{"id":4515,"date":"2007-06-18T23:27:45","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T04:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=4515"},"modified":"2007-06-18T20:40:55","modified_gmt":"2007-06-19T01:40:55","slug":"when_landlords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/18\/when_landlords\/","title":{"rendered":"When landlords get all up in your bidness"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s bad enough when your parents hound you for being single and ask why you were out so late last night, but the Christian Science Monitor points<\/a> to the double standard that single women renters<\/em> face in India at the hands of their prospective (and over-protective) landlords:<\/p>\n\n

It took Chiya Singh three months and seven<\/strong> real estate agents working in tandem to find an apartment to rent in New Delhi.

The problem wasn’t her credit history or salary. It was her status as a single Indian woman.<\/font> The questions blocking Ms. Singh from a room of her own were a bit personal, she says. Prospective landlords wanted to know why, at age 29, she wasn’t married and why, as a single person, she didn’t want to live with her parents.

“It was an exhausting process,” Singh says, of trying to find her own place after she divorced. “I became a broken record. They asked ‘Why do you want to live alone?’ I said, ‘Um, because I think I’m old enough.’ “

That response usually netted Singh a cold expression and a vague “We’ll let you know” from the landlord. [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p>Because, I mean…why would a single woman want to live by herself?<\/p>\n\n

In India, “If you want freedom, it can only be for one thing – sex<\/font>,” Singh says. “You want to tell them [landlords], ‘That’s the last thing on my mind. I think I’m old enough to take care of myself.’ But for the landlord, it becomes an issue of respectability.” [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p>Right. Here is the even more messed up part. It is okay to rent to single white<\/strong> girls because…well, they are already slutty (or at least that is what the landlord quoted below seems to imply when she says “they are used to living on their own”).<\/p>\n\n

“It’s an Indian mentality,” says Sonia Kakkar, a landlord in South Delhi. “We just feel more protective. You just feel that you are responsible.”

Ms. Kakkar currently rents the second floor of her building to two French women and prefers foreigners because she does not feel as protective of them<\/font>.

“They are used to living on their own<\/font>,” she says. “If they have a problem with the flat, they come to us. Otherwise, there is no interaction…” [Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p>Well, to all the parents reading SM let me tell you just exactly what it is that your live-alone daughters in America<\/em> are doing<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n

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Jennifer Chowdhury just invented the hottest new game in town. Screw the Wii<\/a>. Ladies, get one of these<\/a>. Then invite me over (so I can blog about it for the good of the readers I mean) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s bad enough when your parents hound you for being single and ask why you were out so late last night, but the Christian Science Monitor points to the double standard that single women renters face in India at the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,2,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4515"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}