Rental Aburdity
I’d rented a couple of times in Bangalore a few decades ago. The first landlord was a total nightmare, and I remember being extremely stressed about how to get out of there and into something more tolerable. At the time, that felt like a traumatic renting experience. But that was then, and this is now and the stories coming out today make my old ones feel quaint.
This news story about someone having an unusual experience while searching for a rental apartment. According to a Reddit post that became the source of the article, what should have been a routine flat viewing turned into a moment of disbelief when the person was asked to pay one month’s rent upfront just to see the apartment. The request came from a security guard who said the payment was required before the flat would be shown, a condition that hadn’t been mentioned at any earlier point in the conversation.
That incident struck a nerve because it captures how stressful and unpredictable house-hunting has become in competitive urban rental markets. J has had her fair share of apartment-renting drama in big cities. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from her over the years, but being asked to pay a month’s rent just to view a property feels like an entirely new level of intolerable.
What made this story feel less like an outlier and more like a pattern is that it isn’t even the strangest rental anecdote in the news lately. Not long ago, another story made the rounds about landlords advertising flats with rules barring certain professions, marital statuses, or even working hours, some listings explicitly stating who shouldn’t even bother applying. In the rental market, the power seems to have become wildly asymmetric and basic decency is increasingly optional.
This news story about someone having an unusual experience while searching for a rental apartment. According to a Reddit post that became the source of the article, what should have been a routine flat viewing turned into a moment of disbelief when the person was asked to pay one month’s rent upfront just to see the apartment. The request came from a security guard who said the payment was required before the flat would be shown, a condition that hadn’t been mentioned at any earlier point in the conversation.
That incident struck a nerve because it captures how stressful and unpredictable house-hunting has become in competitive urban rental markets. J has had her fair share of apartment-renting drama in big cities. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories from her over the years, but being asked to pay a month’s rent just to view a property feels like an entirely new level of intolerable.
What made this story feel less like an outlier and more like a pattern is that it isn’t even the strangest rental anecdote in the news lately. Not long ago, another story made the rounds about landlords advertising flats with rules barring certain professions, marital statuses, or even working hours, some listings explicitly stating who shouldn’t even bother applying. In the rental market, the power seems to have become wildly asymmetric and basic decency is increasingly optional.
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