My landlady

Two years ago, I relocated from Abuja to Kaduna. I got a new job in Kaduna. I stayed with a friend for two months before looking out for a house to rent.

I reached out to an agent to help get a bedroom apartment to let. After taking me round about three different apartments for inspection, I settled for the fourth one which seemed to have some qualities that I liked. The house was well fenced with security dogs in the compound. There are trees in the compound that make the environment serene and cool. There were three houses in the compound. A single room occupied by a university student and a three bedroom bungalow in which the landlady was staying. My apartment was the third house.

I explained everything to my wife, who was in Abuja. She kicked against the idea of staying with the owner of the house in the same compound. My mind flashed back to when I was in the university in Jos. My landlady was like a mother figure to me. She guided me and took me as her son. That experience gave me the confidence of not seeing any possible bad side of staying with a landlady in the same compound. I convinced my wife and she agreed that I paid the money. I paid the money and in another two weeks, we transported our properties from Abuja to Kaduna.

From the first day of our arrival, the landlady popularly known as Hajia gave us the snippet of who she was.

My apartment was behind hers. Our new neighbor that was staying in the single room joined us to park our properties from the gate to our apartment. I noticed that the light was off in Hajia's house. I concluded that she has gone to bed. My wife and I were exhausted. She tried to clean the room that night so that we can pack some sensitive properties inside. We decided to leave our chairs and other furniture outside till the following morning.

Our discussion towards this was aloud.

I received a message on my phone and when I checked it, it was a message from the landlady. "Don't leave any of your loads outside," she wrote in the message.

I looked at my phone and turned to look at my wife. She was surprised at the sudden change in countenance. I showed her the message and we both opened our mouths wide in surprise.

"So, this woman eavesdropped into our discussion and she couldn't welcome us," my wife observed.

"This is not a sign of someone with good hospitality," so I responded to her.

"Didn't I tell you that staying in the same compound with the landlady can be frustrating?"

"Dear, it's too early for this. Let's get our properties inside and watch how things unfold. I will handle everything," I promised her.

We packed all our loads inside the house. I later realized that she stayed in her kitchen which was directly facing the entrance of my apartment. She stayed in the darkness in the kitchen and watched everything that we were saying and doing.

That was the genesis of the year long emotional torture in the house.

Hajia was a kind of woman that likes dominating others around her. He wants everyone else to worship her. Having known who she was from the beginning, I told my wife to allow me to handle the situation. Many things happened which I don't have the space to narrate in detail.

On a fateful day, I returned home from work and saw that my apartment wasn't having power. Bulbs were on in Hajia's house. I checked around to detect the problem and I found out that my house has been disconnected from the power source. I couldn't understand what was playing out. I went to knock on the landlady's door but she wasn't in the house. I sent her a text message. This was after calling her repeatedly without her picking her calls.

She invited me to her house in the evening when she returned. I sat down on a chair facing her with my heart raging in anger.

"I disconnected your house because you failed to pay your electricity bill," she explained her reason.

"Even if I am owing electricity bill, why can't you talk to me before disconnecting my apartment?" I asked her. She didn't utter a word in response.

"Besides, I am not owing electricity bills. I paid you for six months starting in March. We are presently in July which is the fifth month. My payment expires in August. You can only disconnect my house on the first day of September," I explained.

It took her time to agree to my explanation. She checked her phone for a few minutes. She possibly checked the date of our transactions.

"I will call Bala to come and connect your house," she responded to me.

She stood up immediately to go to her room. I expected an apology from her but I got none. I swallowed my anger and went back to my house. My house was reconnected that evening.

The intimidation and maltreatment continued. I was counting months and days to end my one year stay so that I can look for another apartment. The house that I paid for became a prison.

My wife and I endured till the final day. On the day that I was packing from the house, the landlady locked the gate to prevent me from packing my properties. Her grouse with me was that the pump that was providing water for the three apartments got burnt a few weeks before my packing. She insisted that I must contribute the money to be used for purchasing another pump.

"You are very stupid. We used the pump together and you want to leave without replacing it," she was vituperating.

She used a gigantic padlock to lock the gate from inside. I was covered with sweat. "You will open that gate with your hand was all I could utter."

I called my lawyer and explained everything to him. He explained the position of Nigerian tenancy law to me. According to the law, I am not obliged to replace anything outside my apartment.

"The pump is part of the house. It's none of your business," he told me over the phone.

I reached out to the police after talking to my lawyer. When the landlady noticed the way I was handling the issue, she opened the gate and told me to leave her house with my 'headache'.

My wife and I were free at last.

Six months later, I was in a phone accessories shop to buy an earpiece. I saw a Mercedes Benz packed in front of the shop.

"Is this not Hajia's car?" I asked myself.

True to my prediction, Hajia came out of the car and demanded a 400 naira airtime from the shopkeeper. I was sitting in a position where she couldn't see me from outside. She bought the airtime and gave the shopkeeper a 1000 naira note. The man didn't have the change of 600 naira to give her.

"Give her back the 1000 naira, I will pay you the money for the airtime," I told the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper returned the 1000 naira to Hajia. Hajia demanded to see the person that paid for her card. As I stepped out of the shop, a shiver ran down her spine. She was short of what to say.

"You paid for airtime for me!" She repeated this statement more than twice. She never expected it.

"You are a mother to me," I responded.

She never expected me to even greet her after leaving her house because she knew what she did to me. But for me, that's all water under the bridge now. I try not to allow someone else's personality to influence mine negatively.

Later in the evening, Hajia called to thank me.