Single roomed rental houses in Kisii town. [Photo: Stephen Mwaniki]
Living in rental houses is nowadays becoming a life that involve "stubborn" neighborhoods by default.
Everything that you do will always be in public domain, up to a level of forming a topic of the day for the next 24 hours.
Whenever you bring your spouse (mostly for the men), your neighbours will do all it takes to get any information if you are cheating.
With this, they will not sleep during the night just to listen if there will be any mischievous noises.
This will become the topic of the day, how much of a beast you are.
"Nisaidie pasi yako..." They will always be at your doorstep so as to know what's your meal today.
Their main intentions is to spy on what you eating after spending your day at a construction site. Thereafter they will speak of how you eat sukuma wiki everyday.
"Huyu pesa yake huwa anapeleka wapi...?"
Living in rental houses (which are mostly single rooms) means that your music system will never boom more than 50% volume.
They will always complain on how you make debris from the ceiling fall off due to vibrations.
In some cases, the residential plot becomes a disco area due to loud music, everyone trying to show how powerful their music system is.
Your slippers will be picked from your door but will never be returned. You will later locate them doors away from yours, only to realise that he had taken them during shower time. Kila kitu ni mali ya jamii.
The key to the washrooms is the source of hatred and quarrels. They will speak of how careless you are, leaving the toilets unlocked and not flashed.
A combination of these make life in rental houses so dull specially if you don't know how to relate with neighbours.