My friends, who I have been waiting on God for, have finally started getting married. Before I got married, it never occurred to me that I could let my husband know I didn’t like our place because it was not close enough to my work place. Not that it was, but that I COULD actually say it? A friend of mine informed her fiancé she would not work at Anthony and live at Iba. So they got a place at Festac that was fresh and new, but needed a lot of fixing up, which was a challenge for a young couple. On the plus side, it helped them grow together as they built their first home.
Anyway, while I never chose it, I loved my post-wedding flat, still do, three flights of stairs and all. However, the moral of the story is, sometimes people need to move. And the urgency of the need might make one not take into cognisance some salient points. So here’s a checklist to mark off when you go house hunting next Saturday so you don’t end up renting a white elephant.
1. Look out for Open Heavens: No, not the devotional of the RCCG church or the outpouring of spiritual blessings, but the physical drops of rain that come from your leaking ceiling and rouse you very roughly from a deep pleasant sleep; that “open heaven”. When you go hunting do look carefully at the ceiling and walls for water marks, they look like brown maps of countries on the wall. However, if your house was freshly painted, apply faith that for the landlord to have enough money to paint, he had enough to fix the roof.
2. Sahara Status: You come into an empty flat and it’s all spic and span, you can just see how you’ll place the couch and the beds, and you keep your hands behind your back the whole time, except for when you open the doors, and sometimes your agent might do all the door opening for you, so all you do is ask questions and take the answers given. Then you move in and find out your shiny taps don’t even make that irritating belchy sound when you turn them. Wonder of wonders, the water isn’t running. Then you call the agent and he tells you he’ll get right on it, ‘Ah, these things were working before oh.’ We hear. Endeavour to test the taps in the kitchen and toilet when you come into the proposed flat, every single one.
3. A fixer- upper or not: Some landlords just do the barest minimum to spruce a place up and make it very enticing eye candy. But scratch a little below the surface and what do you get? Empty spaces where the kitchen drawers should have been, floors not properly floated (we are not even talking about floor flex or tiles, in this 21st century), and then mosquito netting torn in enough places to guarantee an unlimited supply of insects. Before you say the magic words, ‘We’ll take it,’ it is important to find out just how much work you need to do to make your new home inhabitable by humans. And if possible, strike a bargain with your landlord on how to offset the cost of developing the place. In my experience I have found that the Bible didn’t err when it said, ‘you have not because you do not ask.’ Discuss with your landlord and find out some creative ways to reduce your development burden.
4. Bills Bill Bills: Nigerians landlords are well known for letting their last tenant leave without alerting the utility companies (PHCN, LAWMA) that the accommodation is now unoccupied and so they should lay off sending bills, especially PHCN. So a new tenant usually faces the dilemma of having arrears of utility bills for months that the house has sat empty being lumped into their current bills. The solution to this? Request for the current bills before paying the rent. And a verbal or written commitment from the Landlord-to-be that all outstanding utility bills will be cleared by him would go a long way.
5. Finding 911: We know that for the most part, we don’t bother calling the emergency number if there is a crisis situation; we just scoop up the victims and rush them over to the emergency ward. Yes, to avoid spinal cord injuries do not move an injured victim (your family doctor can explain this better). But for anything else, rush them over to the medical centre. But how do you do that when your house is deep in the bush and the nearest hospital is miles away? To make matters worse you may not have your own vehicle. Ensure there is a health clinic or hospital close to the place you intend to rent that can deal with sudden emergencies. Of course after you pay your rent it would be a good idea to register at the medical facility, in case of said emergencies.
6. Security: You will have to ask the agent and prospective neighbours a lot of questions. Does the area you are moving to have a reputation for violence? Does the community have a private security arrangement (military, mobile police, vigilantes, OPC, you name it)? Is this an area with gates or is it a thoroughfare for robbers? How are the locks on the doors and windows? How about the alternative exits? They are used for more than fire emergencies, you know. And if you are picking a flat or a first floor building, how’s the burglary proofing? A friend of mine in the military once told me, security lies in fear, so endeavour to check on all the things that cause you security nightmares.
7. The Everyday People: Some areas speak for themselves; in a multi tenanted apartment where people of different characters are forced to live together, they can hardly agree on anything so the environment is usually unkempt. Where it is neat you can heave a sigh of relief because it means there is a body in charge of the care. If you would rather do the work yourself, consider a less populated area like a flat with its own yard. Keep that in mind as well if you are difficult to live with, your soon-to-be-former neighbours can be trusted to help you decide whether you are or not.
8. A Family Concern: as a young couple or a growing family, you have to consider closeness to crèches and schools, and safe play areas away from the road. Then it has to be close enough to a local market that buying tomatoes would not mean a day’s journey. There’s also the need to be close to your local place of worship and your office. This implies a good and accessible road network to make coming and going easy for the entire family. You do not want to be parking on the street and trekking in to the house during the rainy season. If you are planning to move to such an area, maybe it’s time to think of getting a four wheel drive.
9. UK 10 or US 8: My current apartment is so cute and small, that I almost feel the urge to use a measuring tape whenever we consider buying any furniture. Sometimes one has to move down, from a big to a smaller apartment. And the challenge of what to do with our large dining table that sat eight in this new house that can take only a four-seater dinette can make moving harder than it really ought to be. Do you have storage space for things from your four bedroom apartment that won’t fit into this two bedroom place? How many things are you willing to give out because they can’t follow you to the new apartment? If your family is growing it would be advisable to make that sacrifice and spring for a three bedroom flat instead of two.
10. History Lesson: It is very good to find out why the last tenant left, especially when you see signs of anger or violence, for example the netting deliberately torn out with a knife, the fixtures and fittings stripped off, in extreme cases faeces on the walls (if you rent a place even after you have seen faeces smeared on it you are either out of your mind or too desperate for words!). These signs might be an indication that your landlord offended the tenant. If you have a landlord living on the premises, studies show that living in that place becomes that much harder. There’s this house that has sat abandoned for years because a man who had tried to use someone for money had unwittingly used his own son. When he found out his mistake he broke down in tears and could not hide his crime. All the neighbours heard, and till the last time the person that told me the story checked, the building has stayed uninhabited. True story! No one wants to live in a house that may be haunted. Before you say yes to the address, just try to be sure the last tenant left for all the right reasons.
There you have it, ten things to check off your list when inspecting a new apartment. And I’ll just throw in this bonus for those who are running to the right side of fat; an upstairs flat in a building with a staircase is just what the doctor ordered. NO ELEVATORS ALLOWED!
