Why Most Landlords Are a Cursed Lot

Let us begin with a simple mental exercise. Picture this: a tenant has lived in your house for one year, two years, five years—some even clock a full decade like loyal civil servants. Throughout this long relationship, rent has been paid religiously. On time. No drama. No excuses. No “niko na shida kidogo” stories. Just clean, obedient payments that arrive like clockwork.

Then, calamity strikes.

For one month—just one—or maybe two months, the rent delays. Suddenly, the landlord undergoes a spiritual transformation. The same landlord who used to greet the tenant with “Habari yako?” now becomes a high-ranking officer in the Ministry of Suffering. He arrives unannounced, padlock in hand, ready to lock the house with surgical precision, as though the tenant has committed an international crime.

No investigation is conducted. No questions are asked. No background check is done on the tenant’s previously spotless rent record. The landlord does not ask, “Why has this person delayed after ten years of faithfulness?” That level of reasoning is reserved for philosophers and unemployed people.

Instead, the landlord’s logic is simple: Rent has delayed. Lock the house.

It does not matter that the tenant’s employer has delayed salaries. It does not matter that the business collapsed, or that the company declared “restructuring,” which is corporate language for “you are fired politely.” It does not matter that the tenant is waiting for compensation, severance pay, or that life simply happened the way life likes to happen—rudely and without notice.

To the landlord, all problems have one solution: Pay rent or perish.

You, as the landlord, do not care how the tenant raises the money. Sell a kidney. Rob a bank. Borrow from loan apps with interest rates that resemble punishment from God. That is none of your business. Your business is rent. Humanity is optional.

So you rush to lock the house—sometimes accompanied by insults thrown in for free. You loudly lecture the tenant on how people should not live in houses they cannot afford. You remind them that poverty is a personal failure and that being broke is a moral weakness. All this while their clothes, documents, children’s uniforms, and dignity are safely locked inside.

The tenant is now homeless—temporarily, yes—but homeless nonetheless.

Children sleep in the cold. The wife sleeps in the cold. The family becomes stranded, watching the night sky and wondering when shelter became a privilege instead of a necessity. The landlord, meanwhile, sleeps peacefully in his own house, dreaming of rent increments.

The children cannot go to school because their uniforms are locked inside. The tenant cannot go to work because his clothes, certificates, and documents are also locked inside. Ironically, the landlord has locked the very tools that would enable the tenant to earn money and pay rent.

This is not business. This is advanced comedy.

The family prays. Not loud prayers. Not dramatic prayers. Just those quiet, desperate prayers that rise naturally when human beings are pushed beyond their limits. And here is the part landlords rarely understand: nature listens very carefully to such prayers.

Life has an excellent memory.

Soon, strange things begin to happen. The landlord’s fortunes start behaving like a drunk man—falling unexpectedly. The children become lost and disoriented in life. The family starts suffering unexplained illnesses. Hospital bills pile up like unpaid rent statements. Diseases appear that do not respond to money, connections, or shouting.

The landlord who used to boast about being rich suddenly discovers that wealth has a disappearing act. Businesses collapse. Properties generate no income. Money runs away faster than tenants after rent increment announcements.

Calamities strike with perfect timing.

And the landlord is left wondering, “Why me?”

It is because suffering has an address forwarding system.

That is why I strongly advise: if you cannot be reasonable, humane, and patient, please avoid the tenancy business altogether. Open a quarry. Trade stones. Sell land. Do forex. Keep goats. Choose anything that does not involve human beings.

Because tenants are not furniture. They are not ATM machines. They are not rent-producing robots. They are people—people whose lives occasionally go wrong, just like yours.

If a tenant has paid faithfully for five years, why is it so hard to appreciate them with even one month’s grace or discount? Why does generosity feel like death? Why does understanding feel like a curse?

Even banks—institutions famous for lacking souls—offer grace periods.

Yet you will find landlords demanding rent from someone who is mourning, hospitalized, or attending a burial. Rent has no emotions. Rent does not recognize grief. Rent does not acknowledge tragedy. Rent is demanded whether you are alive, dead, or halfway to the grave.

And then we wonder why many landlords die poor, remain broke, or watch their families suffer chronic misfortunes.

The answer is simple: inhumanity is expensive.

Treat tenants like human beings. Give room for dialogue. Practice patience. Because when you lock a door on someone’s suffering, you may unknowingly open one for your own.

And trust me—life does not forget addresses.

YOU CAN SUPPORT ME BY BUYING MY BOOK HERE https://selar.com/ge177z4o99