Women searching for temporary accommodation described unwanted sexual attention. A new study shows how some changed their online behaviour to avoid it.

Matilda had spent years moving between temporary homes in Stockholm. When she advertised for accommodation, men began contacting her.

Some commented on her appearance. Others sent personal messages or offered rooms in conversations she found sexually uncomfortable.

She eventually preferred responding to rental advertisements instead of posting her own.

Matilda’s experience appears in a study published in September 2026 by Lenita Kefala, a researcher at Stockholm University. The study explores how women navigate the city’s temporary rental market, where finding somewhere affordable to live can take considerable effort.

I recently wrote about sexual propositions linked to rental accommodation in Germany. The Stockholm research points to another part of the problem.

Women may need to make themselves visible to find a landlord. Yet some discover that visibility also attracts unwanted attention.

A nine-year wait for an ordinary rental apartment

Stockholm’s housing market has a peculiar feature. Many ordinary rental apartments are distributed through a municipal waiting list.

People register and accumulate waiting time. When a property becomes available, applicants compete under rules that take their queue position into account.

In 2025, the average waiting time for ordinary rental apartments allocated through Stockholm’s municipal housing agency was nine years.

Within Stockholm city, the corresponding average was 12.4 years.

The figures come from Bostadsförmedlingen i Stockholm, the city’s housing agency.

They do not mean every apartment requires nine years of waiting. Some homes are available considerably sooner, while properties in popular neighbourhoods may require longer.

The agency allocated 20,861 homes in 2025, including student accommodation and other housing categories.

Even so, somebody arriving for work or moving after a relationship breakdown may need accommodation long before an ordinary rental contract becomes available.

That helps explain the importance of Stockholm’s secondary rental market.

People rent rooms in occupied homes or temporarily rent apartments from existing tenants and owners. Some arrangements are formal and authorised. Others involve informal contacts through social networks.

Facebook groups and housing platforms help applicants reach people offering accommodation.

The same platforms also require applicants to make decisions about how much personal information to disclose.

What the Stockholm study found

Lenita Kefala’s paper, Gendered Experiences of Sublet Housing Platforms in Stockholm, appeared in the International Journal of Housing Policy on September 14, 2026.

The researcher interviewed 22 women aged between 30 and 70. Participants had between one and fifteen years of experience in Stockholm’s temporary rental market.

The fieldwork took place between 2020 and 2023.

Kefala also examined approximately 300 screenshots of online advertisements, discussions and interactions collected from housing platforms, principally Facebook and Blocket.

Six participants receive detailed attention in the published analysis.

The research is qualitative. Its purpose is to understand people’s experiences and behaviour, not calculate how widespread harassment is among Stockholm’s housing seekers.

That limitation matters.

The study cannot establish that most women searching for rooms receive sexual messages. It does, however, document how the women who encountered such behaviour responded.

Some changed the photographs they used. Others became more selective about posting their own housing advertisements.

The changes were not always voluntary expressions of preference. Some reflected concerns about personal safety.

The problem with being an attractive tenant

Rental advertisements often specify the kind of person the property owner wants.

Some seek a tenant who is quiet, tidy and financially reliable. Others express a preference for women.

In Kefala’s study, gender sometimes appeared to work in an applicant’s favour.

Participants believed that landlords could regard women, particularly older women, as responsible and less likely to cause difficulties.

One woman described using her photograph and Swedish identity to present herself as a trustworthy applicant.

The study also found examples of racial and language differences influencing housing searches.

One participant explained that a Swedish-speaking woman handled communications with landlords while her Arabic-speaking male partner remained less visible.

These accounts show how applicants adapted to the expectations they believed existed in the market.

A housing seeker may have a steady income and good references. She may still feel obliged to demonstrate that she is the kind of person a landlord wants in the building.

Women who believed their age or appearance gave them an advantage sometimes used those characteristics deliberately.

Yet being visible as a woman could also bring unwanted attention.

When an offer of accommodation becomes uncomfortable

Matilda, one of the participants, had spent twelve years renting temporary apartments.

She described receiving messages about her appearance after posting housing advertisements. Some men also approached her with offers of rooms.

She regarded many of those approaches as sexual rather than genuine attempts to arrange accommodation.

Matilda preferred contacting landlords through existing advertisements, where she felt less exposed.

Other participants described similar problems with personal messages and intimate questions.

Some avoided displaying profile photographs. Others carefully selected what they revealed about themselves.

The researcher also observed discussions in online housing groups where women exchanged experiences of harassment and ways to respond.

The important finding concerns what happened after the unwanted approaches.

Women sometimes reduced their presence on the very platforms they needed to find accommodation.

A housing advertisement is supposed to improve an applicant’s chances by reaching more potential landlords. But applicants who receive inappropriate messages may decide that attracting fewer contacts is safer.

The choice has a possible cost.

Reducing visibility may also reduce contact with legitimate landlords, although this study does not measure how many actual rental opportunities participants lost.

What it documents is the calculation women described making while searching for somewhere to live.

Women also felt pressure to hide desperation

The study goes beyond sexual harassment.

Some participants had spent years living in temporary arrangements. They wanted a stable home but struggled to secure one.

Housing advertisements often asked applicants to appear financially secure and responsible. People looking for accommodation responded by presenting themselves as suitable tenants.

They described employment and emphasised their reliability. Some tried to avoid appearing vulnerable, even when their housing circumstances were difficult.

That creates a demanding situation for someone urgently seeking a room.

The applicant must convince a landlord that she can pay the rent and will respect the property. She may also worry that revealing too much about her circumstances could weaken her negotiating position.

Kefala examines how these expectations influence women’s behaviour online.

Personal photographs and descriptions become part of the competition for accommodation.

The issue is not limited to whether a woman can afford the advertised rent.

It also concerns what she believes she must reveal about herself to receive a response.

Sweden has protections against housing discrimination

Swedish law does not leave tenants and applicants without rights.

The Swedish Equality Ombudsman explains that landlords and their representatives must not discriminate against housing applicants.

Sexual harassment by a landlord or someone working for that landlord can constitute unlawful discrimination.

Sweden also regulates subletting. Depending on the housing arrangement, tenants or apartment owners may need permission before allowing somebody else to occupy a home independently.

The Swedish Courts Administration explains the permission requirements for subletting tenant-owned apartments.

However, renting an entire apartment to someone who uses it independently is not legally identical to taking in a lodger while continuing to live in the property.

The distinction matters because different arrangements can carry different rules.

The Stockholm study does not establish how frequently authorities investigate harassment connected to online housing searches.

Nor does it establish whether every person sending an inappropriate message was a landlord or someone legally authorised to rent out accommodation.

An account in a Facebook group may belong to a genuine landlord. It may also belong to somebody with no legitimate room available.

For a woman searching for housing, establishing who is behind an advertisement can be difficult.

Formal protections are important, but they do not remove the uncertainty surrounding every online encounter.

Why the Stockholm findings differ from Germany’s sex-for-rent reports

In my earlier article, Sex for Rent in Germany: When the Housing Shortage Gives the Wrong People Power, I examined reports of accommodation being offered in exchange for sexual contact.

The Stockholm study includes unwanted sexual approaches, but its main contribution is broader.

It examines how gender affects women’s ability to present themselves as desirable tenants.

Some women believed landlords preferred female applicants because they appeared more responsible. Yet the same public visibility could attract attention they did not want.

The result was a difficult adjustment.

Participants sometimes tried to look reliable without appearing too personally accessible.

One woman could improve her chances by showing a photograph. Another might omit hers because previous messages had made her uncomfortable.

The study shows how housing searches can force personal choices that would receive little attention in an ordinary discussion of rents.

Germany’s documented sex-for-rent cases concern attempts to exploit housing need through sexual demands.

Stockholm’s research also concerns the pressure applicants feel when choosing how to advertise themselves.

These related issues should not be treated as identical, nor do the studies establish that one country has a worse problem than the other.

Could rental platforms do more?

Digital housing platforms have a practical role in connecting people with accommodation.

A listing may contain photographs and information about rent. Applicants can contact the advertiser without visiting an office.

But the interaction depends on trust.

A person answering an advertisement needs some confidence that the property exists and that the advertiser has authority to rent it.

Platforms can offer verification systems and reporting tools. Moderators can remove inappropriate posts or accounts.

Such measures may reduce certain risks, although their effectiveness would need to be tested rather than assumed.

They cannot solve Stockholm’s housing shortage.

There is also a tension between verification and privacy.

A platform may encourage applicants to provide more details so landlords regard them as trustworthy. Women who have received sexualised messages may prefer to reveal less.

Designers of housing platforms need to consider both problems.

The Swedish study does not test specific platform reforms. It establishes why questions about online identity and personal safety deserve closer examination.

What Stockholm still needs to know

Stockholm collects detailed information about its municipal rental queue.

The city knows how many homes the agency allocates and how long successful applicants waited.

It has less systematic information about harassment during informal online housing searches.

Kefala’s research provides accounts from 22 women. A larger study could investigate whether similar experiences occur across different age groups and rental platforms.

It could also examine whether people change their search behaviour after receiving unwanted messages and whether those changes affect their chances of finding accommodation.

The role of platform reporting systems deserves attention.

How often do women report inappropriate approaches? What happens after a report? Do applicants trust the process?

The existing research does not answer those questions.

For Matilda, the practical response was to stop advertising herself directly and concentrate on contacting people who had already listed rooms.

It was a way of managing an uncomfortable situation.

The troubling part is that women searching for accommodation may have to narrow their options because strangers misuse the opportunity to contact them.

Stockholm’s housing agency can measure the wait for an apartment. Matilda’s experience points to another cost of the search, one that does not appear in the queue statistics.