"Kunle you mean you're chasing tenants away right? It's dangerous thing to do ;for they would use police to arrest you o"
"Who?Which police?I Ve chased them out already""Where did you now sleep""Oh I sleep there in the meantime before I travel back"she was shell shocked.I think iya wura said something similar.I had gone to our shop to harras Rev.Awolola to leave the shop for my occupancy if he cannot pay rent increase and I increased rent to hundred thousand and he went naught"Kunle you increase rent ?So what?That rent is quite on the high side.Remember, Ogbomosho is not Lagos o."Rev .Awolola retorted as the same man my father entrusted with the shop at the center of taki in Ogbomosho prior to the great migration to Lagos. "If you can not pay then leave the shop "I screamed at him and in great anger refused to pay me rent and pay old rent instead to my father's younger brother Baba wura still alive and he paid him for the following three years .This threat had engaged my responsibility in the second visit back home or the third thereabouts.Then I started my agitation to recover the rent payment went back home again and went straight to the Taki shop embarrassed the staff working in the chemistry and was literally banging the metal door to retrieve back rental payment and after three years the rent was been paid back to me.Then I bought a phone and a laptop with the rents and again the following year over the three years that followed I bought food items which quickly finished in a month or two.
We had abandoned our factory premise and father's properties way back home for two decades and the rents were left accumulated running into millions diverted into the pockets of the relatives,acquitances and strangers cashing on my father's investment all in the name of morbid caretakers managing the properties and It was disgusting after my first visit the back breaking endeavors of what property management can be .COVID-19 compelled me back home in the wake of challenge from my brother ajibade who agonisingly says "Kunle go back home our father has properties too",to which I promptly replied"You re right I didn't disoblige at all and I could recall father's greatest words in the context "When am gone,can you guys manage those properties?" and my reply was "Dad why not ?We can.".Now I could see vividly what he meant being a backbreaking endeavor and the need to be making provisions for expenditures in the areas of extensive repairs and facility management."I had fought mercilessly who were using the property and the factory premise for years running down the property without maintenance and not ready for rent increments and I fought them too and slowly triple and triple the rents .A Redeemed church branch had taken the church after daddy passed in 2005 two years after he increased the rent for the last time prior to his demise.I complained bitterly to the raving pastor a province pastor overseeing the church who threatened to arrest me should I increase the rent that the church would not increase rent and from his body language I had foreseen this ilk of egregious lazy pastors not ready to pay rent and infact intended to be using the place free and pay next to nothing.So I started the confrontation and with the confrontation I succeeded in more double the rents after three pastors were changed in succession.The first pastor a Yoruba man was moved to Lagos here to Ajao estate in Ikeja an egalitarian mind who provided details of the next pastor a female and the female pastor upon my excessive confrontation jerked up the rent not conversant of the altercation with the province pastor.She left shortly after perhaps three years for the new pastor Nicodemus who was friendly and I made double rent demands from him.He brought another tenant to occupy the back who was paying rent too though he left the later and complained the rent was expensive and some disrepairs.I had fought the church over the issue and castigated them for vandalizing the property running it down,with dilapidated gates and doors the latter which I had to pay for and leaking roof at the back which the tenant complained about.
In one of my altercation sessions with the female pastor prior to her exit had boasted that the steely door had been installed since 1982,"See the bulge metal door was installed in 1982 ...." and she poured me derogatory remarks to say"...and you re not ashamed of yourself to change it since given the setbin of wears and tears?Now having friction issues."she chided me to which I retorted"And that's why we re asking for rent increase "I had gone home to press for rent increase when I slept at the back duplex for eleven days some time no food,a good chunk of hoodlums from the main factory broke the partitioned walls between the factory premise and the linkage to laboratory floor close to the venue I was sleeping.I might have been beating badly before I could be rescued or before they could recognize the fact that we were the landlord of the factory premise.Infact the following morning perhaps on a Sunday morning after the church service I broke into the church scattered some plastic chairs threatened them that should they refuse to pay rent increase they must leave the property.This was after several years of agitation over rent increase .I was been deceived by the first pastor before he left who was cold about rent increase.The letter I mailed through an agent was not delivered and so I came down with anger from Lagos to fight them and brought the letter and delivered the letter through another agent that accompanied me who signed on the back of the letter and one Mr olarenwanju also pretended he would submit the letter over rent increase to no avail.They boldly denied me rent increase prior to the arrival of the female pastor.The same group of hoodlums who broke in laboratory compound at the back had struggled with me at the factory premise.I was almost beaten up in my father's properties.It was strange sight that I almost lost my left slipper caught in the factory when I was pushed outside .One of my father's older but surviving work force and also our relation Mr gbemisoye was there as he almost ignored.Although in my first visit when I chased out a tenant couple from the laboratory premise for lack of adequate rent and their defiance to occupy a property without the accord of the real property owners he had been instrumental in helping me to dislodge them.So they left after I came back to Lagos.A group of indignant indigenes came with cultlass or marchets brandished furiously at least four out of eight hooligans erupted with matchetes ready to butcher their enemies when Mr gbemisoye alarmed "Hey you guys stop it their father actually owned the property" and obviously their rage plummeted and were disarmed by extreme awe at my gobsmacked presence.
Most folks hardly realized and recognize you when you re far away or have departed your home town .The older ones could and regardless of your status if the landlord not a strong one tenants could actually be a domineering force and sometimes take over the property if the checks and balances not there.Any time I visit I often check the properties and infact in my first time visiting odoru property I audited the questionnaires of the tenants to uncover we lost millions in all the properties.It could have been a court case and subject to consultation I decided upon the advice of a tenant to forgive and forget and move one.Although I wrote letter of rent increase to tenants in odoru they initially refused and later accepted after rent contract expires and we included the rent increase.
Ogbomosho was completely transformed though still a slum like most of our cities .I had confrontation with the school proprietress that occupied the property especially the affronts by her husband caused me to chase her from the property.
He threatened to remove some improvements and I warned her but she later left with the doors and windows she fixed .A tenant had told me to return home to fix the shallow building and lamented how the woman behaved naughty.
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