Tenants Tales: My snobbish friend looked down on my husband…but she is now his tenant and about to get evicted!
Another intruiging Tenants Tales story
I don’t do bridges…
‘I don’t do bridges’ was the major criterion my friend, Fola, used to assess suitors in those days when we were single. I generally agreed with her and tried to only date boys of our social class. Our parents were highly placed civil servants and lived in official quarters in Ikoyi, the highbrow section of Lagos.
One day, my Dad heard us saying this and he advised me that it was only by the grace of God that he was living in Ikoyi. One day, his appointment will come to an end and we would have to move out.
‘Don’t look down on Surulere boys’ he teased ‘because I am one of them’
About this time, a young man, Tunde came on the scene. He was not impressed by me or my Ikoyi abode. Suave and extremely confident, he talked about his rented flat in Magodo as if it was Buckingham Palace! He completely swept me off my feet and proposed marriage. My friend did all she could to convince me but with my Dad’s advice ringing in my ears, I accepted. Fola did not bother to come to the wedding.
Tunde, meanwhile started married life by quitting his job! ‘I am going into real estate, babes. It’s the wave of the future’. What could I do but pray for him.
When Fola heard, she laughed! ‘Mainland boys. What do they know?’
But Tunde turned out to be very good at real estate and the investment wave carried us on to higher and higher deals.
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I started harassing him to buy property on the Island. He did – but they were investment properties that brought rent. All my cries fell on deaf eyes…..or so I thought.
On my 35th birthday, he had a surprise party for me in our brand new house in Lekki Phase 1. ‘It is not quite Ikoyi, babes but that is a work in progress.’ But by this time, I was totally sold to his way of thinking, which was that – what was the use of sleeping on hundred of millions of Naira (referring to the cost of Ikoyi houses). This house was more than enough for us and our two children. He did a number of deals in Ikoyi but they were for investment and not living in. The townhouse he bought as a family home, I got him to sell and buy a flat in the UK. Life was that good then.
One day, he came home grumbling about the antics of a particular tenant in one of our apartment blocks in Ikoyi. A ‘senior single’ as he described her: obviously could not afford the place, was always late with her rent and service charge. He had called his lawyers to evict her. I agreed with him. It was nit by force to live in the highbrow location.
A few weeks later, I got a text from Fola. I had not heard from her in over 2 decades. She wanted us to meet. She was not married and had some issues. I was still thinking whether I was ready to re-start our relationship, when my eyes caught sight of the legal papers for the eviction of our Ikoyi tenant. The name of the tenant was none other than Fola! She was the tenant that could not afford the Ikoyi fkat that Tunde was grumbling about! What a cahnge of fortune. I could not believe it. When Tunde got home, I told him the whole story. “Well, what do you want me to do? It is up to you as she is your friend’
What should I do?
Wow 😮 how fortune change indeed. Yes, she’s your friend but would u let her live in an investment apartment that bring in the money that pays the bills forever? The best u could do is either give her time to save up enough to pay her rent or get another apartment in an area she can afford to pay the rent. She shouldn’t be made to think that she would live there forever, she need to get down from her high heaven and be humble enough to live outside of ikoyi. If she had lived outside who knows she could have bought a bungalow building in one of this newly developed estate in Ajah area.