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Show Me Your Hood, I’ll Show You Mine
A new Toronto website promises to do to slum landlords what ratemyprofessors.com did to bad teachers or what dontdatehimgirl.com did to most men we know.
Myhood.ca is based on a relatively simple idea: start with an apartment search site, then let renters post reviews of their landlords/buildings and make those reviews available to apartment searchers. However, it’s the execution that makes this site work.
A press release announcing the launch of myhood.ca claims that “Toronto slum landlords” are about to “feel the wrath of tenants.” That’s maybe a good headline, but focusing on negative reviews would hardly be a useful way to find a good apartment. That’s why it’s for the best that myhood.ca doesn’t do that. Instead, reviews featured on the main page are mostly positive, with the odd awful one thrown in, presumably for entertainment value. (“Not bad if you don’t mind mice, crazy neighbours, and undependable landlords,” reads the headline of a review for 235 Manning Ave. Come to think of it, Torontoist actually likes crazy neighbours and thinks mice are cute, but you get the point.)
The site also has its fair share of obligatory Web Two-Point-Ohhhhh! elements, most notably a tag cloud linked to a Google Maps API. Yes, there’s no feeling quite as satisfying as that of following a tag cloud link to a Google API.
It’s sometimes easy to underestimate all of the little ways in which this series of tubes we call the internet helps to empower people with information. Myhood.ca is a good reminder.
Photo by blainekendall in the Torontoist Flickr Pool.