moving away from home and finding your own place in a new city is often seen as a sign of freedomhowever for most single women in the city its the beginning of a harrowing process at the end of which they often end up facing a lot more restrictions than they did back homefirst the landlord subjects you to a thirddegree interrogation with question such as do you smoke do you drink do you have male friends then they have to pass through the security guard who keeps a tight check on their comings and goings followed by character checks and assassination by the snoopy neighbours who behave like watch dogsheres a look at all the hurdles single working women in the city face in finding a home and freedomfirst you get interrogated by landlords and security guardslast year media professional shilpa bhowmick had zeroed in on a flat located in the 11 number stop area and was almost about to lock it down when the landlord stopped answering her callsi had told him i would be back home by 11 pm or 12 am and he refused to speak to me after that for a single woman to find a decent living space in the city she would have to get married says shilpa adding that each prospective landlord has a long list of increasingly bizarre rules for single women renting their flatsat one place a landlord told me that boys can only visit during the day while at another the landlord even asked me which caste i belong to says shilpabarkha mishra who works at a private bank and resides in the kohefiza area says rules such as no smokingdrinking or no inviting male friends over infantilises grown and especially working women she says after the landlord come the subinspectors ie the society guards the level of interrogation i have faced from them is atrocious putting restrictions like these on collegegoing women is still acceptable because the landlords often act as their local guardians but for women like me who are old enough to differentiate between right and wrong and have all the right to make choices about their life enforcing such rules is sheer stupidity says barkhathen the neighbours act like a pain the neckif the women are lucky enough to find a nice place with an understand landlord and with a noninquisitive security guard to boot theres a chance shell still have to face snooping neighboursmariyam ishraq who works in the administration department of a city college and stays in gulmohar colony says her neighbour loves commenting on everything that she doeswhenever my friends would visit me she would come out of her flat to ask each one of them what they do and where they live says mariyamradhika goswami a horticulturist who lives in the new market area says that if a woman lives alone then such inquisitive neighbours are a complimentary gift i have changed three houses in bhopal so far