“OIKOPHOBI” is the fear or hatred of one’s own home, culture or society. The word comes from the Greek words oikos (meaning house, household or family) and phobos (meaning fear or aversion).
This was the crux of a discussion surrounding difficulties faced by Malaysian Indians in securing a homestay booking or even more challenging, a long-term tenancy.
According to Threader Akila M Mathivanan (@Akilamvanan), the struggle is real as highlighted by a typical rejection chat message that made properties exclusive to certain groups only.
This post on an issue that has long blighted the real estate industry in Malaysia has generated 7.3K likes, 661comments, 88 re-posts and 63shares at time of publication with many netizens keen to chip in their two sen worth.
However, it was a comment from an the daughter of one Indian landlord that sparked plenty of debate.
According to Giri61 (@giri61), her father had rented to Indian tenants on three separate occasions but they all ended up defaulting “despite early signs of being prompt with rental payments”.
The fact that this comment alone generated 7.3K likes (at time of publication) underlines how deeply rooted this issue is.
Some commenters expressed surprised that Indians themselves had such prejudices when dealing with Indian tenants. The commenter sought to justify the stereotype of Indians being poor tenants by highlighting that it happened with three different tenants, not just the one.
Expressing shock that rental was not paid for a year, the put-off commenter explained to these perplexed netizens that her landlord father still did not ban any Indian tenants.
It was surmised that these renters took advantage of a soft-hearted old man who was too kind hearted.
It was also claimed that these restrictions based on race was down to complaints from neighbours. Thrice Indian occupants at a homestay caused commotion leading to the this non-plussed landlord to seek out only Muslim renters to avoid the grouses and hassle.
More than a few also shared unpleasant experiences of dealing with Indian tenants. One was forced to sell the property such was the damage done by irresponsible tenants who unfortunately were Indian.
The conclusion from @giri61 was to forever ban Indian tenants from renting her father’s property given the multiple bad experiences.
A surprised netizen thought such commentary were usually only from Malays, expressing shock that it also came from an Indian landlord.
However, it was quite rightly pointed out that such experiences were down to the individual. It was unfair to generalise as there were plenty of Malay tenants who behaved poorly.
This sentiment was echoed by a few other landlords who were quick to point out that poorly behaved tenants came from all sorts of backgrounds, “even among some Malays in recent times”, thus countering @giri61’s prejudiced opinions.
As can be seen from this discussion, Malaysians are quick to accuse others of racism but will find all manner of justification for their own prejudices.
If an Indian (or indeed any) landlord thinks it’s fine to reject tenants based on race, do NOT complain when they find themselves at the receiving end of some unjustified racist stereotype.
As the saying goes, what goes around, comes around. – Oct 8, 2026
