Prospective tenant is told room is no longer available when landlord really doesn’t want to rent to Indians

Facebook user Nupur Saraswat has taken to the social networking site to share about a Singapore landlord who refused to rent her room out to Nupur, solely because she is an Indian.

It all started when the landlord, who appears to be known as Meghan Stark on Facebook, put out an advert for a single condo bedroom that is available for immediate moving in, on Facebook group FindYourRoomInSG.

Nupur, who was looking for a room since she is returning to Singapore from overseas, reached out to Meghan but was told that the room had been taken:

However, Nupur then noticed that the same room had been listed again on the rental advertisement group:

The listing had been re-posted, and was last re-posted as recently as 22 hours ago on the group, indicating that the landlord hasn’t found a suitable tenant yet:

When Nupur called Meghan out, the landlord admitted that she might be racist but retorted that:

“I may be racist but you can’t be blame people being biased to your people.”

Nupur subsequently posted the whole exchange on her Facebook page, upset at the “reality of real estate in Singapore”:

“I haven’t even landed in SG yet and I am already reminded why I was happy to leave.

“If any of you wanted me to give this nice lady the benefit of the doubt, then you should know that I have already written a message to her confronting her POLITELY, asking her if the room has suddenly become available again, and she has “seen” it. 

“She has apparently been trying to put the same room up for rent since 30th July and hasn’t been able to get it off her hands. She’d rather keep putting up the same ad again and again on the same group than let an Indian have it. 

“I know the real estate market is riddled with worse instances of blatant racism and I know I shouldn’t be so affected by some rando, but this is what piled up micro aggression looks like. From a previous owner “reminding” you of rent 5 days in advance because “Indians never pay rent on time” to hawker stall vendors just down right refusing you service. I really want to call this country home, I really want to feel patriotic towards it for supporting me for 7 years but I just can’t. Not when it manages to make a considerably confident woman second guess herself everyday and chips away at her self esteem.

“I am so tired.. My eyes are red, they hurt, and I am tired.

“UPDATE: she asked me to delete her name while in the same breath accepting that she’s racist? So here are the same pictures with her name blacked out because it’s not about one racist person out there, it’s about the reality of real estate in SG.”