Sleazy landlords in Wales are trading free rooms in exchange for sex with women desperate for somewhere to live. An online medium, Wales online found
Sleazy landlords in Wales are trading free rooms in exchange for sex with women desperate for somewhere to live. An online medium, Wales online found scores of ads posted on classifieds site Craigslist from men looking for women in need of a place.
One offered “nice lovely all new fitted out” one and two-bedroom flats in Cardiff and the Valleys. Another posted. “Tenant with benefits wanted. Must reply with pic.” Another promised a “free room for [a] female” in Cardiff.
Prospective tenants were also offering themselves in exchange for rooms.
One 19-year-old from Bridgend said she was “19, bisexual, size 18, 38E.”
“I’m looking for free rent in exchange for what you want,” she wrote on the site.
“Obviously nobody else would know about this, it would stay strictly between the two of us.”
She did not want to be in a place with more than two people.
“I’m very open-minded, have a very high sex drive, kind, respectful and a good cleaner,” she said. “Looking for a landlady or a gentle landlord.”
Wales Online posted an ad on Craigslist posing as a 22-year-old woman looking for a rent-free place. Within days, their reporter was flooded with messages from men offering free rooms for sex of course. Others demanded a photo while one said he did not have a spare room but that our investigator could “sleep in my bed with me”.
Another landlord said he would accept either payment or “sex, kinky sex, maybe three to four times in a week, day or night”.
Andrew Wallis, who is chief executive of anti-slavery charity Unseen, raised concerns about the vulnerability of tenants entering into these kinds of arrangements.
“I think landlords placing these ads are treading as close to the line as they can in terms of breaking the law,” he said.
“It’s as close as you can get without stepping over the line. It’s playing on vulnerable people and putting them in a situation which makes them further vulnerable. We know there is a thin line between what is exploitative as defined under the Modern Slavery Act,” he said. “We are calling for a change in the law.”
