31-year-old Arun Kaushish and his wife, 29-year-old Poonam got married in February this year and moved from Auckland to Tauranga in New Zealand.
Since May, the couple has inspected and applied for over 30 rental properties in the town but are yet to find a rented accommodation.
The couple who currently lives in a boarding home told that despite having a good pay and good credit, they have failed to find an accommodation in Tauranga.
Their friends in the real estate industry have told them that some landlords are reluctant to rent out to Indian families.
31-year-old Arun Kaushish and his wife, 29-year-old Poonam recently got married and moved from Auckland to Tauranga in New Zealand. Source: Google Earth
"They don't like us cooking curry because the smell is not easy to get out of the house," he told NZ Herald.
"It's really ridiculous."
'We have everything a person needs to get a rental ... I have good pay, good reference and good credit ... but we can't get a house at the moment; we are feeling very sad,' he said.
Arun who works as a retail store manager said between them, he and his wife earned about $1300 per week.
"We are really disappointed; maybe some other Indian families are suffering the same issue."
He has also been told that the housing market was tight in Tauranga but he said he was told the same in Auckland and had no problem finding a home to rent.
His fears were backed by a real estate agent who spoke anonymously to NZ Herald: 'Owners of the properties have very strict guidelines on the condition of their house and that's the reason they are trying to avoid people of certain ethnicities'.
Often, people of Indian and Asian descent had been asked by landlords what sort of cooking they did.
However, he said homes were cleaned well so they didn't smell and as a last resort, losing rental bond money was an incentive to keep a home clean.
The country's Human Rights Commission said it had from time to time received complaints over assumptions a family or person would cook particular food in rental accommodation.
If this led to an inability to rent, the commission said it "could be progressed as a discrimination complaint".
