BREAKING: Penn Students Have No Fucking Clue How Much Furniture Should Cost

As students move off campus, they often assume the frightening burden of furnishing their new home. They face difficult questions, such as, what is furniture? Is IKEA the only type of furniture? How many times has something heinous occurred on top of this used IKEA mattress? 

Multiple resources exist for finding furniture: Craigslist, dumpsters, and—for the desperate—Penn’s Free and for Sale group. Here students may find used beds, desks, and stained couches. Unfortunately, neither buyers nor sellers have any fucking clue how much that furniture should cost.

Rising sophomore Barry Södersten recently furnished his new apartment on 42nd and Spruce. “I scanned Free and for Sale every day looking for good deals, until I found this one post advertising a bed frame and mattress in exchange for my ‘best offer’,” he said. “The photos appeared professional, almost as if they were taken directly from the manufacturer’s website and were not photos of the actual items. But, I gave the seller the benefit of the doubt. Everything looked so new!”

Södersten messaged the seller immediately. “My parents gave me $500 to buy a bed, so I gave the seller my best offer: $500. That seemed appropriate, maybe.”

Students are commonly puzzled about the value of what they’re buying. “Like, if a simple desk cost $20, that would make sense,” said rising junior Emily Hovslund. “There’s not much to it. But, if it cost $150, that would also make sense, since it’s big and made of wood, I guess? I don't know."

Most of the furniture for sale is used, which complicates the pricing as well. Södersten boasted he secured a fantastic deal on a desk, negotiating the seller down to 90% MSRP because of a nick. "I'm not sure how much the desk was worth, exactly, but I bought it for a bit less than the seller's initial price, so I won, right?"