Within the coronary heart of Bengaluru’s posh Status Langleigh Section 1, 4 professionals walked into what they thought can be a peaceable residence. As a substitute, they had been trapped in a year-long nightmare that spiralled into police complaints, false accusations, psychological harassment, and at last, forceful eviction — throughout a 4BHK villa and a ₹5 lakh safety deposit.
Bengaluru professionals who rented a villa in Whitefield had been allegedly harassed by a land girl. ((Pic for illustration))
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What occurred at Status Langleigh in Whitefield?
In response to Priyansh Agarwal, a techie in Google, Villa 101 was presupposed to be their city sanctuary. For six months, it was. After which, all the things started to unravel.
In an X put up, Agarwal claimed that the society began slicing off important companies — energy backup, rubbish pickup, entry to the gymnasium and swimming pool. In a stunning transfer, the water provide was virtually blocked, with society workers seen trespassing and tampering with valves. The explanation? The landlady hadn’t paid upkeep dues for years — a reality she by no means disclosed when the tenants moved in.
“We were paying her maintenance money every month. She told us there was a legal fight with the society and she’d get a stay order soon. She asked us to keep paying her to ‘strengthen’ her case,” he mentioned. “Every time we asked for updates, she dodged us.”
Then got here the decision that modified all the things. Former tenants of the identical villa reached out, warning them of a sample: withheld deposits, abuse, and false allegations of harassment. The present tenants — who had already paid ₹5 lakh in deposit — had been alarmed. They determined to exit the lease early. That’s when issues turned actually hostile.
The landlady refused to allow them to go, insisting they keep until the top of the lease. “She knew no one else would rent that villa with services cut off, so she tried to trap us to keep getting rent,” one tenant mentioned. Fed up, the tenants stopped paying hire and requested her to get better dues from the deposit as an alternative.
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What adopted was a sequence of escalating confrontations. The landlady turned up on the villa, first pleading, then hurling abuses. The tenants needed to name the police. Finally, a written settlement was signed: she’d discover a new tenant inside 45 days, accumulate a contemporary deposit, and refund their ₹5 lakh — or allow them to dwell rent-free till it was recovered.
Unsurprisingly, she didn’t discover a new tenant. When the 45 days lapsed and the hire stopped, she got here again once more — this time threatening to file a false girls harassment case until they paid up.
“She called the police on us, claimed we forced her to sign the agreement, and tried to twist the narrative. We were scared. We had jobs, careers, families. We didn’t want to get trapped in a bogus case.”
Fearing authorized entrapment, the tenants put in a CCTV digital camera inside their villa to collect proof. That precaution later proved essential.
Whereas they had been away sooner or later, the landlady entered the villa, allegedly harassed their prepare dinner, seized the keys, and locked them out. They returned to seek out themselves homeless — illegally evicted from a home that they had paid for, with their belongings nonetheless inside.
The matter escalated to the native police station. “Even there, she created chaos,” the tenants mentioned. “It was only after intervention from some of our family members in senior positions that she agreed to settle.”
She returned solely a portion of the deposit. The tenants vacated the following day — not as a result of they needed to, however as a result of they had been accomplished.
“This experience wrecked our mental health. We took time off work, dealt with anxiety, police, threats of false cases — all because of one dishonest owner,” he recalled. “The worst part? We’re not her first victims.”
“In case you’re renting, communicate to earlier tenants, neighbours, even safety guards. Do not go by appearances. As a result of when you’re locked in, you may actually be locked out,” Aggarwal rounded off.