Your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you | Hacker News Reader

Your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you

99.co

31 pointsyla9223 comments

I can't help but call BS... I need more testimonials of this situation. This sounds like 99.co is looking for sympathy marketing or trying to enrage readers to align themselves with something they are already aligned with in an 'unlabeled' way.. They are purposing creating a site that promotes the fact 'you are unbiased' based on 1 testimonial. disgusting. prove me wrong 99, your so full of it.

I'm an Indian working in SG. If anecdotes mean anything to you, I faced the same issues while finding a place to stay here. In any case, it is a big enough problem they BBC covered it here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26832115

A family member of mine worked for a landlord who was wary of Indian tenants for this reason: the fragrance of their traditional cooking escaped to annoy other tenants and also lingered in the apartment even after families would leave requiring expensive professional service. According to a search engine lookup this is quite common.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/x3ct2/landlords_ho...

"The problem is oil that gets into the air then sticks to everything."

The article even mentions this, albeit, indirectly.

> Reasons cited for such practices range from perceptions of lack of cleanliness, to likelihood of damaging the apartment,

Translation: we've had to have an apartment professionally cleaned to get the cooking smell out and it was expensive.

This is a legitimate concern for a landlord, especially smaller ones. And I feel like this is something that could be addressed by acknowledging the concern, then offering something to alleviate it, such as a larger security deposit. I'm sure they can't do that because it's technically illegal to discriminate against national origin for housing in most places.

Here you go. More proof for you :

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26832115

Heh! My wife and I (she's white, I'm black) unintentionally did this kind of testing in the Boston rental market in the mid 2000s. It was pretty disheartening (the weird thing is that once we stopped using real estate agents and only looked on Craiglist for rent by owner things were much better).

This sounds like a whole other level and that there are no actual laws (I mean, landlords use all kinds of tricks in the U.S, but no landlord is stupid enough to say "Sorry, I don't rent to blacks")

Very common everywhere.

I'm North Indian. When I was posted in Chennai, I was told the Brahmins were not going to rent to me.

Today (18 years later), I shudder a little in the presence of a Tamil Brahmin.

Funny, because in the Bay Area, racism works in your favor.

IE - I am white. Yes, that means I am possibly not a reliable source of income (I don't live to work, I work to live), I am not thrifty (I don't mind renting, and I might take out a new car loan instead of buying cheaper used), my credit score is lower and I have no savings, and I will not hesitate to bring the law down on you (I know my rights!)

But my wife is Indian.

My actual point is racism is out there, and I think the most that can be done is racism shaming and try to work it to our advantage.

Studies show it is a natural part of being human - even babies show preferences based on visible attributes like skin color (I need to find that reference).

And btw - I understand Singapore can be pretty heavy on racism.

Realistically, moving is a lot easier than trying to change a general racism bias.

While I am sure landlords in California do discriminate on the basis of race and national origin, it's illegal, and has been so for a long time. I'm assuming the article is about housing in somewhere else, like the UK

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/discriminati...

I believe it's about housing in Singapore.

Completely unrelated to the bay area but some strip clubs prefer nerdy Indian and Asian customers more than other races.

These are the guys with some disposable income and no inclination to cause trouble. Model customers for such businesses.

In strip club land, trouble = drugs, prostitution, arms, fights, gangs etc.

Ugh, I cant imagine how unfuriating that must be! We are all one human race and we need each other.

You might think that, but apparent reality is that no one needs you. Or me. Or anyone else for that matter. With some rare exceptions, of course.

Just wait to you get older and face job discrimination. The wonders of unenforced feel good laws.

I believe the author's experience was in Singapore. My understanding is its constitution prohibits racial discrimination against citizens [1] but is silent on racial discrimination against non-citizens.

Of course, the citizenship of the author or his spouse are not stated in the article.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_12_of_the_Constitution...

It has to be silent on discrimination against non-citizens as so many of the city's menial workforce travel daily across the causeway from Malaysia.

If it gave them all equal rights, the cost of menial labour would likely be unaffordable.

Add to the fact that Asians are often far more... 'proud' of their own race, compared to others and the predominent ethnicity of Singapore is Chinese.

Where I work we hire 40+ almost exclusively.

I think it really depends on what type of property is being rented out, and whether it's a full unit or a room.

Furthermore, landlords don't choose purely on race. They also select based on the tenant's profession, or whether they are family members or friends.

Also, both landlords and tenants have the right to be as picky as they want. Tenants also actively choose landlords.

The truth is, there are many other factors that make a deal. Let's not make this about race please.

(I know this as I also recently rented a unit, and if you are curious, no, I didn't rent from a landlord that's my race profile)

Let's not make it about race? When the agent lists the property as "No Indians, No PRC" I don't think you can quite get away from making it about race.

"No Indians, No PRC" can also mean bias on citizenship (i.e. politics)! That might be especially so when the same (Han ethnic) Chinese from HK or ROC would meet no hardship. So it may not necessarily be the race (or at least not for all landlords) as it may be the way they expect that their tenants will think or behave. It's called Memetics, and until naturalization in a new medium the individuals may present a higher risk of getting themselves at odds with the others around them.

Except no one asked "Is she Singaporean born, ethnically Indian?"

Just saying her name was enough to get rejected.

Actually, they might be referring to nationality rather than race. For example, it very common for landlords or their agents to ask about your nationality. They might be fine with a Singaporean Chinese, but PRC, maybe not.

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