No bachelors, sex or alcohol: The travails of
renting in Delhi
Renting a flat in urban India is no easy task,
specially for single women and men.
Signboards prohibiting "bachelor tenants"
are not an uncommon sight in the capital
Delhi and its neighbouring suburbs.
Landlords usually have preferences like
"vegetarian only", "government officials
only" and "Hindus only".
But they also have a long list of reasons to
not rent their properties to single people.
Here are the top five reasons that landlords
give to "not even consider" single people as
tenants.
No alcohol please, we're Indian
Several property agents said that one of the
most common reasons that landlords don't
like single people is because they have strict
"no alcohol" policies.
"Even if some landlord agrees to rent out his
flat to a single person, the first condition
they usually set is that the tenant cannot
drink [alcohol] at home," one property agent
who works in the suburban area of
Ghaziabad said.
He added that "some bachelors lie about this
but they are often caught because landlords
like to pay surprise visits to their tenants".
Rent review
The second reason, according to the agent
is that "landlords have this misconception
that bachelor people don't pay their rent on
time".
Kamal Vikram Dhar, a marketing
professional who lives in the Ghaziabad area
on the outskirts of Delhi, said "it's
frustrating that landlords have these
misconception".
"I had to meet at least 15 landlords before
one finally agreed to rent his flat to me," he
said.
'Bad hygiene'
Some landlords also believe that single
people keep the place dirty and don't care
about hygiene.
"That is just generalisation," said Ruhi
Agarwal, a student who also had a hard
time finding a place to live.
"Hygiene has nothing to do with one being
single or not. But yes, it's common for
landlords to repeatedly remind us about
keeping the place clean," she said.
'No boyfriends and girlfriends'
Being in a relationship can also seriously
dent any single person's chances of renting
a flat in Delhi.
"You just can't bring your boyfriend or other
male friends home. And if you do, it often
become a scandal in the apartment," a
young woman who works in an IT firm in
Noida, another suburban area of Delhi, told
the BBC.
"Some friends of mine were told to vacate
their flat within 24 hours because they
invited their male friends to their house,"
she added.
Amit Agarwal, a Noida-based property
agent, said "landlords are yet to be
comfortable with the idea of relationships".
'Bad influence'
Mr Agarwal said some landlords also fear
that single people are "a bad influence on
children because they drink and smoke".
"Whenever landlords come to us to to put
their properties for rent in the market, their
first preference is not single people," he
said,
"I do not agree with them, but then I don't
have a choice. It takes too much effort to
find a place for single people."
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35379158