An alleged rental listing in Brampton is drawing attention for its peculiar payment options.
A screenshot of the Facebook listing details a room availability for a two-bedroom apartment located about five minutes away from Bramalea City Centre, a mall in Brampton.
The ad is allegedly written by a man and directed only at women and displays three options for renting. The first option is a private room, rated at $500 a month. The second option is a shared room between two people, at $300 a month per person.
The third option, however, is quite unusual.
The ad is offering a “friends with benefits” option, a relationship that would involve the tenant engaging in intimate acts with the landlord as a payment method.
Picking this option would mean the tenant would not have to pay rent, they would receive free food and the landlord would spend $200 per month on shopping expenses for the tenant.
The landlord also assured that the relationship would remain private and confidential should a tenant pick the third option.
There have been mixed reactions to the listing on social media, many describing the friends with benefits option as rent payment as “predatory,” while some believe it’s a great way to save money.
“That is disgusting and illegal,” one user said on X.
“Seems like a straight up honest offer with clear terms. Not much different than dating apps or whatever,” another user said. “Not my cup of tea, but nothing abusive or underhanded about it.”
Greater Toronto Area realtor Othneil Litchmore says he doesn’t believe the listing is real, calling it “clickbait” and a form of drawing attention to the ever-growing rental market in Brampton. He notes that while the language used in the listing seems accurate for a landlord, the content is “exaggerated.”
Reviewing the listing, Litchmore said the first thing that stood out is the landlord seeking a girls-only rental, something he says is actually an illegal practice.
“You can’t offer a woman-only rental,” he says. “That would be a discrimination based on gender according to the Ontario Human Rights Legislation.”
Litchmore says overall, the ad seems to be fake and attempts to rile people up to talk about Brampton, a city that has recently made headlines for its influx of international students.
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However, he says if the ad is true, options one and two for a room ranging between $300 to $500 are great deals in today’s market, and seem realistic for students in the city.
Though a friends with benefits relationship in exchange for rent is bizarre, Litchmore says special arrangements aren’t uncommon for the students, such as “tiffin service,” a midday meal that some landlords may offer tenants as part of the agreement. It often occurs when landlords want to ensure their households remain vegetarian-only, he explained.
“A lot of the landlords or homeowners in Brampton are trying to come up with different housing options and set-ups in order to accommodate this influx of international students,” he said.
“And so you’re going to see these sorts of arrangements, like illegal basements being rented or rooms being shared. I think this is the nature of the situation currently.”
