'My Airbnb flat was turned into a pop-up brothel'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39528479

by kristianc • 9 years ago

95 152 9 years ago

bbc.co.uk

dandare• 9 years ago

The only problem I see here is the criminalization of prostitution.

anjc10• 9 years ago

You of course are so open minded that you see no problem in cleaning up stranger's piles of used condoms, or having them strewn about your house. Just part of a regular day in dandare's world.

Edit: Look at everybody pretending that cleaning up dozens of men's bodily ejections after they used your house as a brothel is just one of life's little chores. You've all spent too long on Reddit.

bingomad1232• 9 years ago

Cleaning up reasonable trash is pretty much part of AirBnb host's job. So if a women throws her sanitary pads/tampoons in the trash will you call them names too ?

kalleboo• 9 years ago

People who aren't prostitutes also have sex in hotels you know.

Not cleaning up after themselves is a valid complaint but doesn't seem something specific to prostitutes.

gambiting• 9 years ago

It's literally the bread and butter of working in a hotel. I don't see hotels complaining that their rooms are being used for sleeping with prostitutes or sex in general.

I wouldn't expect guests of AirBnB to not do anything they would do in a hotel - after all you are attracting the same audience.

Bottom line - if they left a mess, then call a cleaning company and charge the guests a cleaning fee. Pretty much every AirBnB has a cleaning fee in terms of rental.

Would the reaction here be any different if an actual couple left the host with a pile of condoms? If yes,why? If no, why?

ACow_Adonis4• 9 years ago

Regular AirBnB guests would never partake in anything involving alcohol, perfume, or...god forbid...sexual congress and spillage/transfer of bodily fluids while holidaying in my apartment!

Because, not to be too snarky, yes, that actually does seem like a regular day in the operation of an accommodation business.

I've even heard it rumored guests might leave the toilet in a less than pristine state...

The horror!

/ok, that was a bit snarky, but my point stands.

Fifer82• 9 years ago

He is welcome not to rent out his home. It isn't up to me to get the violins out.

bambax2• 9 years ago

I don't understand your argument at all.

If you rent your house to strangers then you're obviously okay with those people having sex at your place, in your bed, anywhere really where they fancy it.

What's different if it's prostitution or if it isn't??

(Personally I would really prefer not having anyone I don't know engaging in any normal activity in my home, and that's why I will probably never be an Airbnb host; but if you are then surely you have to accept the consequences?)

AlexAffe2• 9 years ago

Bin overflowing. A wrapper under the bed. Hey, we're not talking about used needles and shit stains on the wall. This was a civilized night, they used protection, had some good wine and Prosecco... There is really nothing wrong with that, other than it might be a grayzone in airbnbs terms and the criminalization of prostitution...

Mandatum• 9 years ago

Rent your house like a hotel, expect it to be treated as such. This isn't some family-friendly, socio-do-gooder website - it's AirBnB. They rent, they stay, they leave. Nothing was damaged in the apartment, I don't see the issue. If you don't like the mess, give a bad rating.

DanBC10• 9 years ago

This is England where people having sex for money is not illegal.

Running a brothel is illegal, which is what the property owner is worried about.

zeroer3• 9 years ago

I agree that it's not as big a deal as the host is making it out to be. People drink and have sex in hotels and AirBnB listings all the time. But it's worth pointing out that AirBnB requires that you declare the number of people using the apartment (because it affects pricing). The house rules might also state that only registered guests are allowed in, though it's hard to say without seeing the house rules for this specific listing.

tnr23• 9 years ago

cry me a river. you have to take this into account if you rent out your place.

anjc10• 9 years ago

I love it when people think they have a simple solution to something, but gradually converge onto the complicated solution that they were trying to avoid. Like "why is this C++ sockets implementation 30k LOC....I could write that in 300 lines. Oh wait better add some error checking. Hm I wonder if I should test for endianness" etc etc.

They should have security for this Airbnb thing for situations like this.

illuminati1911• 9 years ago

What's the problem here? Did they leave the apartments uncleaned or...?

One of the biggest human rights insults around the world is making prostitution illegal.

1) It's not governments business what people do with their bodies.

2) People are going to do it anyway (even in countries where it is punished with a death penalty)

3) ...and therefore women and men working in this industry won't have access to unions, healthcare, safety etc.

vosper• 9 years ago

Clearly you didn't read the article at all: they left used condoms, tissues, and empty bottles of wine all over the apartment. The owner had to clean it up, which was probably quite gross for him. That actually seems to be a big part of his complaint - he even says that if they hadn't made a mess he wouldn't have known what had happened, and would have probably accepted a repeat booking.

I agree with your points, but consider reading TFA at least.

petre• 9 years ago

It's part of the trade when you run lodging spaces. Hotels also clean up after their customers.

dazc• 9 years ago

"... he even says that if they hadn't made a mess he wouldn't have known what had happened, and would have probably accepted a repeat booking."

Seems odd that they wouldn't have made an effort to clean-up since having a good profile is more or less essential to being able to rent another airbnb appt?

bambax2• 9 years ago

they left used condoms, tissues, and empty bottles of wine all over the apartment

No. From the article:

I found used condom wrappers under the bed, I found the bin was overflowing with tissues and condoms.

Not sure what "overflowing" means exactly in this context, but you can't read in the article that there were used condoms all over the apartment.

A condom wrapper is just a piece of clean plastic, very different from a used condom.

Also, what's the difference when people are having sex in your bed, whether they're married, friends, or engaged in pay-for-sex?

zeroer3• 9 years ago

I rent hotels and leave "condoms, tissues, and empty bottles of wine" all the time. That's what the staff is paid to clean up.

whiddershins• 9 years ago

HN guidelines request that you do not imply a commenter has not read the original article.

DanBC10• 9 years ago

The is England, where people having sex for money is not illegal.

The article says:

I found the bin was overflowing with tissues and condoms. And basically what I had to do was pick all that up with my hands.

The sex workers probably have regular testing for STIs, but the clients may not have this testing.

xhedley• 9 years ago

Buying and selling sex in a private space in England isn't illegal. But two or more women selling sex in a single property constitutes "brothel-keeping" which is a criminal offence. Owning a "brothel" is also a criminal offence, which I believe is part of the reason the owner was upset.

eutectic• 9 years ago

He could have used gloves or held the bin with a cloth. And besides, anyone can leave a mess and prostitutes should be fully capable of not leaving a mess.

DoctorNick• 9 years ago

Legalizing prostitution causes increases in human trafficking. https://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/human-...

barrkel• 9 years ago

And illegal prostitution creates more danger for prostitutes since they can't rely on normal mechanisms for crime prevention.

mjevans• 9 years ago

Surely that's more a lack of proper regulations and enforcement. Things designed to keep safety and standards instead of punishment and determent.

Elaborating: If there is sufficient /convenient/, legal, not over-priced, service for the clients that clearly do exist then underground (criminal) fulfillment is much less profitable. Making onerous (for no good reason) regulations are one form of increasing the price of legal services and thus making it more profitable for unwanted fulfillment to occur.

mafribe4• 9 years ago

What makes "journalistsresource.org" a credible resource?

It's located at Harvard Kennedy School of Government which is basically an "elite factory" for the (re-)production of the US political elite -- just look at their alumni [2] and faculty [1]. The US's official policy is extremely anti legalisation of prostitution. In this context, "journalistsresource.org" looks like an instrument of projecting soft power [3], a mechanism to communicate US government policy, but obscuring the origin. I recommend being a little bit more reflective on the nature of your sources.

I also recommend to be suspicious of the term "trafficking" in this context. It's an attack term that is intended to appeal to your emotions, you are expected to think of 7 year old girls being 'stolen' from some destitute 3rd world country and being 'sold' into prostitution in a country where prostitution is legal (eg. Holland). However to a pretty good approximation this doesn't happen. Where prostitution is legal, essentially all (to a pretty good approximation) women who work in prostituion are adults and choose their job, in the same way that others become lorry drivers or carpenters.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Gove...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Gove...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power

dmichulke• 9 years ago

Legalizing cars increases vehicle theft. Legalizing pharmaceutical drugs increases smuggling.

Whenever something can be done legally, someone will try to provide/supply the service/good illegally for his own profit.

dragonwriter2• 9 years ago

It probably wouldn't in the long term if done correctly, though it's quite obvious why it wouldn't the short term, especially when significant political effort has gone into assuring that all the tools used to fight human trafficking are intimately tied into the prohibition of prostitution because the whole purpose was to use outrage against humanity trafficking as political cover to bolster prohibition of prostitution.

ajeet_dhaliwal• 9 years ago

If the owner envisioned a family coming to stay, perhaps from out of town for a holiday etc, but then instead realized on return that it has been used by a prostitute and a series of men had walked in repeatedly to have sex on the bed one after each other and with each one everyone cleaning themselves up in the bathrooms I can understand how it would feel like a violation. That said, this can always happen and you can't control what someone does once they have your apartment so he's only got himself to blame really, I would not rent out my apartment because I can't deal with knowing someone was in there even taking a simple shower but I understand that about myself and don't care about any income I'm missing out on having it be empty when I'm away.

cornholio• 9 years ago

I believe the problem is they earned £5000 while only paying £85 to the owner. A riot.

Markoff• 9 years ago

no, he said it can accommodate 4 people making it 85 per person, he earned 340

obscureanimal• 9 years ago

2) It's a matter of incentives. If you make murder illegal, people are still going to kill people but you disincentivize murder thus reducing its numbers.

grondilu• 9 years ago

dura lex, sed lex

The problem is that you can disagree with laws, yet refuse to be lured into infringing them. Personally there are plenty of laws I disagree with, yet I comply because I don't want to go to jail.

_0w8t• 9 years ago

Yet consider the case when your spouse engages in sex activities. Should it still be not your business? That points that there is a pressure to control sex that lead to laws that try to regulate or restrict that.

return02• 9 years ago

The writer of the article does not make a judgement apparently, instead presents the two sides of the issue. I 'm not even sure it's considered a 'problem'.

The legal issue is that his apartment became a brothel illegally, but it seems the fault is with the prostitutes, since he did not run the business himself.

arnoooooo• 9 years ago

You could say the same with minimum wage laws, in that they prevent people from from accepting a lower payed job.

Why would the government decide what job you can and can't accept ?

I definitely want to live in a world where someone's body can't be monetized for any reason. It's the buyer who should be punished though, not the seller.

pnut• 9 years ago

I doubt that Airbnb's terms of service include using the space for commercial purposes?

I mean, could I rent an Airbnb for a month and run an auto repair shop out of the garage? It's in violation of the zoning.

Turing_Machine• 9 years ago

"It's in violation of the zoning."

So is renting your apartment by the day, in many places.

Spooky233• 9 years ago

Remember, in HN zoning is abusive and petty regulation intended to raise rents and protect legacy markets and people.

Freedom means turning any apartment anywhere into a brothel.

M_Grey8• 9 years ago

If they opened a pop-up restaurant or nightclub, I'd be pissed too; this wasn't a contract to sublet a space for commercial use after all. You can get libertarian about sex work, while ignoring the abuse of an agreement between to parties.

JoeAltmaier• 9 years ago

I don't think a brothel serves as many people as a restaurant in an evening? Those other examples are skewed toward obvious wear-and-tear and traffic problems.

While the brothel example might not be distinguishable from a couple on vacation having a party, except for the money-changing-hands angle.

Lets admit, its the moral angle at issue. The rest is after-the-fact arguments pasted on to make it seem like an objective thing.

smsm422• 9 years ago

Yes, the article should be named "Airbnb guests fail to clean up after themselves, owner outraged". But then I guess it'd be hard to sell it as something worth an article on BBC.

All the rest - the fact that people had sex in the apartment (not exactly out of the normal unless one rents exclusively to monastic orders) or that money may have been exchanged (totally not owner's business) - sounds completely irrelevant and an attempt to foment moral panic.

grimskin• 9 years ago

If I understood article correctly - problem was that there were 2 women renting his place. Afaik - prostitution is legal there, but brothels are not, and place with more than one "escort" persons is considered brothel from legal point of view, so owner of the property was afraid that he'll be considered part of that.

camus24• 9 years ago

(...) my next-door neighbour saw it, made a complaint against me and I was evicted from my family home.

I would do exactly the same thing as her neighbor. Why? because even if I know that person , I don't know how fucked up the clients are and I wouldn't want to live in a building where people come and go to have sex with hookers, especially if there are kids around.

robryk3• 9 years ago

I'm curious: would you feed the same way about an apartment that is often rented via AirBnb?

watter• 9 years ago

Would you have the same problem with a single person who is sexually active? I've been single most of my adult life so you'd basically be calling the cops on me for being a regular citizen doing legal things.

draw_down• 9 years ago

No, apparently, when money is exchanged between parties, that's when sex becomes wrong and bad.

camus24• 9 years ago

There is a difference between a couple that is sexually active living in a building and a brothel.

curiousgal• 9 years ago

And until we decriminalise sex work, sex workers will never be safe by not being able to work in pairs.

This is probably the most ridiculous argument I've heard for the decriminalization of prostitution.

DanBC10• 9 years ago

In England sex workers are not allowed to "run a brothel". A brothel (in English law) is a place where two or more women offer sex.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/prostitution_and_exploita...

the definition of a brothel in English law does not require that the premises are used for the purposes of prostitution since a brothel exists wherever more than one woman offers sexual intercourse, whether for payment or not.

This means that sex workers who want to charge people for money (a legal activity in England) can't do it by sharing a property (illegal), but have to do it on the street.

Whatever your views on sex work it should be clear that street sex work is more dangerous than that offered in a private residence.

robryk3• 9 years ago

According to the article in UK it's legal to offer sex for money, as long as you're the only person doing it in a particular location (because otherwise the location is a brothel and operating a brothel is a criminal offense). In light of this that statement makes much more sense.

DanBC10• 9 years ago

It's even legal to sell sex for money in a brothel, so long as you're not the one operating it.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/prostitution_and_exploita...

It is not illegal to sell sex at a brothel provided the sex worker is not involved in management or control of the brothel. A house occupied by one woman and used by her alone for prostitution, is not a brothel (Gorman v Standen, Palace Clarke v Standen (1964) 48 Cr App R 30).

foldr14• 9 years ago

If more than one person is available in a premises for paid sex, then that is a brothel - however, if a sex worker works alone, they are not keeping a brothel

The law in the UK discourages prostitutes from having anyone else nearby when they are with their clients. This makes them less safe.

vmateixeira• 9 years ago

I see no different behaviour from what can happen on an hotel... and I don't see hotels complaining...

DanBC10• 9 years ago

Hotels do complain about sex workers, because they're in some legal risk if they allow it to happen.

There's also a slightly increased risk of infected material from sex workers rather than the general population.

The core activity (people exchanging sex for money) probably doesn't need to be illegal (and isn't under English law). But the English law is a mess, and criminalises a bunch of stuff around this activity, while still leaving vulnerable people unprotected.

vertex-four3• 9 years ago

Could I point out that this is the dreadful sort of "display two viewpoints, provide almost no commentary, and call it balanced" article the BBC is known for.

devdoomari• 9 years ago

does airbnb have options like 'no-uh-oh-ing'? Even apartment rents have options like 'no-pets', so it's quite straightforward to have hosts enforce some rules. (and have search option with 'without-uh-oh-forbidden')

iraklism• 9 years ago

Yes, just after the no-breathing option.

GavinMcG• 9 years ago

Is "uh-oh" slang for sex? I've never heard it, and while it's a clear guess from context what you mean, I'm having a hard time connecting the typical meaning of "uh-oh" with sex.

AlexAffe2• 9 years ago

Pinot Grigio, Prosecco, bin overflowing with used condoms... Let this guy give me their contact, I could use a night like that.

logicallee2• 9 years ago

Kudos for the BBC for finding this second subject (the bottom half of the article) and presenting both sides, as well as the inset "What is the law in the UK?" which I didn't know. This is a really strong and extremely balanced story where two sides speak for themselves through quotes. (I'd tell the author myself but I can't see a byline.)

Does anyone here know, what does Charlotte mean at the end with "I would never go on tour on my own to a new place that I've never been to before. No way. Because there is no safety agency or union out there that I can tell where I am or what I'm doing."

What are these unions or safety agencies, formal or informal? (And why can't Charlotte find one in a city she tours in?) If the reason they can't be found is that they're kind of operating outside of the law, like informal "protection" services then this would explain why she can only find it in a city she knows well - but that is not what "safety agency or union" means to me at all. So what are these things?

aphexbr• 9 years ago

I presume she means there's no such thing for the type of work she does. That is, if she did something else those things would be available to her, but they aren't for her line of work. So, she has to depend on pre-existing relationship with people who can protect her where she is.

logicallee2• 9 years ago

Oh, you are right - I think that I misread it. They must have meant that there is no such thing as a safety agency or union - not on tour, not anywhere. It is kind of weird that she has such a specific term in mind ("safety agency or union") for something that doesn't exist -- you would think she would phrase it as, "It's not like there are unions or anything else protecting workers." Perhaps she would like to see such institutions. (The article says she was part of a documentary, which the article links here -- http://www.devonlive.com/love-sale-exeter-escort-appears-cha... ). Thanks.

DanBC10• 9 years ago

There are initiatives such as "ugly mugs" which share details about dangerous clients: https://uknswp.org/um/

return02• 9 years ago

All i see is airbnb disrupting the real estate market. No more shady 'red light' districts, brothels can be everywhere.

BlindWanderer• 9 years ago

Can confirm. No hotel wants this, increased chance of breakages and noise complaints. Parties are worse.

Airbnb is pretty ideal.

vezycash• 9 years ago

The flat was used to shoot porn videos - most likely.

sauronlord• 9 years ago

Hotels have been used like this forever.

People run their homes like hotels and are shocked to find that people treat it as such.

al_chemist• 9 years ago

tl;dr Guy rented his apartment then he was horrified that someone had sex and drunk alcohol there. He called police and since they didn't call him back, now he want to sell whole place, because while he loves it, it's not worth it anymore.

What?

M_Grey8• 9 years ago

Danny Dyer built a new home and then promptly sold it because he believed that it was haunted. People are really, really irrational much of the time.

Mz• 9 years ago

And basically what I had to do was pick all that up with my hands.

Because England has yet to get up to speed with surgical gloves or similar. They just cannot be found. At all. Sure.

The way this part is written:

Looking at both their ads, some of the rates were about £1,300 a night. So if they were fully booked for the two nights that's £2,600 each - £5,200 in total.

The feeling was a bit like when I had to rush home from work a couple of years ago because I thought I'd left a tea towel on the hob. It felt like the place was burning down.

This reads to me like he was basically horrified at the idea of two women making excellent money, probably a lot more than he makes. That is how that part reads to me.

'My Airbnb flat was turned into a pop-up brothel'

Related Stories