HELP! My landlady has literally taken over my mini flat

If finding an apartment in Lagos is big deal, renting is a much bigger deal but I wasn’t told that staying in a rented apartment is the toughest choice a bachelor can make. It took me almost forever getting the apartment I stay in presently just because I needed somewhere comfortable and at an affordable price.

When I paid for my mini flat, my landlady and her daughter who happens to be the surveyor of her mum’s property (I wonder what she surveys, she’s better off as a caretaker joor!), promised heaven; they said the compound will be one of the most beautiful in Ogba. I wasn’t even concerned about that, all I needed were assurances that some of the loopholes I noticed in my apartment would be fixed before my supposed date of entry. That didn’t come to be but I moved into the apartment anyways with the hope that it would be fixed sooner than later. Moreover, my rent had started reading so delay will be to my own detriment.

Landlord/land ladies follow house receipts to the letter, they could even cheat you if you are not smart, ‘for that matter I no dey dull myself’ but at the moment it looks like I don turn maga for the house wey I pay 2 years rent. A whole me! Warri boy toh badt! One Yoruba woman dey use me play kite. Chai! dairis God oooooooo!

Since I moved into my problematic landlady’s mini flat, it has been from one issue to the other, I have spent more money on damages within and outside my apartment and other extraneous expenses more than I did spend on renting the apartment.

Putting it mildly, it’s been hell since I moved into my mini flat and the heaven the landlady promised me a year ago now lives in my head. The major demon confronting me out of all the dark angels my landlady and the assistant landlady (oops! sorry, I meant her daughter – the surveyor) unleashed on me is the incessant disturbance that comes from within my walls. If they are not re-constructing the 3 bedroom flat behind my apartment, they will be remodeling the mini flat beside mine. I’m now a drug addict, I take Panadol every other night, infact Glaxo Smithline Beecham recently honoured me with an award for the most addictive drug consumer; at least that’s a positive I will take away from my landlady’s apartment.

The walls of my sitting room have suffered several dents that I fear it will cave in one day. My landlady’s labourers treat my sitting room walls as if I have another sitting room hidden somewhere. If my walls were human it would have bought a pistol, shot my landlady in the head, thereafter pull out the axe she keeps in the store house to amputate the bricklayer but fortunately for them walls have no mind of their own, they only have ears. My landlady’s bricklayer has patched several portions of my wall with cement that I have lost count. Worse still, it’s been done in several places that meet the eye. I could bet my sitting room is the ugliest around. I have painted the walls on several occasions that I’m tired of painting and each time I complain to my landlady, all she says in her remodeled English just like her properties, is;

“Ogbeni! You want to come and telling me how I should be working in my own house ni?”

“Abi did you rent the whole compound ni? Abegi park well jare!,” with thick Yoruba ascent.

If I had known I would be under bondage in an apartment I paid 400,000 naira rent for two years (other payments not included), then I would have remained in my family house at Sango Ota. I wanted peace of mind so I left my family house in search of a serene place, little did I know my mind will only end up in pieces.

I still have one more year to stay there before my rent expires but I think I will lose my mind before my sitting room walls collapse on me; one of them looks imminent though, if something drastic is not done to address this dilemma. The 411 of the matter be say; Warri boy no suppose carry last.

Please readers, I need your advice