Ayush Ranka for The New York Times

Ever since she returned to Bangalore five weeks ago, Kavita Nehemiah, 26, has been on a frantic apartment hunt. Her days and weekends are consumed by it. She has enlisted the help of a horde of realtors, counting 22 of them on her cell phone contacts list. She has seen so many places that she has lost count.

Life and Love in the New Bangalore Tales of ambition and youth from India’s outsourcing hub.

Ms. Nehemiah even reached final negotiations on seven of those apartments. Then each of them fell through for one reason only: she is young and single.

The freshly minted MBA from Cornell University who returned to begin a job with a Bangalore-based software start-up is bewildered. “I could never have imagined that being single would disqualify me from the rental market,” she said.

Realtors back off the moment they hear about her single status. Landlords tell her they will rent only to “families.” Apartment residents’ associations have rules, mostly unwritten, against renting to singles.

Broadcasting her foreign education, details of her well-paid new job, and the fact that her parents live in the same city has not got her any closer to that elusive home. Neither has increasing her budget to 30,000 rupees (about $600) nor drafting a friend to split the rent helped.

Ms. Nehemiah is not the only one facing this ordeal. In this teeming, lively city of nearly 10 million residents, the bias against single renters is out in the open. It is a traditional side to India’s most cosmopolitan city.

In the past few years, Bangalore has turned into a job hunters’ heaven. A multitude of singles have been invading this city to study or find jobs. The city, once called a laid-back pensioners’ paradise, is a fast-growing, rapidly changing metropolis.

The housing struggle sets off the young and newly arrived against the older and conservative home-owning generation. In some ways, it is an expression of disdain for the young, single lifestyle in India.

“If you are single, you are always ready to mingle,” said Shankar Padmanabhan of SNS Realty who has witnessed a steady influx of people in the 23-27 years age group in the past five years. “Landlords are wary of their noisy weekend gang-ups and all-night booze parties,” he said.

Mr. Padmanabhan lists some sticking points. Some singles do not know how to handle their new-found financial and social independence. They bring in live-in partners on the sly. They create chaos in the neighborhood with parties and arguments. Some do not pay dues on time and others wreck the apartment.

Uma Pai of Uma’s Realty operates in Koramangala, a cosmopolitan Bangalore neighborhood close to the city center that bustles with malls, restaurants and boutiques for every pocket. There, the stream of young singles has turned into a flood.

The friendly, garrulous Ms. Pai takes it upon herself to investigate potential renters on behalf of the owners. “I grill them about their family background, where they studied, their workplace and timings are … everything,” Ms. Pai said. Sometimes she insists that they bring a “comfort letter” from their employers.

Ms. Pai talks of the desperate lengths renters go to find a good place. One brought in his mother from Pune to prove that he is “family.” Another moved his sister from her college hostel.

Sometimes, when the search is particularly long and fruitless, Ms. Pai offers the ultimate solution, “Get married and come, then I’ll find you a place.”

Aiyappa Muddaiah, 25, single and an employee of a multinational bank counts himself lucky. Mr. Muddaiah started his hunt when he wanted to move out of his paying guest accommodation; he managed to seal a deal in just over a month.

“Single people really have to settle for pathetic places – badly kept apartments in rundown buildings in the back alleys,” says Muddaiah who has had some unusual run-ins with landlords.

Prospective landlords put him through the drill, he says. Do you drink? Will you entertain friends? Will you invite girls home?

One landlord told him plainly, “No girls in the house, that’s the rule. If you agree, you can move in.” He did not agree.

Still, Mr. Muddaiah is sympathetic about the plight of the owners. When he shifted to Bangalore from his native Coorg three years ago, Mr. Muddaiah shared a three-bedroom apartment with four other singles. They moved out a year later leaving the place in ruins, he said.

“Door knobs were all broken, cupboard doors were coming off, toilets were not working, shower heads were missing.”

Sangeeta Lala, in her mid-30s, has lived in the city for six years and is a senior vice president in a Bangalore-based staffing firm, a position that would seemingly make her a dream tenant. But since her housemate relocated out of the country in April, a move that left her alone in a large apartment, she has been in a house-hunting frenzy.

Perhaps young India’s financial independence, carefree lifestyle and a refusal to play by the old rules, do not sit well with the older generation, Ms. Lala speculated. (The rules are along the lines of — no drinking, no parties, no socializing, no friends of the opposite sex in the apartment.)

What are your marriage plans, prospective landlords ask her. How long do you plan to stay at this job, they quiz. Do you cook, is a frequent question. “All the time they are trying gauge, is she stable or not, is she a homebody or is she wild.”

Ms. Lala has finally hit upon a solution for her renting problems: she will buy a home. “That should end my hassles for good,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Nehemiah’s case is further complicated because she works for a start-up and not any of Bangalore’s biggest employers like Infosys or IBM.

Her foreign MBA is helping Nehemiah bring creative thinking to bear upon her problem. She has started taking her parents along on the house hunt. She tells owners that they can sign the lease on her behalf. Brokers and owners visibly relax.

A couple of weeks ago, one confirmed that he is willing to sign. Only to call back the next day to tell her that he suddenly needed the apartment for his daughter’s family.

Saritha Rai sometimes feels she is the only person living in Bangalore who was actually raised here. There’s never a dull moment in her mercurial metropolis. Reach her on Twitter @SarithaRai.