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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to attempt to close the gay massage parlour?

90 replies

Snotgobbler99 · 17/04/2018 15:54

I live in a small block of six, privately owned, flats and it appears that two (if not more) young gentlemen have moved into one of them and are using it as a gay massage parlour. Am I being unreasonable to want to close it down?

Well, of course, I'm not. Not only is there a constant stream of strange men ringing on the doorbell (often my doorbell) and wandering around the entrance but clients also monopolise our private off street parking, because you have to feed a meter locally.

When I say "massage parlour", I've found the adverts and it's not a legit masseurs, it's a wank shop. I'm pretty certain a massage parlour with two 'masseurs' constitutes a brothel. Do any legal eagle Mn'ers have any suggestions?

OP posts:

DairyisClosed · 17/04/2018 17:17

@dangerous since when has not wanting a brothel in your building been homophobic? He just said that he has no problems with gay men because he anticipated people jumping his throat. I reiterate. Brothel!

bobstersmum · 17/04/2018 17:19

No problem with gays, how is that offensive to anyone?

crunchymint · 17/04/2018 17:19

And all those cool with this would feel differently if a brothel was next to their family.

Original poster

Snotgobbler99 · 17/04/2018 17:26

I have few problems with any people, God. But I see how easy it might be to offend someone unintentionally.

I wonder how many harmless religious people, including jews, muslims and christians you've implicitly "othered" by calling yourself God?

OP posts:

BrightYellowDaffodil · 17/04/2018 17:37

All those supposedly cool about it, I bet you'd feel the same if there was a gay brothel next to your home...

I have lived near a brothel. I've also lived in a building of flats with a drug dealer in it and now live in an area where there a drug dens here and there, and I'd take the brothel - gay or otherwise - any day. As long as they're not bothering me and no one's getting hurt I couldn't give a hoot what others get up to behind their own front doors.

DontDribbleOnTheCarpet · 17/04/2018 17:43

I'd be doing everything I could to get it shut down too. Not because I have a problem with sex workers, or gay men, but because I would have a real problem with living next door to a brothel . In general terms, sex work concerns me because of the level of abuse and coercion, trafficking etc, but if someone set up a brother right next door to me my primary concern would be for my family.

I've heard plenty of people speaking in favour of legalising brothels to protect sex workers etc, but I've never seen a good argument for brothels being in a residential area. Like the OP's partner, I would feel intimidated and unsafe. I wouldn't want my children to pick up on what the activity was either, or for them to get the idea that selling sex is somehow fine and normal and something that people's next door neighbours do.

nocake · 17/04/2018 17:49

It looks like you have two options. The first is to talk to them and get them to sort out the issues with the door bells and parking. If their clients don't cause a disturbance and don't take your parking spots that might make life easier?

The alternative is to start working through the ways to close them down. Most, if not all, of them have been mentioned on here so work your way through them. Council, for running a business from a private property. Police, for causing a nuisance. Their LL for anything you can think of. HMRC for possible tax evasion. Get large sticky labels to put on car windscreens. Etc etc

TBH I'd try the first option. If it works it will be a lot less stressful for you.

crunchymint · 17/04/2018 17:49

Daffodils The question is not would you prefer a drug dealer or brothel next door to you. I would want neither. And as both I and someone else has said, anti social behaviour is often an issue with brothels because of the kind of men who go there.
I echo that I would not want my family to grow up thinking this was normal and okay either.

Viviennemary · 17/04/2018 17:56

If they're running it as a 'business' and it's residential property then you would probably have a case to object to it.

SpringNowPlease2018 · 17/04/2018 18:01

OP do you know what the other neighbours think - could you all complain to the council?

Batteriesallgone · 17/04/2018 18:01

I have lived near a brothel. Although it was different in that it was a registered business (‘massage parlour’) in a converted shop. So they had the commercial use, registered with HMRC stuff.

I tried for about two years to get it closed down on the basis of it clearly being a knocking shop (website with pictures of beds, explicit pictures etc...clearly not a reputable spa FFS) and council and police not interested. Then I moved.

I asked around online and the consensus seemed to be that residential places can be reported to HMRC and often end up closing because of tax implications. If it’s got a commercial front you’ve not got much hope.

RulaLenskasHair · 17/04/2018 18:07

As long as they're not bothering me and no one's getting hurt I couldn't give a hoot what others get up to behind their own front doors.

But they are bothering OP. That's the point.

Buster72 · 17/04/2018 18:29

The usual route to closure is actually under anti social behaviour legislation. If they are attracting an undesirable element to your block you can have the flat boarded up. Let the landlord know and they often evict as they don't want the prospect of losing income for months.

BrightYellowDaffodil · 17/04/2018 18:30

The question is not would you prefer a drug dealer or brothel next door to you.

No, you're right. The point I was trying to make is that as long as there isn't anti social behaviour and no one is being harmed, I can't be bothered to get all pearl-clutchy about a brothel nearby.

crunchymint · 17/04/2018 18:31

Go ahead and call those of us who care about these issues as pearly clutchy. Usual insult to those who do not think prostitution is okay and do not want our children growing up thinking this is normal.

Batteriesallgone · 17/04/2018 18:34

No anti social behaviour? Aren’t most brothel visitors drunk or on drugs? They were where I lived.

I mean - it’s hardly something you do as a family after a nice afternoon tea somewhere. It’s something men do, often in groups, generally under the influence. Antisocial behaviour is pretty much a certainty surely.

HollowTalk · 17/04/2018 18:37

But the brothel isn't just 'nearby' - it's in her block of SIX flats!

Who the hell would want that?

SpringNowPlease2018 · 17/04/2018 18:37

Pearl clutchy? OP has constant doorbell ringing, that would drive me nuts.

GodYouMakeMeCringe · 17/04/2018 18:38

Bobstersmum - would you think 'no problem with blacks' was an acceptable thing to say? Or 'no problem with disableds?' Or 'no problem with Jews?' Or 'Indians'.

It's offensive because it's reducing a huge number of diverse and complex human beings over huge geography with infinite personal differences; to just one single characteristic as a member of a minority group which by the nature of their minority are subject to discrimination and prejudice.

It's reductive and 'othering'. Suggesting that IS their definition as people - 'gays' 'blacks' 'Jews', 'Indians' or whatever.

Original poster

Snotgobbler99 · 17/04/2018 18:38

As long as they're not bothering me and no one's getting hurt I couldn't give a hoot what others get up to behind their own front doors.

They are behind my front door, the front door to the communal flats.

We are all within a few feet of that front door and the doorbells (to our flats) are going every half hour from 10am til past midnight - accompanied by the door slamming in a 60's block with little to no soundproofing.

I'm not allowed to run a betting shop or a greengrocers from my flat, why should a brothel be exempt?

OP posts:

Andylion · 17/04/2018 18:41

Go ahead and call those of us who care about these issues as pearly clutchy.

What’s the opposite of pearl clutchy?

Jon66 · 17/04/2018 18:44

In order to run a business from a private address they need planning permission. Speak to the local council and ask them if they would investigate as if true, they should serve with an enforcement order. Personally I would feel more sympathy toward you if you let out the gay bit and just said massage or sex working.

bobstersmum · 17/04/2018 18:45

God, yes I would think that was acceptable to say because I'm not the pc brigade I believe in freedom of speech and not taking offence to anything and everything! I am white and I would not take offence at a black person telling me they had no problem with whites.......

Original poster

Snotgobbler99 · 17/04/2018 18:50

Excellent work, God. I happen to be a member of two of the groups you mention in your examples. You have, in the course of explaining your point, repeated the sin.

Why did you choose to offend me, purely to illustrate an example dramatically, when you could easily have substituted the offensive terms for something inoffensive - such as "a different racial group."?

Could it be you were so eager to castigate me that you threw the baby out with the bathwater?

(No babies, real or imagined, were harmed in the course of this explanation).

OP posts:

Dahlietta · 17/04/2018 18:51

What’s the opposite of pearl clutchy?

Shit rubby.

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