Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also accommodation, crib, house of accommodation) a brothel.

[c.1700		London-Bawd (1705) 68: An old Bawd that kept a house of Private Entertainment for the Accommodation of Persons of Quality of both Sexes].
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 204: ‘And who, in the devil’s name,’ asked the baronet, is mother Cummings?’ [note] This discreet matron has realized a very dacent competency by keeping [...] a house of accommodation for single men and their wives.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 2: Accommodation-house. The Reader had better consult ‘Fubbs’ than we explain the minute difference that exists between these and a ‘Dress-house’ or a ‘Bodikin’.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 294: [facing pic. caption] The ‘house of accommodation’ in flames. The inmates put to the flight. Jerry narrowly escapes with his life.
1843		N.Y. Herald 3 Mar. 2/4: PULLED AND BAILED. -- Emma Creeper, who has kept a house of accommodation for double company, at 67 Leonard street.
1844		New Sprees of London 29: [heading] LIST OF A FEW OF THE PRINCIPAL ACCOMMODATION HOUSES In London, with remarks on their inconveniences, charges, and character.
1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: FRENCH INTRODUCING HOUSES. These accommodation cribs have become so numerous, that it requires some tact and nous to discover them.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 249/1: Those who gain their living by keeping accommodation houses [...] are of course to be placed in the category of the people who are dependant [sic] on prostitutes.
1877		S. Amos A Comparative Survey of Laws in Force for the Prohibition, Regulation [...] of Prostitution 266: No woman under the control of a husband will be authorised to open a brothel or an accommodation house without the written assent of her husband.
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 157: And I’d run a house of accommodation too! [...] Why shouldn’t I? – the girls give value for money to their clients, and I would give value for money to the girls.

2. a ‘hotel’ where rooms can be hired for short times by lovers or prostitutes and their clients.

c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 65 22/1: Fashionable and accommodating hotels at the west-end, where the simple operation of — [i.e. fucking] becomes a science.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) I 72: I heard of accommodation houses, where people could have bedrooms and no questions asked.
1908		I. Bloch [trans.] Sexual Life of our Time 344: ‘Boarding-Houses’ (‘Pensionate’) and Maisons de Passe (Houses of Accommodation). It professes to be a ‘Private Hotel’ or Furnished Lodgings; but in reality it is a masked brothel, a ‘house of accommodation’ for prostitutes and their clients [Simes:DLSS].