OF LIVING, RENTS, AND LANDLORDS

Hello! Welcome to the day before the weekend! You’re alive to see it, isn’t God good? Think about it; some people we saw in the past week are not here today, and it’s not because we’re any better than them.

How are doing with the New Year resolutions? I didn’t make any jor; couldn’t be bothered. Instead I’ve got four things I’m working towards sorting out before the end of the year (I think I’ve said this before). Two before February, and two by September, so help me God!

This post isn’t about resolutions (especially I don’t have any), but about living quarters, lodgings, home, the place we all go to at the end of each day. Kapish? (Lol, I’ve wanted to use that word for a long time)

In December, I visited my folks and one morning while we were chatting we drifted towards the troubles some landlords have. The original discussion was the merits and demerits of doing business with family members, relations, that sort of thing. Daddy told stories about a relation that I’ll share with you in a minute.

This man, a preacher built a hostel in his village, and residing in the city, told his elder brother to help collect the rent, manage the place, that kind of thing. He was to receive some remuneration for his troubles; sounds good right? Only that eight months or so down the line, this man’s account balance didn’t change. After a few conversations with his brother, he traveled to the village to ask for his money. His brother said, “some people have paid, others haven’t. And to be honest, I don’t know what I’ve done with the money I’ve received”.

Preacher said ok (since he couldn’t kill him or force him to produce the money) and went to the hostel to ascertain who had actually paid and who hadn’t. Does this story get better?

Getting there, he met this old lady living in one of the self-contained apartments who was months behind on the rent. When he complained, she scolded him in what translated from Igbo sounds like, “come o; calm down. You don’t know we’re relations? Be careful jor!”

Another apartment had a couple who were close to TWO YEARS behind on their rent. He met the wife who started lamenting about her lorry driver husband being in an accident and consequently unable to work. When the landlord asked what he was supposed to do about that, the husband came out from his room, made a big show of his arm in a cast and said, “and you call yourself a Man of God?”

Long story short, the man returned to the city, sent a lawyer from a different tribe to ’empty’ the place, renovate, and then put in new tenants who don’t know him in there. Peace to the Middle East!

Second story was about a friend; a Deacon living in the house of an Elder, both of the same church. The tenant had lived peacefully in this house for a few years, always paying the next year’s rent a few weeks before it was due.

This particular year though, things didn’t quite go as planned so he didn’t make the early payment; his rent expired on (let’s say) the 31st of January. On the 1st of February the Elder was at his house by 5.30am in the morning for his money, literally rousing the Deacon and his family from sleep. Hilarious bit was that he said the man couldn’t leave the house (even to the bank) till he paid the rent. Lol!! Suffice to say, this man paid but moved out of the house way before the next rent was due! Oh, and he moved into his own house!

Reminds me of when our house was burgled in December 2011, on Christmas Day in fact. Was at church for Christmas dinner with my flatmate; we got back home and our door had been broken down. I made a video (sounds crazy but I did, and it’s below).

Normally we paid rent for the coming month on the 28th of the present but our landlord had said he’d come for January’s rent on the 24th (holidays and all). He didn’t come, we got robbed (including the money we’d gathered to pay him), and on the 26th the guy asks us for his rent! Didn’t even let us recover! Guess his nationality?

Anyways, that’s it! What’s your story with lodgings?

P:S – why did I remember this? Cos I think I’ll be house hunting soon!

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