No children, but I had this happen with my fiancé and I as well when we were trying to rent as incoming graduate students. Luckily we were both still working at the time as we hadn’t started the fall semester yet, so we eventually just stopped mentioning the fact that we would be transitioning to graduate school. The market is so insanely competitive atm — one time after an application was rejected I asked the realtor if he could give me any feedback on our application and he said “Oh nothing, this landlord just doesn’t want to rent to anyone under 35, or any students.” He had gotten 25 applications that day and rejected all of them.

I don’t have much advice beyond perhaps don’t mention anything that’s not directly asked, and try to find a good realtor who will start showing you apartments that are unlisted — and maybe ask if you can meet in-person with the landlord at the showing. Best of luck out there!!

This is a very common fundraising tactic for all sorts of organizations — and it’s usually in their script that they don’t say that they’re seeking donations right off the bat, but ask for “a few minutes of your time” or “to talk.” It sounds like they were going a bit late into the evening, but other than that nothing about this really strikes me as sketchy. If you don’t want this to happen again, you can hang up a “no solicitors” sign or something similar on your front door. Might be worth keeping an open mind about this an an aspect of city living though—I’ve had some great conversations with various orgs that have come to my door to talk about things that I care about in the community!