Angry landlord exposes defaulting tenant's exploits with girls and men's wives

A landlord and a tenant recently left residents of an estate in Nyeri ticked, after their heated altercation over two-months rent arrears quickly degenerated into a verbal slugfest, with the landlord embarrassing the tenant over his randiness.

The landlord stormed the estate in the wee hours last Sunday morning with a padlock in hand, ready to repossess his house from the tenant whom he not only accused of being a bad debtor, but also randy to boot. After he heard incessant knocks on the door, upon opening it, the tenant bumped into the landlord’s stretched hand demanding his dues.

“Today is not a good day mzee. Let me see you first thing tomorrow,” said the tenant, as he scratched his premature bald. However, the landlord, who seemed to have made up his mind to eject the tenant—no matter what, told him to either pay up the arrears or get himself a place to sleep that night.

“Wenda kuthii gukoma na nyoni miti iguru ni thina waku. No ndikwenda gukuona gwaka (You can join the birds on the trees if you want. But you must leave my house—immediately)!” retorted the landlord, in the process a commotion ensued which woke up virtually everyone in the neigbourhood. His loud utterances were meant to serve as a lesson to other defaulting tenants some of whom were curiously peering through their windows to catch a glimpse of the unfolding drama.

To drive his point home, the landlord blatantly accused the old man of choosing to be a bachelor so that he could “fool around with girls—young enough to be his daughters—and people’s wives”.

“An old man who cannot respect his age. Even young men around here have proven to be more mature and responsible than you. You see that guy who lives in that last house (as he points in the house’s direction) is way much younger than you, yet he has a wife and children.

“And he pays rent in time, but all you do is change women and sleep with peoples wives, in a house you haven’t paid rent for,” yelled the landlord, as he walked away.

The slur angered the tenant and he pounced on him, violently wrestling him on the ground as he threatened to “finish” him if he didn’t “watch his tongue”.

“I am more dangerous than electricity. I can crash you and make your body disappear mzee,” said the infuriated tenant as he walked back towards his house. But he was in for a rude shock, because as soon as he had walked into the house, the landlord locked the door from outside, and walked away with the key.

“Idiot! Nobody has ever disrespected me that much, not even my own mother. You will have to pay all my dues before you can remove anything from that house!” hissed the angry landlord.

Thinking that the landlord was joking, the tenant sheepishly smiled and began taunting him through the window. “I’m lethal! I can finish you. And let this be the last time you bring here that nyenyenye (irritation). Next time you try giving me that silly lecture, I will finish you. Useless!” bellowed the tenant through the grills of the window.

 But the landlord simply walked away loudly telling the tenant off to learn to respect his old age.  It took the intervention of older tenants to broker a truce between the two, before the landlord opened the tenant’s door.