A woman residing in Nairobi breathed a sigh of relief after her landlord waived her rent arrears totalling Ksh1 million.
NW and her boyfriend had rented the four-bedroom house in Buruburu, with the former catering for the bills. The couple lived a peaceful life, with the boyfriend providing all she asked for. Little did she know that he was wallowing in debt.
During an interview with Metha ya Kagoni, the tenant detailed her misfortune and how her landlord aided her at her lowest point in life.
She was reeling from the failure of her first marriage, which prompted her to raise her son alone. While she was healing, she met a man she fell in love with, and they moved in together.
She revealed that the man treated her like a queen as they relocated from a two-bedroomed house to a four-bedroomed house in Buru Buru.
According to the tenant, her boyfriend began borrowing small amounts of cash from her, insisting that he would repay them and she would oblige out of love. This included borrowing from her family and friends to provide the cash for her boyfriend.
"He did not mistreat me but kept to himself a lot. There was a time he stayed at the house for over a month and when I asked him about it, he kept saying that the deals he was working on were being frustrated by his friends and close associates."
"On one side, you sympathise with him, but on the other side, there is the reality that we are in debt. At the time, I did not understand the gravity of the situation as he did not reveal how much debt were in," she recalled.
However, the situation culminated in two men searching for her husband, knocking at her door. The men, who identified themselves as police officers, asked whether she was aware of her boyfriend's business dealings.
She was quite uneasy with the question. However, she composed herself and faced the police, answering their questions and admitting that she was unfamiliar with the husband's suspicious activities.
The boyfriend, who had hidden himself in the bedroom, urged her to turn the police away but was caught by the hawk-eyed detectives.
"They wanted to know about his private life, his social media lifestyle, what business he conducted - all the information that I had no knowledge of," she revealed.
"He was able to get out of the cell, the following day and did not come home ever since."
Panicking about the situation, she came into contact with the agent of the house, who revealed that her boyfriend had rent arrears, which had crossed Ksh1 million. It turned out that the boyfriend had been granted a grace period to pay the amount due, but he rather exploited it.
The lady, struggling to make ends meet, resorted to menial jobs such as hawking necklaces in Nairobi's Central Business District (CBD), but the amount was not enough to clear the arrears.
To compound her predicaments, the agent gave her an ultimatum to pay the amount lest he takes decisive action against her, including seeking legal redress.
With the debt levels piling up and her hope plummeting, she decided to take her own life. However, a surprise call from the family pastor talked her out of it and offered her hope for brighter days.
As the ultimatum for clearing the arrears fast approached, the tenant was surprised by the agent who visited him impromptu. This sparked eviction fears as she thought she was being reminded to pay the accrued debt.
"Knowing that my fate was sealed, I opened the door, ready for anything but at that moment, the house owner called the agent via phone call and demanded to speak to me on loudspeaker," she detailed.
"The owner called and said that the whole night he was thinking about my situation a lot and lacked sleep over it. He said that such a situation could happen to anyone, even his own daughter. He told the agent not to disrupt me ever again and wrote off my debt."
Dumbfounded by the gesture, she expressed gratitude to the landlord, who empathised with her situation.
Feeling relieved by the offer that marked a turning point in her life, NW moved to start her life afresh. She sold her household items and moved to an affordable house.
Kenyans.co.ke could not independently verify the tenant's claims.
