Let me kvetch here

Caution: blogger is writing while annoyed.

Here's something I don't understand, and don't like: I've been looking for a roommate for a while now and probably 95% of the people I've talked to don't have the basic courtesy to let me know if their plans change. I don't have a problem if someone emails me with a question, doesn't like the answer, and I never hear from them again. I definitely don't have a problem with people who say they're interested, but then tell me a day or two later they've changed their mind. But I've ran across a surprising number of people who tell me they'll be doing something, completely fail to do it, and don't bother to make thirty-second phone call to tell me.

One girl was supposed to come by yesterday and look at the place after she left work. She told me where she'd be coming from and I gave her directions. It was obvious that a daily commute there would have been pretty unreasonable (probably close to an hour on a good day -- my neighborhood has great access to some parts of town and terrible access to others) so I expected her to say "sorry to waste your time, but that's too far for me." And if she had, no problem. But instead she called me yesterday an hour before she was supposed to be here, said she had access to a car for today and asked to reschedule. So no problem there, except she never showed up.

Again: I don't care if you change your mind, but if I've set aside part of my day for you, I'd appreciate finding that out beforehand. It's not just a hypothetical matter of principle. I had someone from Maine look at the place yesterday who could have cut four hours off her trip if I'd know I'd be free at 5:30, and I had to hold off calling someone else this evening because I didn't want to be on the phone with one potential roommate when another walked in the door.

I've had two or three people tell me they would probably take the place, and then disappear. That's disappointing, but if it happens before they actually make any commitment, so be it -- I'm not keeping dibs for anyone. But I've also had three people so far actually say they will take the place and then disappear, and that's a lot more of a problem. To me, saying you'll take the room means the room is taken. I'm not going to show someone a room I know they can't take, and I'm not going to give person B a room I already agreed to give person A. So each of those three times I've stopped looking for roommates, told others the room was no longer available, and then got stuck with an empty room at the end of the month.

Are people really this unreliable? Or am I just hitting a long streak of randomly unreliable individuals?