Bengaluru villa horror: Tenants harassed, locked out, threatened with false cases
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According to Priyansh Agarwal, a techie in Google, Villa 101 was supposed to be their urban sanctuary. For six months, it was. And then, everything began to unravel.
In an X post, Agarwal claimed that the society started cutting off essential services — power backup, garbage pickup, access to the gym and swimming pool. In a shocking move, the water supply was almost blocked, with society staff seen trespassing and tampering with valves. The reason? The landlady hadn't paid maintenance dues for years — a fact she never 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 said. 'Every time we asked for updates, she dodged us.'
Then came the call that changed everything. Former tenants of the same villa reached out, warning them of a pattern: withheld deposits, abuse, and false allegations of harassment. The current tenants — who had already paid ₹5 lakh in deposit — were alarmed. They decided to exit the lease early. That's when things turned truly hostile.
The landlady refused to let them go, insisting they stay till the end 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 said. Fed up, the tenants stopped paying rent and asked her to recover dues from the deposit instead.
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What followed was a series of escalating confrontations. The landlady turned up at the villa, first pleading, then hurling abuses. The tenants had to call the police. Eventually, a written agreement was signed: she'd find a new tenant within 45 days, collect a fresh deposit, and refund their ₹5 lakh — or let them live rent-free until it was recovered.
Unsurprisingly, she didn't find a new tenant. When the 45 days lapsed and the rent stopped, she came back again — this time threatening to file a false women harassment case unless 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 legal entrapment, the tenants installed a CCTV camera inside their villa to gather evidence. That precaution later proved crucial.
While they were away one day, the landlady entered the villa, allegedly harassed their cook, seized the keys, and locked them out. They returned to find themselves homeless — illegally evicted from a house they had paid for, with their belongings still inside.
The matter escalated to the local police station. 'Even there, she created chaos,' the tenants said. 'It was only after intervention from some of our family members in senior positions that she agreed to settle.'
She returned only a portion of the deposit. The tenants vacated the next day — not because they had to, but because they were done.
'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.'
'If you're renting, speak to previous tenants, neighbours, even security guards. Don't go by appearances. Because once you're locked in, you could literally be locked out," Aggarwal rounded off.
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