Mercy Kemunto: My day with a house agent from hell
The single room where Mercy Kemunto shares with her mother in Nakuru.
The 26th of July is a day that will forever be etched in Mercy Kemunto's memory.
Her day went from bad to worse in the blink of an eye, leaving her homeless and out in the cold with her sick daughter in Bismarck, White House.
On that fateful day, she had taken her sick daughter to the hospital for treatment. She returned home around 3pm to find what every renter dreads: a padlock on her door.
"This was the last thing I expected as I have always paid my rent by the 15th of every month for the two years I have lived here," lamented Ms Kemunto.
According to Mrs Kemunto, the house agent had announced new rules, that required tenants to pay rent on the 5th of every month.
This put Ms Kemunto in a difficult position as she works as a mama mboga alongside her mother.
"I tried to call the agent, but he did not answer my calls. I decided to go to the kiosk I share with my mother and stayed there with my daughter in the cold until 7pm," Ms Kemunto explained.
The two were able to scrape together Sh1,000, which they sent to the agent.
"From the Sh1,200 rent, my mother managed to collect Sh1,000 which I sent to the agent. The agent then told me to go to his place to pick the padlock keys, which is 3km away. But where he lives, it is not safe at night," she said.
She decided to take matters into her own hands and break the padlock on the door to gain access to her house.
If Mrs Kemunto had a premonition of what would happen next, she would not have broken the padlock.
"Around 8pm the agent came and in anger broke the door down without even talking to them. He then carried the door and put it at the back of the house," Ms Kemunto said.
The agent then returned the rent money she had sent him earlier. His motive was to get Mrs Kemunto and her mother out of the house.
"I wondered what I had done wrong to deserve such treatment from him. I knew there was nothing much I could say to the agent, so I went to wazee wa nyumba kumi to help me sort the matter out," she said.
According to Ms Kemunto, seeking the intervention of Nyumba Kumi worked resulting to the agent mending the door.
"I am still living in fear and I am not at peace because I am afraid that the same thing will happen in a few days because the agent promised that if people did not pay the rent by the 5th of every month, he would repeat what he did," Ms Kemunto said.