Vancouver is flooded with rental listings, from tiny solariums to living room getups to closet bedrooms.
Some are simply eye-catching and for the quirkiest reasons, such as a cardboard cutout of a guy in a blue suit making a finger gun in nearly every photo of the apartment.
Danny Chang tells V.I.A. that it was a spontaneous detail. "We thought it'd be really funny, and it would also set the tone for what kind of people we're looking for," he says. He's done a similar photo gallery for the same place when he listed it a previous time.
He receives over 60 messages a day about the Facebook listing since posting it around a week ago. Some of them aren't even about the listing itself but just to tell him that the quirky photo gallery made their day.
A number of people have also sent messages asking if the man in the cutout is single. "Unfortunately the man in the cutout is taken, but luckily the other creative mind behind the quirky advertisement is single and ready to date," Chang says humorously.
Who is the guy in the cardboard cutout anyway?
His name is Jake Suede; Chang's friend and former roommate. The cutout came about as a birthday gift that was left behind when Suede moved to a new place (sorry, new roomie: he will return for it eventually).
The listing itself is for a room in a "big, bright, and comfortable" apartment near Granville and Broadway streets, reads the Facebook ad. "People in the past who have come by to view the place have all been surprised at how the place is bigger than they expected. The pictures don't capture how spacious it is."
The room is available starting September this year through August 2024 and comes with a private balcony and a closet. Rent is $1,100 per month, excluding utilities.
