A group of single doctors and architects is asking Qatar to clarify the details of a recent ban on bachelors in residential areas after the municipality cut their electricity supply.

Gulf News reports:

“They have put stickers on our houses asking us to vacate the houses, but we thought that it was not a blanket ban that included everyone, even government employees…

“The problem is that we do not know what to do right now,” Ali Jassem said. “It is a real dilemma for us. We cannot stay in the houses as there is no electricity and we cannot rent new accommodation as we are bachelors and owners are concerned with the municipal decision which was obscure about the categories or nationalities of bachelors covered by the ban,” he said.

Previously, the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning had stated that only bachelors who work with contracting and construction companies must be relocated from residential areas.

The ban, which took effect Nov. 1, immediately caused widespread confusion as the government struggled to enforce and relocate bachelors from residential areas to housing in the Industrial area.

It was implemented after several Qatari families complained about “lack of respect from expatriate bachelors for local values and traditions and menaces to the Qatari way of life.”