Workspaces for Masseurs / Sex Workers

[Simon Suraci]

The classic solution is to work out of your own residential home / apartment / condo / etc, and I’ve done that in other cities with success. However, you need to have the right setup, live alone, and be situated in a location convenient to most of your clients.

In San Diego, I have none of those things going for me; I live with my partner, in an area way outside of my typical client travel radius, and lack privacy at my house because of nosy neighbors, lack of separate dedicated space available, and other practical concerns. So, I have been renting residential units in more central areas to my client base and commuting on a daily basis. While all of this is quite expensive and annoying, it’s necessary for me to operate. Moving to a central area is not really an option for many reasons.

Since I’m planning on more regular work travel, I am hoping to find a solution that saves me money while I’m working out of town. Any ideas for masseur and sex worker friendly housing / work spaces?

Here’s what I’ve already considered:

The short term rental market such as AirBnB, VRBO, and others is one way to go about it. I found monthly rental listings in my price range, but the options are quite slim. Otherwise it’s a perfect solution.

Extended stay type hotels are less costly than standard hotels, but still almost double or more than what my budget can handle. Plus you may or may not get in-unit laundry, depending on which hotel brand. In unit laundry is essential to my business.

Dayuse hotel stays are too short term for my purposes. I need to set up for all day and evening, some mornings, multiple days at a time. Dayuse can work for the occasional escort client that wants to pay for it in addition to my rate, but the cost is prohibitive for me to be profitable. Most clients aren’t willing to pay that extra cost, even if I arrange it for them (not to mention it puts me at financial risk when they flake).

The typical sublet situation almost always lacks privacy, like it’s a room with shared common space (non-starter), or a unit in the rear of someone’s house, or above their garage, or somewhere that other tenants and/or the owner clearly sees the comings and goings, which is a problem.

Apartments can work, but they’re less than ideal because most lack convenient reliable parking, and wood frame construction has neighbor noise from below the floor, above the ceiling, and side to side through the walls. Units in concrete high rise construction are more private, but typically too expensive.

Housing aggregators like HotPads, and others like Craigslist show few appropriate options for short or long term rentals.

I’m now looking at a co-working space for wellness professionals. You can rent treatment rooms by the hour, partial day, day, multiple days a week, by the week, or by month. The flexibility is awesome and it’s quite affordable. The setup is a suite in an office building and within the suite is a lobby and hallway you share with other wellness professionals. Not the most ideal from a privacy perspective, but the space is designed for clients to be coming and going all day, so all good there. Now the drawbacks. Bathrooms are public outside the suite, and no showers. No laundry, either shared or in the treatment rooms. I would have a sink in the treatment room, but no private bath or shower is a major drawback. I can’t exactly set up a bed in the space, firstly due to lack of space, but secondly because it would be inappropriate, and not private enough for such activities (some clients are way too loud!). I could offer massage, but not escort services. That cuts off an important percentage of my income. Co-working solves some problems, but not others.

Any other ideas for types of places to rent, or sites or apps to use to find appropriate in all accommodations for massage and escort work?

[+ robear]

Not much to contribute here, Simon, but I will say a veteran provider wrote off NYC stops when he lost his long-time deal for a shared apt.  Nevertheless, he did come back to a Sonder space, a full apartment in a residential building which he described as "affordable."  Take that as you will, but you might check options on their website for markets that interest you.

[Simon Suraci]

Thanks @robear. I have stayed in Sonder accommodations before, for a personal trip. Good tip.

[curt gregory]

On 9/10/2024 at 7:30 AM, Simon Suraci said:

Thanks @robear. I have stayed in Sonder accommodations before, for a personal trip. Good tip.

Simon - what about a Misterbnb short term rental when you travel?  I’ve not used one myself but read about the service on another thread.  I would think that most of the hosts would be delighted to have you use their residence, be it solo or shared.  
Just a thought. 😀

[Simon Suraci]

11 hours ago, curt gregory said:

Simon - what about a Misterbnb short term rental when you travel?  I’ve not used one myself but read about the service on another thread.  I would think that most of the hosts would be delighted to have you use their residence, be it solo or shared.  
Just a thought. 😀

Thanks. I actually don’t have much of a problem finding accommodations when I travel, for which I allocate double the budget per night than my local rentals. My issue is finding the right fit in San Diego where I work about 2/3 of the year. The residential market is very tight, not much available, so I’m considering alternative, out of the box solutions.

MrBnB has fewer, and often more expensive listings than other platforms, but it can be a good resource depending on the city. For many reasons, I stick to renting a whole unit, nothing shared.

For now, I rented a 125 sf windowless treatment room in an office building. Moved in today. You have to walk through a small lobby in a suite to access the room. Cameras monitor the lobby comings and goings, which is necessary, but not great for client comfort or discretion. I share one wall with a psychotherapist and one wall with the lobby. Several other rooms make up the suite which can each be rented by the hour, half day, day, week, or month.

For acoustical privacy, I’m installing some treatments on the shared walls and gasketing around the entry door frame. Also a sound machine. I’ll have to cart laundry in and out and spend extra time doing laundry every day. I’m not thrilled about the new digs, but it will have to do temporarily while I continue my search for the “real” space.

The “real” space needs a full bathroom in the unit with a decent shower, full size washer and dryer, space for a queen bed, space for a massage table, at least a minimal amount of storage, and convenient, reliable - if not dedicated - parking.

Ideally no shared walls, or if shared, gapped double stud demising walls, and concrete construction ie no squeaking, bumping, voices or other noises traveling through wood construction floors above or below. Nothing kills a good massage or escort session like the sound of noisy residential neighbors. I know, I am very picky about all these criteria. I care about my clients, their privacy, convenience, and delivering a quality experience.

[TallMuscl37]

What you describe is essentially what happened with me ever since I moved out my apartment in Nashville back in 2018. I was getting bored hanging in the apartment waiting for clients all the time, but I was centrally located near the airport. However, I had a ”sponsor buddy” who was fronting the cost of rent for awhile…and he only needed to come for a week/weekend every few weeks or so but when his job duties changed states: I wasn’t making enough to afford the $900 that it was going to go up to per month. So I packed up and moved in with relatives in Orlando to save money, and only did Outcalls or hotel incalls couple times a week and traveled on tour.

That worked for awhile, until things changed by moving to Kansas City area. I was far away from the main area of the city, which didn’t pose as much of a problem EXCEPT the fact many clients in the Midwest don’t like to host. It’s opposite as the coastal big cities because they tend to prefer to host (I went to San Diego last year and only had to host 1 client, a young college guy. Everybody else was outcalls). 
 

However, I still worked around it best I could until Covid/inflation hit: now all the hotels want extra or higher deposit, the prices are higher (some people only want to pay $100 for a massage, but the room rate is $100/$150/$200+tax. Where is the profit? And who is going to guarantee I’m going to squeeze in 5 $100 clients in a day?

Clients also trying to book at THE LAST MINUTE proved to be problematic when I had an hour commute to the city. Fast forward to 2024, I highly regret giving up the Nashville apartment: not that I would have stayed there but, just for the principle of how hard it is when you don’t have a full time in-call location.
 

And it’s a domino effect that can destroy someone’s business. Being far from city + can’t host + other clients can’t host = hard to make enough money to change the situation unless the masseur/sex worker is willing to go back to 9 to 5 work, which I personally feel: is NOT possible in this business to do both. For example, I had a client today wanting to only meet at 1 or 2 PM. 

WHY DO SO MANY CLIENTS ONLY WANT TO MEET AT 1, 2, 3 PM? Thats the WORSE time of day to try and plan a visit for an escort to host or even travel. There’s the hotel limitations, and then there’s other things like dental/doctor appointments to attend which conveniently: clients seem to KNOW when we’re going to the doctor or dentist, and specifically book that day to meet 🤣 

So I’m glad you took the time to share this, because it’s a reality. 

The good news is, I’m working now to change that. But in the meantime, I decided to leave Kansas City area for a little bit and stay with a different sponsor who has a home in the center of a medium sized city: which means I won’t be able to host, but I’ll be 20 minutes from every neighborhood in town, and have a handful of hotels within 5-10 minutes drive. So it’ll at least relieve the burden for a few days that I’ve been enduring. 

 

Edited September 24, 2024 by Jarrod_Uncut