A new documentary has given a chilling insight into the seedy world of landlords who offer rooms in return for sex – and the vulnerable women prepared to take up the offer.
BBC reporter Ellie Flynn went undercover and messaged men on Craigslist to expose the vile practice, and also met up with a woman who admitted she would be prepared to sleep with her landlord in return for a roof over her head.
One man confronted in a Newcastle cafe defended his actions and told the cameras: ‘I’m not doing anything wrong… it’s not just about sex, it’s about companionship.’
BBC Three’s Ellie Undercover: Rent For Sex also met up with a landlord who had built a log cabin in his garden where tenants could sleep if the agreed to have sex in return for a ‘physical arrangement once a week’
The man offers to show Ellie around after saying: ‘That’s where you sleep, it’s a log cabin, alright?’
The number of adverts offering rent for sex online is booming, with sites like Craigslist accused of not doing enough to tackle the practice
He denied knowing the practice was illegal but refused to rule out doing it again, saying: ‘I don’t know, I can’t truthfully answer that.’
BBC Three’s Ellie Undercover: Rent For Sex also met up with a landlord who had built a log cabin in his garden where tenants could sleep if the agreed to have sex in return for a ‘physical arrangement once a week’.
‘That’s where you sleep, it’s a log cabin, alright?’ he said, after offering to show Ellie round.
The number of adverts offering rent for sex online is booming, with sites like Craigslist accused of not doing enough to tackle the practice.
More than 250,000 women during the last five years have been asked by a landlord if they want to take part in the arrangement, according to housing charity Shelter.
Many women are driven to offering their bodies in return for rent after struggling to pay booming rents.
One 18-year-old, called Chloe, posted an advert on Craigslist after she became homeless following the breakup of her relationship.
‘If I can’t find somewhere to live then I think it’s an option that I will have to take up,’ she told Ellie.
One man confronted in a Newcastle cafe defended his actions and told the cameras: ‘I’m not doing anything wrong… it’s not just about sex, it’s about companionship’
More than 250,000 women during the last five years have been asked by a landlord if they want to take part in the arrangement, according to housing charity Shelter
He denied knowing the practice was illegal but refused to rule out doing it again, saying: ‘I don’t know, I can’t truthfully answer that’
‘I think myself that it is fair for me to give them what they want because they are giving me what they want… They are putting a roof over my head.’
Another landlord put the reporter in touch with a former tenant who told of how he tried touching her while she was staying rent-free with him.
‘I would just feel almost paralysed every time he tried to touch me but he didn’t force himself on me,’ said the unnamed woman.
‘In a sense I am kind of grateful he didn’t do that.’
One woman said she felt that: ‘It’s fair for me to give them what they want because they are giving me what I want’
The woman added: ‘The idea of consent gets mashed up because a woman thinks this is the exchange I have to give this man in order for me to have a roof over my heard.’
The unnamed woman’s former landlord told her that she would be sleeping in the same bed as him but assured her that she could ‘keep her pyjamas on’.
Another asked that she perform a sex act on him ‘every second day’ while another said: ‘I’m just doing it ’cause I just wanna f**k.’
The law states that a crime is only committed when a person causes of incites somebody to become a prostitute under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The maximum sentence for this offence is seven years in prison.
There are no know prosecutions in relation to sex for rent in the UK to date.
Ellie Undercover: Rent For Sex is available to watch now on iPlayer.