Q: I recently discovered that my ex-roommate had been working as a prostitute and sometimes paid me the rent with money earned that way. I want to return her money because I don’t think anyone should have to do such work. She refuses to take it, saying her work is none of my business. Must I accept (and keep) rent money regardless of its source? – Mike, New York
A: I understand not wanting to feel implicated in activities you disdain, but your retroactive demurral is ill-advised. Returning last year’s rent does your roommate little good. You should instead respond in ways that imply less finger-pointing. That is, provide succor, not scorn.
Even if you knew about her work when you shared accommodations, cashing her rent check would not have meant endorsing her occupation. As George Bernard Shaw famously put it, there is no such thing as clean or dirty money: “The notion that you can earmark certain coins as tainted is an unpractical individualist superstition.”
No one is more than a few transactions away from a dubious source of revenue. No one is above the fray.
As to the law, profiting from prostitution is, of course, forbidden, but accepting your roommate’s rent check does not qualify unless you are “knowingly supplying the prostitute with a location where she practices her profession in return for a cut of the proceeds,” says Sarah Jo Hamilton, a lawyer I consulted. She adds that you have only your roommate’s word for her occupation and are not required to investigate her claim.
Q: My fiancée took three pairs of shoes to the valet service in our building to be sent out to be resoled. The service lost the shoes, took responsibility and reimbursed us for the original cost, $2,020. My fiancée immediately bought three new pairs of shoes to wear to job interviews. Later, the shoes were miraculously found, and the valet service asked us to refund their $2,020. Must we? – A. Mehta, New York
A: You need not refund all of this money. Indeed, you can’t: It’s gone. Your fiancée spent it on replacement footwear. No store will let her return used shoes. You must allow the valet service to keep the (also used) rediscovered shoes; it paid for them.
Liability laws vary, but as an ethical matter you, should repay part of the money – because the valet service never should have given you the full cost of new shoes. They did not lose new shoes; they lost old shoes, old enough to need new soles.
The real question: Your unemployed fiancée spent thousands on shoes? Unless the job she’s seeking is foot model, she should rethink her priorities.
Send questions and comments for Randy Cohen to Universal Press Syndicate, 4520 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or ethicist@nytimes.com.
