How the Luos are paralysing Kikuyu landlords in Kibera as directed by their peers.

We will kill you if you ask for rent, Kibera tenants tell landlords

They are the tenants from hell.

Landlords in Kibera slums are living in terror because their tenants attack them whenever they go to collect rent.

Three of them this week told of T beatings and death threats whenever they tried to collect their rents.

One, Mr Joseph Ngige, was roughed up by his tenants when he went to collect his rent from his 30 units at Gatwekera.

New tenant “One of the tenants who has refused to pay rent since 2007 had installed a new tenant in the house so I went there to ask him why he was doing that. That is when he rained blows on me,” Mr Ngige said.

And he added: “He called me and told me that if he had to leave the house, he would ensure I’m dead and my houses burnt to the ground.” Mr Ngige said he had unable to collect rent from the 30 tenants since they forced their way into the Sh2,500 a month bedsitters in 2007.

Although he still lives in the area, Mr Ngige operates in secret so noone knows exactly where he lives, to protect his family.

Most of the landlords have moved away after receiving death threats and being roughed up by the rowdy tenants. The Administration is seemingly helpless with dozens of summons by the chief routinely ignored.

Another landlord, Mr Joseph Njoroge, said he had not gone back to Kibera since the 2007 post election violence when he was badly beaten.

“They threatened to kill me if I ever go back there. I can’t risk my life or that of my family,” he said Mr Njoroge now lives in Juja and said efforts through the chief to have the tenants in his 80 units pay rent had borne no fruit.

“When you go there you find the houses locked or just the wife is around. She will tell you that it’s the husband who pays the rent,” said Mr Njoroge.

Mr David Muganda, another landlord, said that when pushed to the wall by the District Officer, some of the tenants had moved out, only to rent out the houses to third parties without the landlord’s knowledge.

He does not collect rent from 10 of his 20 units ,with one that used to be a shop now closed down. Rents in the houses range from Sh800 to Sh1,500.

“I recently tried to evict one of the tenants and in no time, eight of them were there. They attacked me and I had to run away before they seriously injured me. I had one arrested after that but they bailed him out,” said Mr Muganda who has many hospital and police records following physical confrontations.

Local level Area Ward Rep Pius K’Otieno said that while there had been issues relating to the refusal of some tenants to pay rent, they could be settled at local level.

“Issues of tenants and landlords can be settled at community level.

What we need is serious communication between landlords, tenants and the chiefs,” he said.

He added that for those who had very difficult tenants, there was a procedure to deal with them, including their paying rent to the chief, from whom the landlord can then collect his money.

Mr K’Otieno added that some defaults were as a result of poor service by some landlords who demanded payment but did not improve the homes.