Heart-breaking experiences: The nightmare of moving houses in Nairobi

It is a nightmare [Photo: Courtesy]

Every so often, we move houses. We move houses when we get a good job. We move houses when we get sacked, or demoted. Living in Nairobi is a study in negative coping mechanisms as incomes shrink and inflation shoots through the roof.

Moving houses is a heart-breaking experience. It starts with the painful realisation that the landlord will never return the deposit, no matter what kind of agreement you signed. Agents and agencies managing most real estate properties are run by the devil himself. Agents are super greedy, and there is no law in the land that can protect anyone. Last year we saw a landlord in Lang’ata who poured raw sewage into tenants’ houses to get them out to increase the rental.

An average landlord in Nairobi is a shithead like the Lang’ata landlord. Granted some tenants are a pain in the butt, most landlords are a special breed of people.

Moving around looking for a house is a study into the depths of moral depravity in Kenyans. Since we have no standard architectural designs for apartments, each apartment is unique in its own mediocre way. Rarely do apartments get something as simple as lighting right. About 69 per cent of living rooms in Nairobi are permanently pitch dark since they are mostly squeezed between other equally grotesque apartments.

Then there are the rooms. Some of these real estate developers have the imagination of an octopus, which is an animal without brains. An overzealous caretaker will show you around a house, claiming it is two-bedroomed, yet  one room is in the shape of a trapezium, that can only fit a child’s cot and your wife’s numerous pair of shoes.

I have seen kitchens that are so small, you wonder what the developer had in mind.

Then we have the different neighbourhoods and deficiencies. Presently, a standard two-bedroom house in swampy crowded Donholm goes for over Sh20,000. In South B, it is impossible to even state. I once saw a one-bedroomed apartment in South B, so small, even an 18-year-old freshman would despise it, yet it was going for Sh24, 000!

Then you still have to use matatus that were in use when Hezekiah Ochuka ruled the country for six hours. There is so much flooding in South C, while Nairobi West is one big overpriced sewer line with more bars per capita than anywhere in the world. Beyond that, there is security to worry about, and some estates like High-rise last received Kanjo water when Margret Kenyatta was the mayor of Nairobi.

Few neighbourhoods have playgrounds. Hardly any neighbourhood has a green space or park for people to chill. Malls have become the default places to hang out as people sip overpriced cocktails, just to feel middle-class and urbane. People with young families have no place to take them, except to bars. Along Thika Road and the Eastern Bypass, it is not uncommon to see parents in bars as children play outside with the house help. That is how we are raising kids and we wonder why Nairobi has an alcohol problem.

To get a good house is like winning a lottery. Good houses are a million miles from the CBD, and most of the roads are permanently clogged. By 2020, there will be no movement along Mombasa Road and Uhuru Highway. Nearer town, houses have become impossibly expensive. And if you opt for the outskirts, you will literally spend half your life in traffic.

Building your own house in Nairobi is not going to be easy as the economy sinks under multiple debts, courtesy of the shylocking of the country by Chinese loan merchants and runaway corruption. The economic boom of the 2000s and earlier in the decade is now gone, almost for good.

The only alternative for people moving houses is to compromise on virtually everything: poor workmanship, traffic, no playgrounds for children, loud churches and matatus that play devilish Jamaican music at 6am.

There is no hope of ever rescuing the city in our lifetime given the Nairobians’ knack for electing mediocre leaders. 

More than 70 years ago, the British designed the city for 500,000 people. The number is now almost hitting six million yet the amenities have not been expanded to accommodate this increase. We are only living by the grace of God.

@nyanchwani

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