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Some might think that the landlords in Cape Town are unfair, but the ones in the UK give them a run for their money.

In some parts of London, where finding a good rental space is already a bit of a nightmare, landlords are really ‘taking the p*ss’ and targeting renters with ‘no-sex’ clauses in their tenancy agreements.

VICE got word from a few of these renters about their experience with landlords laying down the no-shagging rule, all using a pseudonym for privacy reasons.

Lucy, 23, for example, moved into a shared house with three other girls and immediately noticed the signs in the communal areas banning “music after 11 PM”, “house parties” and, crucially, “loud sex”.

Lucy says she found it funny at first. “I thought how are they even going to police that?’ But the landlord does inspections himself and he actually mentions it when he visits,” she tells VICE.

“We’re all girls and he starts lecturing us about ‘youths of today’ being hyper sexual, and telling us to save ourselves for marriage.”

Britons are well-acquainted with the antics of their eccentric landlords, but this latest development truly pushes the boundaries. There have been landlords disguising single rooms as full-fledged flats, transforming into social media influencers who document their tenants’ evictions, and even billing renters for hosting guests. Just when you believed their behaviour couldn’t plummet any further, they’ve introduced a new tactic to disrupt a renter’s life: no-sex clauses in rental agreements.

Obviously, Lucy’s sex life, or that of her flatmates, is “literally none of his business” as she says, but there’s not much she can do about it. “This room was a steal and it’s so hard to find a place these days. It’s creepy but it’s just something I’m going to have to put up with.”

Chris, 24, who rents an attic room in London and shares a communal space with two other flatmates, siblings, who are also his live-in landlords, has also just had to sort of get on with it, adhering to these bizarre anti-sex rules as he doesn’t have anywhere else to live.

Disturbingly, like in the case of Chris, some tenants have found no-sex clauses actually written into their tenancy agreements.

“Their parents frequently visit,” he says, “and about four months into living here, their mum overheard me having sex with my girlfriend and complained about it to them.” His flatmates later slipped a note under his bedroom door, asking him to not have sex in the house, or host any overnight guests in general.

“I confronted them in our shared kitchen and they kind of went ape shit, telling me it’s ‘wrong’ to have sex because it’s ‘their house’, which I think says everything. Landlords don’t look at tenants or lodgers like they actually deserve to be there.”

Chris promptly checked his tenancy agreement, expecting to find a loophole to negotiate his way out of the situation, only to discover that the clause had been there all along.

Tenancy laws already struggle to cover basics like protection from unjust evictions or rent increases, and the laws surrounding no-sex tenancy clauses are basically non-existent in the UK.

According to Qarrar Somji, director of Witan Solicitors (who specialise in resolving residential landlord and tenant disputes), tenants with live-in landlords, like Chris, don’t have a lot of rights. There’s actually nothing stopping live-in landlords from banning overnight guests.

Tenants with live-out landlords have slightly more rights, but, Somji explains, these are “essentially just contracts, meaning landlords and tenants have the right to agree to whatever terms they wish, unless it’s illegal”.

Worse still, thanks to no-fault evictions – the ones the UK government has repeatedly promised and failed to ban – “landlords can’t say they’re evicting you for having sex, but they can boot you out regardless”.

Basically, without any requirement for a reason, landlords don’t need to admit they’re making a tenant homeless because they’re a top shagger.

[source:vice]