Turn off the red light: Kalgoorlie’s infamous sex strip has just one brothel left after the second last business closed its doors
- Red light district in WA gold mining town of Kalgoorlie has only one brothel left
- Questa Casa, which has been operating for at least 115 years, is the last brothel
- Also known as The Pink House, it is possibly the world’s oldest working brothel
The infamous red light district in the West Australian gold mining town of Kalgoorlie has only one brothel left after the second last business closed its doors.
Arrangements are underway to turn the historic Red House into accommodation for mining workers.
That leaves Questa Casa, which has been operating for at least 115 years, as Hay Street’s last house of ill repute.
The infamous red light district in the West Australian gold mining town of Kalgoorlie has only one brothel left after the second last business, the Red House) closed its doors
‘With its world famous corrugated-iron ‘starting stalls’, Questa Casa is the last of the original brothels built during Kalgoorlie’s gold-rush era,’ its website reads.
Kalgoorlie’s brothel strip was a major tourist drawcard for many years, and is even spruiked by the town’s visitor centre, which says the guided tour of Questa Casa ‘offers tourists the unique opportunity to experience life from a bygone era’.
Also known as The Pink House, it is possibly the world’s oldest working brothel, the visitor’s centre claims.
For the past 25 years, the business has been run by the immaculately well-spoken veteran Madam Carmel.
‘Kalgoorlie is one-of-a-kind. Where else in the world would you find a street of brothels controlled by the council?’ Carmel told Daily Mail Australia in 2017.
She vowed The Pink House is not just the oldest-operating sex parlour in Australia, but the world. Her claim is echoed in a memoir.
The street entrance to Questa Casa, known locally as The Pink House, which could be the oldest-operating brothels in the world
Madam Carmel, who snapped up the business 25 years ago, vows it is the world’s oldest operating brothel
When Carmel took ownership in the early 1990s, the government still enforced a policy of ‘containment’ where police turned a blind eye to sex work conducted in red light districts like Hay Street.
‘Business was booming. There was men everywhere and the girls made a lot of money. It was alive.’
But the bizarre laws came with ethical pitfalls – and not the usual stigma. Containment came to be branded ‘segregation for sex workers.’
‘People were horrified because working girls had to live on the premises. They weren’t even allowed to socialise in town. It was seen as soliciting.’
Kalgoorlie’s brothel strip was a major tourist drawcard for many years, and is even spruiked by the town’s visitor centre, which says the guided tour of Questa Casa (pictured) ‘offers tourists the unique opportunity to experience life from a bygone era’
Brothels traded illegally under WA’s Criminal Code, but were allowed to exist under the state government’s unofficial ‘containment policy’.
Under that policy police turned a blind eye, provided the establishments were restricted to certain areas.
The recent inquest into the murder of Perth madam Shirley Finn shone a light on corruption, with brothels regularly paying kickbacks to police in exchange for not being raided.