I call for the address. It's a very foreign sounding dude, he gives me an address. [It's] in a shady part of town. The ad had listed a different area, and the picture is clearly not from a house in that area. I am now curious. No model number, 'Tiffany' is really a foreign dude, ad lists location that is different than the address he gives me.

I eventually find the picture - it's a stock image from Amazon. Decided not to go see the stove."

"A few years ago I found a 13-inch television with built-in VCR at my parents house. I used it for a couple months, but then when I decided to downsize, I put the TV on Craigslist. I offer it for $20, then $10 when I got no bites after a couple days. Just when I was about to take the thing to Goodwill, I get an eager email from a guy who wants it from the next state over. He says he'll come right down to pick it up. I didn't want a stranger in my home, so I told him we'd meet in the parking lot of my job the next day. I also continue to tell him my little knowledge of the TV and that it may not be worth the hassle of coming nearly an hour for an old TV in questionable condition. He insists that it's worth it.

Next day, he comes and eagerly gives me the $10 and takes the TV. I felt a little bad he'd come this way for such a small amount of money, but he agreed to it so I went on with my day. Later that evening, I have a scathing email. Something along the lines of, 'You b****! You're the worst kind of person! It's people like you that give sales on Craigslist a bad name! You scammed me out of my money and I really hope you needed it because you truly got over on me! That VCR ruined two tapes of my favorite shows! They were irreplaceable! You're a dirty liar!'

I was blown away! I apologized, but also reminded him that I told him over and over that the TV was old. I didn't truly know what condition it was in other than my one night with it. I offered to mail him the $10 because seriously... it's $10. He emails me back like a completely different person. So sweet and sensitive telling me that he still didn't feel comfortable giving me his address (though I'm the one who suggested we meet at my job) so just donate the money to the Obama campaign. I did, but what the heck?"

"My friend and I jokingly posted an ad on Craigslist looking for 'A man to be filmed eating a sandwich.' Compensation was 'Sandwich, and secret contents envelope.' We got, like, twelve responses with resumes and stuff, then chose one guy who was young and rather nerdy looking. He showed up, we filmed him eating a sandwich, made him act all enthusiastic and pretend to be a squirrel, then we sent him off with the envelope, which contained a balloon, some candy, a joint, and a magnum condom. I think he got a fair deal."