When we moved to our current apartments, we found ourselves in what Kenyans popularly refer to ‘kwa ploti’ situation. (Slang to refer to a group of people/families living closely together in rentals and share a number of services provided by the landlord). Thing is there were 8 self-contained houses in a linear arrangement and for some reason, I don’t know if I should blame it on the building materials but the houses had privacy issues. When your neighbors are having conversations, you could hear them only you could not make out all the words that they were saying.
So we found ourselves living with some Nigerians. The first few days were awful. Those guys don’t live alone or two in the house, normally they live in groups and when they decide to smoke, it like a factory. Sometimes it’s cigarettes, other times weed, on other occasions I could not make out what they were smoking all I know was that the smell was really bad!
They also speak so loudly you would think they have swallowed speakers, and every conversation seemed like a quarrel even when they were not. In addition, they were sex machines and boy they ‘ate’ (sexed) our girls like rabbits on carrots. And it’s either they were good at their game or the girls wanted to announce to the whole world they were riding a Nigeria flag pole in Kenya. The moaning and groaning were just embarrassing.
In addition, some of them were illegal migrants and hence they were very afraid of having run-ins with the law. Despite their efforts, they were a constant police target. I remember our first encounter with the police, at the time I was so mad at them that I would do anything to kick them out of the place.
On that day, the police came and knocked at my door. They asked where the Nigerians lived. The snitch in me couldn’t hold it together, I ratted them out. They proceeded to knock at their door but the Nigerians refused to open, so they camped outside the place until the landlady was called. She was really mad at them, called the OCPD and just like that they disappeared. Apparently, they were summoned for harassing her tenants. Later I found out that these guys have both the landlady and the watchman in their food chain. The watchman would disappear or claim has no idea of any Nigerians living in the place when the men in blue show up. The landlady would also have some tip from creating a shield from the police. Besides they paid rent in plump some which was good for business.
All in all, the whole thing boomeranged on the snitch, and I realized that they were not going away anytime soon and we just had to learn to live together.
But the whole situation had a silver lining. Later they knocked at my door and explained that they were not ‘bad’ people and if I have any problem with them, I should not hesitate to raise my complain. That was the beginning of a good neighbor to neighbor relationship. I did just that, we talked about smoking, the smells disappeared, the moaning disappeared, unfortunately they could not vomit the speakers so the loud conversations persisted but they were not such a bother. Basically, most of my problems were fixed. So later, the place started having a lot of turnover tenants, these were tenants who either got married and moved in with their spouses elsewhere, others had built their own houses so they moved in, others were transferred for work. There were a host of reasons as to why the tenants moved out. Most of the houses remained vacant for many months.
People would come to check them out and they would say either rent is too high, others said they can’t live next to Nigerians because their speakers let them out every time. After six months a lady pharmacist moved in, she was the ‘if aunty harrier was a person’. (In Kenya this is slang for an aunt who is plump, feels wealthy, owns a four-wheel drive and is full of herself). For her she could have nothing to do with the Nigerians, and so made sure to make a nuisance of her presence. At the time, the landlady realized she was making losses, besides after four years the Nigerians had gone broke and could no longer afford to pay rent for many months ahead as they used to. She made some drastic decisions, first the watchmen were changed and the Nigerians were chased out.
She hired agents who were serious on their job. Within two months all the vacant houses had occupants. But now these tenants were sons and daughters of the soil. You can’t tell them shit! So the lady pharmacist, started having problems of her own that she had little control of. First her neighbor got a dog, and she began complaining about the barking. Then her other neighbor plays loud music, (which were not so loud), there times she claimed the neighbor had guests who talk loudly.
She talked the caretaker, nothing doing, she escalated it to landlord but there was no solution to her problem. As I write she is moving out. Maybe the noises are unbearable, but all I know is that if the Nigerians were still her neighbors, they would have gotten rid of the dog and friends for her peace and quiet.