Living in a rented apartment
Being a tenant in my country can be frustrating, even if the landlord or landlady (owners of the house) are kind enough to not give you issues, the neighbors will take it upon themselves and bring out issues, in this part of Nigeria where I live (Benin City, Edo State) it's common to see landlord (landlord will represent both landladies) and talents living in the same compound and majority of these landlords inherited the house, not that is a bad thing though, but some of them can be so heartless sometimes and keep giving their tenants issues, which is not right.
I and my siblings were brought up in one room, that was what my Dad could afford from his salary, the eldest of my siblings was taken to another state to complete his high school there, while the second eldest went to stay with my grand aunty (my grandmother sister) from my basic to junior high, we were still in one room, the landlady was an old woman (she has passed on now) she was very friendly, though she wasn't a Christian then, she was good to all her tenants, my mom will sometimes go to the market and sell melons she broke with her hand when she's away in the market, she will live us in the care of our landlady, who will gladly look after us like we were her grandchildren, things started getting better for my two eldest siblings, they told my parents to look for a two rooms apartment, the landlady was so emotional when she heard we want to pack out.
When we got to the two rooms apartment, at least there was a bit of space and we no long tight ourselves before sleeping, lol, when looking for a house, my dad always like prefer the one that has a side door to outside than face me, I face you (neighbors door facing each other) we stay them for some couple of years, though our door was by the side of the house, some neighbors still won't mind their business, well, we stayed in the house for some years, faced some issues for both landlord and neighbors, but we didn't allow it to break us, things became more better for both my eldest siblings and we move to a 3 bed room flat, with two bathrooms , one kitchen and one dinner table, at least, the stressing of waking up in the morning just to bath early so your neighbors wouldn’t delay you or you are pressed and one of your neighbors is reading new papers in the toilet won’t affect you again, lol.
Why did I write this ?
Even in this flat we are living in now, I still don’t feel like we are free of neighbors and landlord issues, though it will become less now, because no one it’s going to come from his or her own apartment and be following you to drag the bathroom, but it still feels like we are moving from a small cell to a bigger cell, until we move in to our own house, I won’t be comfortable with rented apartment, especially the one that the landlord lives in the same compound with you.
This wasn’t the topic I planned on writing today, but it just came all of a sudden, when I came back from work about 8:23 pm, I was very exhausted and I saw that my street power is on, I was motivated to get home quick so I can charger my phone (even if it’s fully charger, because, in my country, no one can tell when the light is going off and it might not come again) when I got home, I discover that our apartment didn’t have light, I asked why we didn’t have light, my elder sister told me that the landlord came to remove our fuse, ah, when did all these starts now, just because the water in the tank was full and it was pouring away, my elder sister was sleeping in her room, one of my junior sisters wasn’t feeling well and the youngest one can’t turn it off, so he now came to remove our fuse after turning it off himself, I didn’t get it, because we weren’t the only tenant in the compound, there are other tenants two, just because our apartment is closer to the tank, does it makes a must that we should be the ones that always turn off the tank when it is full? I wasn't happy at all, because the landlord added to my stress and even killed my time that I would use to rest, he thought that I was around and I didn't off the water, I explained to him that I am just entering the house now, after few minutes of arguments and all, he gave me the fuse back.
That's why I said, living in a rented apartment is liking a prison cell, especially when the landlord lives in compound too.
23/11/2021
Even where I stay presently, I would say living in rented apartment especially with lots of tenants is always somehow and I don't enjoy it battling the bathroom with others that would almost leads to argument and then fight.
This is one of the reasons I need an apartment, at least I will own my own toilet and not sharing with others 😁