If you work in the gig economy, things can get weird. Like sexually suggestive, or worse. Just ask Roxanne, 27, a freelance chef who hired herself out as an in-home cook through the Kitchensurfing app. (TaskRabbit for chefs, basically.)

One client, after his girlfriend was a no-show, asked Roxanne to join him for dinner on his rooftop. “I was like, ‘No, I’m going to leave,’ she says. ‘This is too much.’"

He pressured her to stay, eager to show off his new apartment, but she said she had another booking. “I try to leave it civil; I try to make sure the situation doesn’t end up coming off badly, just try to leave it like: ‘No, thank you anyway, but I’m going to head out,’”she says. “I don’t just plainly say, ‘No, you weirded me out. Now, good-bye.’”

And it’s not just chefs. Across the gig economy, independent contractors are navigating tricky sexual waters as they work—often inside the homes of their clients. They experience everything from suggestive looks to unwanted touching to frank propositions. It’s hard to know how to respond. And the already-ambiguous situation is further complicated by the fact that most gig workers are independent contractors who need good reviews from the client and who don’t have access to an open-door human resources department or colleagues they can complain to.

Part of that weirdness is because so much gig economy work takes place in the home.

Homes are generally considered to be private, intimate locations. In conventional social settings, inviting someone to your home can be a signal of friendship, sexual desire, or familial closeness. The gig economy introduces a whole new set of relationships without any fixed norms. It's awkward to have total strangers in our kitchens, on our couches, and even in our bedrooms. At the same time, the sharing economy, with its focus on peer-to-peer service, often relies on unknown people entering the home of a fellow unknown either to cook (Kitchensurfing) to sleep (Airbnb) or clean, make minor repairs, or assemble furniture (TaskRabbit).

Adapted from from "Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy." by Alexandrea J. Ravenelle University of California Press

In response to many people’s leeriness of outsiders, sharing economy companies often promote their background screening mechanisms. For example, TaskRabbit’s website notes that Taskers must pass an identity check, are screened for criminal offenses, and must attend an orientation. Airbnb relies on Facebook or LinkedIn identity verifications, while Kitchensurfing’s background checks for chefs seem to have been limited to a test meal audition in the platform’s corporate kitchen.

Many companies also promote the idea that their workers are insured and bonded. If something does go wrong the damage is covered. For instance, TaskRabbit’s Happiness Pledge, while not an insurance policy, offers clients up to a million dollars for property damage arising as a direct result of a tasker’s negligence and Uber and Lyft also offer a million dollar liability policy.

But even though workers are screened and insured, clients are not. Worker profiles are often much more complete than those of clients and include a photo and short biography. TaskRabbit, in particular, requires workers to supply additional information for their profiles before it allows them to “pass” orientation. As a result, clients can generally rest assured that they have a fairly good idea of who they’re hiring or letting into their homes—but workers don’t have the same luxury.

As Jasmine, 23, one of the people I interviewed for my book Hustle and Gig explained, "I felt like they would let anybody get on the website as a client. Sometimes I would get people who wouldn’t have a profile picture and they would have no reviews. They would basically have nothing on their page, but they want to hire you. How is that fair that we have to basically give them blood, and then they will let anybody come on the website?"