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house-hacker

So, before you ask... no, this is not for actual house hacking but that would be neat. maybe that's my next side project.

This script does a few things:

  • Checks Craigslist for Housing that meet the given filters
  • For each of those qualifying craigslist posts, send an SMS via Twilio to those interested.
  • If you see the same listing twice, don't send the SMS.

Super simple.

Getting Started

Twilio

  • Create a free account on Twilio
  • Create a new project to earn an TWILIO_SID, TWILIO_TOKEN and an Active Number
  • Save that information in your config.yml
  • If you want to stay on the free trial, then you need to register verified numbers that can receive these SMS. Verified Caller IDs

Running locally:

  • Download python3
  • Run redis locally
  • Download the required packages: pip install -r requirements.txt
  • Fill out your config.yml appropriately
  • python3 app.py

Note: This will run for as long as you leave it running on your local machine. But, what if we want to run this remotely so that it doesn't eat up your computer battery and you can close your computer in the night?

Running remotely with AWS:

  • Create an EC2 instance
  • SSH into your EC2 instance
  • Clone this github repo to your EC2 instance
  • SCP your personal config.yml file from your local computer to the repo on your EC2 instance
  • Install all required packages via pip install -r requirements.txt
  • Run redis-server on EC2 instance and daemonize it (so it's always running)
  • Install tmux, our favorite terminal multiplexer
  • Hop into a new tmux window, and run the app with python3 app.py
  • boom.