Bachelors' hunt for a living place in city turns an ordeal

Restrictions imposed by landlords have forced bachelors to keep hunting for a place to live and go through a job interview-like grilling

Umar Sharieef | NT

Bengaluru: The hunt for a space to live in the city continues to be an ordeal for the bachelors as almost all of them have to cross many hurdles of interviews, no less than a job interview, only to get rejected by landlords. “My friends and I have been on the lookout for a semi or fully furnished 1 to 2 BHK flat in Koramangala and nearby places. We appreciate any leads for the same.” This is one example of the kind of posts that have been doing the rounds of social media.

Do you drink or smoke?

Do you go out at midnight? Do you bring your friends? Are you from a well-reputed family? These are some of the questions that a bachelor on a house hunt in Bengaluru has to regularly face.

Grilling by landlords

Surya, a resident of Kerala and an IT employee in Bengaluru says he has been living in the city for almost three years and had to face a lot of unprecedented situations and embarrassment in finding a place. “I stayed at my aunt’s house for the last two years and when I finally decided to leave and was on the hunt for an apartment, I had to go through a lot of hardships,” he said.

He now lives near posh Whitefield locality. “I visited many landlords in Whitefield who asked me if I was married, whether my parents are religious and ideologically driven. And, when I told them I’m single, they immediately asked me to get out and even asked how I got the audacity to ask them for accommodation being single,” said Surya.

Nandini, a Chennaibased woman, who moved to Bengaluru recently for work, almost found herself in a similar situation. Speaking to News Trail, she said, “It was very difficult to find a place. Sometimes the rent was up to your expectations but the deposit amount was not. The landlords ask for hefty amounts from 70,000 to one lakh for extremely bad and small spaces in unsafe areas. It did cost me 12,000 for one bed and one shelf room in MG Road, and the PG’s like Colive, Helloworld, and Stanza Living are unreasonable. Brokers in Bengaluru are the other obstacles to deal with as they ask for one month's rent as their commission.”

Tejas, a student from Chintamani in Karnataka, who moved to Bengaluru a few days back, says he had to wait for a month to find a place for a better price. “It was hard for me to find a better place to stay in the city while also focusing on my studies. I had to walk down streets and find places to stay, where most of the landlords demanded huge deposit amounts and rent for a space that was not even a single BHK. Most of these landlords also prefer family members over bachelors. With so many demands, a local gents' PG in the city becomes a better option,” he quipped. But, is that all? No.

Many bachelors who moved out of the property they were renting have to fight a battle with the landlords over them not returning their deposit amounts. Arjeet Bhattacharya, a user from the List of worst and best Landlords Bengaluru Facebook page, in a post a week ago, said, “Beware of Landlord of H201, Brigade Gateway (M Govindaraj), he creates a lot of trouble returning the deposit, never listens and only shouts at you, has a network of managers to fool you making you believe that he only understands Kannada but speaks Hindi well when he needs something from the tenants.”

Arjeetal so alleged that the owner and the manager of the house were unreachable after many attempts and kept telling him to call back later every time he did. “We had to chase him and his manager daily for a month and charged the crazy amount of Rs 15,000 for cleaning the house which was already cleaned before vacating,” he wrote in the post advising others to desist from renting this house.

It is shocking to come across similar posts of many users accusing landlords of swindling their money. While a few said they got their money after complaints and followups, many said they still await their money from the landlords. That is a very poor reflection on the state of affairs. Is it not high time for the state government to step in with appropriate legislation to streamline the renting system in the city?