Fast on the heels of the news of this disturbing rape in a South S.F. home, we get word of a prostitution bust at a nearby motel involving three teenage girls, two of whom were underage. As the Tribune reports, husband-and-wife pimp team Mahender Singh, 40, and Helen Singh, 22, pleaded not guilty yesterday to 12 felony counts including human trafficking.

Officers responded to a call about a possible runaway at the Travelodge in South San Francisco (near the airport) in August, and found that motel rooms for three teenage girls -- two 16-year-olds and one 19-year-old -- were registered to Mahender Singh. They found condoms, counterfeit money, and then upon searching Helen Singh's car they found a cell phone that was connected to ads for the girls on popular hooker website, MyRedBook.

The Singhs are due back in court in October.

[Tribune]

Over at the national edition of Curbed they're taking a look at surprisingly nice homes for sale in bankrupt towns across America - and that includes our neighbor to the Northeast with the hooker problem. While real estate-minded folks might be looking at this as a homeownership bargain, we're reminded of Vallejo's efforts to curb prostitution by publicly calling out johns who cruise the city's streets. For some, that would be good reason to avoid this 4,000 square-foot mini-mansion (the prostitution, not the johns) despite a price tag lower than most San Francisco two-bedroom apartments, but we're looking at this as a potential business opportunity for an enterprising Madame: Just think of the brothel you could run out of there, is what we're saying.

With 4 bedrooms, a pleasant piano parlor, a pool out back and a grand staircase to walk up as your lady of choice leads you to her chambers, it's got all the right amenities to create a Playboy Mansion North or a Bunny Ranch West - a sort of tribute to the Barbary Coast, if you will, and all hidden behind an unassuming suburban home. At $539,000, it's probably even cheaper than trying to open a bar in this city.

Potential negatives: Things might get tricky with only two bathrooms, but with all the money you'll be raking in you could probably afford to turn the garage in to a turkish-style bathhouse. It's also next door to a Catholic church and around the corner from a synagogue, so your clientele might get some dirty looks on the weekends and around the High Holidays, but honestly we've seen much more innocuous businesses get worse NIMBY harassment here in the city. So the question remains: Why has no one snapped up this Vallejo hooker's paradise yet?

Previously on SFist: Penniless Vallejo Experiencing Gentrification-by-Hookers
[CurbedNational]
[Redfin]

Ever since Vallejo filed for bankruptcy a couple years back, we've been pulling for the home of Six Flags Discovery Kingdom to experience a miraculous renaissance. Well, that hasn't quite happened yet and despite attractively low home prices, our neighbor to the north-east is apparently attracting as many hookers as is it homebuyers. According to the Chronicle's exposé on the growing problem, the town is now a draw to working women from all over the West.

Women like "Dog Girl", who commutes from Berkeley to turn tricks with her pet chihuahua in tow, or Toothless - who is 43-years-old and (surprise!) lacking teeth - have figured out that the same bust that led to those low property values also slashed funding for police forces. So Vallejo doesn't have the cash or FBI support of say Oakland or Hayward, where recent busts have brought down large-scale prostitution and human trafficking rings. Still, Vallejo could learn a thing or two from Oakland, where they may not have as many empty "squat-brothels" (which: ew) but they've at least found a way to shake down the sleazeball motels who tolerate prostitution.

In the meantime, it sounds like Vallejans have started taking matters in to their own hands by organizing "Ho Patrol" neighborhood watch groups who "walk their streets and ask streetwalkers, pimps and johns to go elsewhere." To the johns, however, they're not quite as polite: locals have started circulating photos and names of known customers at City Council meetings and storefronts.

[Chronicle]
[OaklandLocal]

Last week, after Attorneys General in 17 states sparked the removal of Craigslist "Adult Services" section, Newmark and company decided to slap a brilliant "censored" protest icon on the site. Today, however, as CNET and SF Appeal notes, the bar has been removed.

For amorous types still looking for pay-to-play lovemaking on the site, the m4m, m4w, w4w, w4m, misc romance, and casual encounters sections are a good start. Blatant requests for cash, however, get weeded out, so look carefully for such terms as "generous" or "helping hand."

Conversely, Gawker has a helpful post-Craigslist guide to buying sex online. God bless.

Has anyone heard of this thing called the War on Drugs started by President Nixon, in which drug dealers and users get thrown in jail in order to clean up our streets and save our great nation from ruin, only to have them be replaced by different dealers and users the next day? Well, our new police chief George Gascon apparently sides with Nixon and Reagan on this debate, and recently announced a sweep of the Tenderloin in which 300 people were arrested in an effort to rid the area of drugs and prostitution. Good fucking luck!

As KCBS reports, just an hour after Gascon's announcement of the sweep, everyone scuttled back outside and deals were going down one block away from the police station. They quote a chaplain at the San Francisco Rescue Mission as saying, "I would not be surprised if we were [still talking about ridding this area of drugs] 20 years from now. This is reality."

Five men from Alameda and Santa Clara Counties have been taken into custody after a 10-month investigation into an online prostitution ring. All were charged pimping and pandering and are being held in Santa Clara County jail. Police are asking anyone with further info in the case to contact them at (408) 277-4322, however no info is really being given as to how you might have known these pimps or where, online, they were pandering--especially after Craigslist did away with erotic services. Presumably, if you were one of their whores, you've moved on to greener pastures and don't want to get yourself implicated...