PowerShell + Craigslist for advanced apartment hunting

I was very, very tired of copying/pasting a template saying “Hi I’m Rex and I’m thinking about moving to NYC because of a job offer.. no pets, no kids, no wife, etc” to each place I found appealing. I decided to scrape craigslist and build PowerShell objects that I could sort and use to automagically spam my potential new roommates! 🙂

Here’s the script that’ll do the scraping and build an array of objects:

$AvailableRooms = @()
$URL = "http://newyork.craigslist.org"
$MaxPages = 10
For ($CurrentPage=0;$CurrentPage -lt $MaxPages;$CurrentPage++) {
    $WebPage = Invoke-WebRequest "http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/roo?=roo&s=$Start&query=&zoomToPosting=&minAsk=$MinPrice&maxAsk=$MaxPrice&hasPic=1"
    $Results = $WebPage.ParsedHtml.body.innerHTML.Split("`n") | ? { $_ -like "<P class=row*" }
    ForEach ($Item in $Results) { 
        $ItemObject=$ID=$Price=$DatePosted=$Neighborhood=$Link=$Description=$Email=$null
        $ID = ($Item -replace ".*pid\=`"","") -replace "`".*"
        $Price = ($Item -replace ".*class=price>","") -replace "</SPAN>.*"
        $DatePosted = ($Item -replace ".*class=date>","") -replace "</SPAN>.*"
        $Neighborhood = ($Item -replace ".*\<SMALL\>\(","") -replace "\)\</SMALL>.*"
        If ($Neighborhood -like "<*") { $Neighborhood = "N/A" } 
        $Link = $URL + ((($Item -replace ".*\<A href\=`"","") -replace "\<.*") -split('">'))[0]
        $Email = (($(Invoke-WebRequest $Link).ParsedHtml.body.innerHTML.Split("`n") | ? { $_ -like "var displayEmail*" }) -replace "var displayEmail \= `"") -replace "`";"
        $Description = ((($Item -replace ".*\<A href\=`"","") -replace "\<.*") -split('">'))[1]
        $ItemObject = New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
            'ID' = $ID
            'Price' = $Price
            'DatePosted' = $DatePosted
            'Neighborhood' = $Neighborhood
            'Link' = $Link
            'Description' = $Description
            'E-Mail' = $Email
        }
        $AvailableRooms += $ItemObject
    }
}

And here’s what a sample object looks like, though you could probably guess by the object declaration:

Playing with data is fun, right?

There’s a ton that COULD be done with this, I’m only scratching the surface! 🙂

ForEach ($Room in $AvailableRooms) {  
    $Body = @"
Hi! My name is Rex and I'm looking for fun, sociable roommates! 

Quick Facts:
 - I am a non-smoker and do not have pets.       
 - I am single with no baggage.
 - I have a stable job!
 - I love PowerShell 
 - My phone number is 123-OMG-1337

Fun Fact - I automated this message!

-- I have appended the following information for ease of reference ---

Craiglist Posting: $($Room.Link)
Room Description:  $($Room.Description)
Room Neighborhood: $($Room.Neighborhood)
Room Price:  $($Room.Price)

"@
    Send-MailMessage -Subject "Room for rent in $($Room.Neighborhood), listing ID $($Room.ID)" -Body $Body -To $Room.'E-Mail' -From masterrex@outlook.com -SmtpServer smtp.domain.com 
}

———————————- UPDATE ———————————-

I’ve semi-wrapped it in a function for ease of use:

Function Find-Apartment { 
    param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]$MinPrice="0",
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]$MaxPrice="9999",
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]$MaxPages="1",
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]$URL = "http://burlington.craigslist.org"
    )
    $AvailableRooms = @()
    For ($CurrentPage=0;$CurrentPage -le $MaxPages;$CurrentPage++) {
        $WebPage = Invoke-WebRequest "$URL/search/roo?=roo&s=$Start&query=&zoomToPosting=&minAsk=$MinPrice&maxAsk=$MaxPrice&hasPic=1"
        $Results = $WebPage.ParsedHtml.body.innerHTML.Split("`n") | ? { $_ -like "<P class=row*" }
        ForEach ($Item in $Results) { 
            $ItemObject=$ID=$Price=$DatePosted=$Neighborhood=$Link=$Description=$Email=$null
            $ID = ($Item -replace ".*pid\=`"","") -replace "`".*"
            $Price = ($Item -replace ".*class=price>","") -replace "</SPAN>.*"
            $DatePosted = ($Item -replace ".*class=date>","") -replace "</SPAN>.*"
            $Neighborhood = ($Item -replace ".*\<SMALL\>\(","") -replace "\)\</SMALL>.*"
            If ($Neighborhood -like "<*") { $Neighborhood = "N/A" } 
            $Link = $URL + ((($Item -replace ".*\<A href\=`"","") -replace "\<.*") -split('">'))[0]
            $Email = (($(Invoke-WebRequest $Link).ParsedHtml.body.innerHTML.Split("`n") | ? { $_ -like "var displayEmail*" }) -replace "var displayEmail \= `"") -replace "`";"
            $Description = ((($Item -replace ".*\<A href\=`"","") -replace "\<.*") -split('">'))[1]
            $ItemObject = New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
                'ID' = $ID
                'Price' = $Price
                'DatePosted' = $DatePosted
                'Neighborhood' = $Neighborhood
                'Link' = $Link
                'Description' = $Description
                'E-Mail' = $Email
            }
            $AvailableRooms += $ItemObject
        }
    }
    Return $AvailableRooms
}

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