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Craigslist ads offer free rent for sex in Canadian cities and they appear to be legal

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There appears to be an unsettling trend emerging in the housing section of Craigslist.

People across the country are using the rooms/shared category of the popular online classified website to solicit women — and sometimes men — for sexual favours in return for free rent.

“Nice room available for Hot Young Female”, one of the headers reads. “Free Rent for Female Student”, states another.

While the trend in Canada was first reported out of Vancouver, where reasonably priced accommodations are notoriously hard to find, similar offers can be found across the country.

“Free rent for a female” was placed in an ad out of Kitchener, Ont.

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“I seek a cute fun open minded female to live with me rent-free,” it reads. “This is not just about intimacy, but about having someone to come home to, someone to chat with, and someone to cuddle with.”

The soliciting isn’t just limited to women.

“Fee rent for male bodybuilder,” read one post out of Halifax.

“Gay man looking for roommate/companion share condo,” another post reads out of Toronto.

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Const. Brian Montague with the Vancouver police says the force is aware that these types of ads exist, but that they’re not illegal.

“They imply that there’s free rent for sexual favours but they don’t actually say that,” he tells Yahoo Canada News. “We can’t arrest someone for something that’s implied.”

He says that unless the ads are followed up and confirmed to be soliciting sex, there’s nothing the police can do since the ads themselves are not illegal.

“As a police department, we have to look at our priorities and resources,” he says. “Do we use resources to look at Craigslist ads, where we’re generally looking at consenting adults, or do we look at those resources to target violent sexual offenders who are targeting children.”

He says if the ads appeared to be targeting young people or foreign students that don’t have a grasp of the English language, then the police would look into it.

Representatives for Craigslist could not be reached for comment. The website has a section that covers safety concerns, which features links to resources about staying safe online.

Chris Levy, a retired law professor at the University of Calgary, says the ads generally don’t fall under Section 213 of the Criminal Code, which covers soliciting for the purposes of prostitution, for several reasons.

“It’s only an offence if the communication takes place in a public place,” he says. “Whatever else — the Internet, Facebook or Craigslist — they’re not places.”