This is the truth. I grossly overpaid for the first house I moved into when I tasted “freedom.” I had just landed my first job on the groundbreaking salary of Sh20,000 a month. Gross. I needed a place to reflect my newfound status as a man of means. I found one just off Ngong Rd, up the road, a bedsitter that had seen happier days. When girls would ask where I came from, I’d say “DC” and let them figure it out whether it was Washington DC or Dagoretti Corner. To be clear, it was Dagoretti Corner, but they didn’t need to know that.
That bedsitter was colder than your ex’s heart. At night, the wind would whistle in like a White Walker, and we had to wear our coats indoors if we wanted to live. Wallahi. It was nestled on the fourth floor, had one window to let in just enough oxygen to prevent a case of manslaughter, and it was trapezoidal in shape. I bought a 5-by-6 bed that took up most of the floor, and redistributed grey bedsheets and red and white cotton duvets from my mum’s house back to my place. Made seductions simple—there was nowhere else to sit.
I was sandwiched between a single mother of two—which just goes to show how women find space—and a single mother of one, who was not living with her daughter, but who had more curves than Thika Superhighway. She fed me often, that one. I was paying Sh8,500 a month, and Sh100 in electricity. Water was free, but it might as well have been because what does a bachelor need water for? I was living life like a Philistine, drinking mala that was milked from Baal by Moses and the Israelites. There was a Legio Maria church down there, and an SDA one over there. Didn’t matter. I owned a white HP laptop that I had bought using Helb. Don’t know how it started, maybe a casual conversation when we’d meet at Mama Sharon’s—my mama mboga —but the single mum of one gave me Wi-Fi and Netflix passwords from the men who were hitting on her in the plot. And therein lies a lesson in the female psyche: Gentlemen, if she likes you, everything will be free. Otherwise, you'll always pay a fee. She’d travel upcountry and come and feed me bananas, potatoes, njugu, mdalasini. I ate well. I still have her number to date. God bless you, Joy.
I moved out after I bought a fridge, after I quit my only ever formal employment job, after my then-girlfriend asked for space. I went to a one-bedroom, and texted her, Baby, I have space here. I wasn't a very sharp boyfriend, you can see. My friend K– also had no house at that time, so I'd sublet to him. I am not saying he brought more women in that house than an entire adult film production, but I am not not saying that either. I tried winning back my girl. Started replaying all the hits. Baby, I'll change. Baby, think about our future children. Baby, I love you. With my golden handshake, I went and bought a huge Sony TV to impress her. 65 inches. Guess what? I still watched her go. Another lesson, write this down brethren: It is not the inches, it’s the man.
You must be thinking, what a fool, right? But I was 23 and in love, and what are you when you are 23 and in love? A fool, that's right.
So you can see why I had to move. Since then, I have been here and there in Nairobi. I moved to a one-bedroom in 87 that I did not stay past a month. The caretaker told me, “Kijana huku usiingie past 10pm.” I thought he was rabble rousing until the day I was escorted home by two gangsters. I moved out of Kinoo that weekend. I had an even shorter stint in Pipeline after I accidentally mistook someone’s house for mine and they thought I was their husband’s visitor and she served me food and the husband found me inside and it got awkward explaining that I know neither of them so why is my hand wrestling a fat piece of ugali?
Look, I am one of those cats who are always restless. I have lived everywhere, which is anywhere in Nairobi. But then, recently, I have started getting the itch to find an address. Somewhere I can put in the map, and the location will pop up, no questions asked. An address. Where I stay now, the rider has to ask, Is it safe? And we can’t do that in 2025. So if anyone asks, I say I am a stone’s throw away from Lavington, but only if you throw the stone with the fury of Julius Yego.
I have been house hunting, but these past few weeks have been an operation in futility. Some caretaker blatantly told me the houses are fully occupied, yet I could see one that was empty. He first inflated the rent price to scare me off, but me, I have money. With what I was paying in rent for a one-bedroom (because of a “modern sink”), I could fund the deficit of the national budget. Big part of it is that I was raised by a haggling mother whose talents should be utilised in the Ministry of Trade.
They give you numbers. Call this one. No, call this one. But only at 3pm. He’s always in a foul mood, so good luck. The houses that want me, I don’t want. There is always a trade-off: Good lighting, but gothic tiles. Good tiles, but no water. Good lighting, running water, but TikTok “stars” live here too. Wait, TikTok stars live here? Aren’t they living beyond their means?
I find some rent-to-own apartments in gated estates. Controlled environment. Draping windows. No churches, thank God. It’s everything a man can dream of, and then some. I called the number and they told me they’d arrange for an interview. An interview? I know how this goes.
They see my locks, study my forehead, make out my Luhya accent and automatically assume I am one of those gringos who play Jacob Luseno and Mukhangala at midnight. The houses I want, don’t want me. One agent flat out told me no when I told them I am not married, and no white smoke will be seen soon either. Nuptiae non habemus. Sina bibi. Ditto another, who, even after I wore a fake wedding band, still smoked me out. Something about how happy I was. Agents can smell an unmarried man the way Nairobi County can smell an unlicensed barbershop operated by an undocumented Burundian immigrant.
Thus, I have considered renting a wife. Someone to speak for me. Someone to tell me what I actually want. Wetin man go do?
One caretaker said to me, and I quote:
I looked at him, nodded solemnly, and whispered, “But where will they go, Kinuthia?”
I had miscalculated the tools of adulthood when I was young, or I had miscalculated the kind of adult I would be. Yet the houses I want, don’t want me. Eddy wa DC. It’s not just that where you live informs who you are, it also influences how far you can go. Where I come from, my people say, even the smallest seed dreams of the sun. Which is to say: Even if the dream isn't real, the dreamers are. Anyone know how far along the president’s affordable housing is?
