Daytime break-ins raise questions about tenancy rights, obligations

A cut padlock left by burglars after the house was broken into. Daytime break-ins have been increasing, with single people or working couples without children being easy targets because no one is left at home when they go to work. PHOTO | PHOEBE OKALL |

What you need to know:

  • And because most satellite towns in Kenya’s urban zones are growing so fast and there is a steady influx of tenants, a truck hauling furniture and electronics does not immediately raise eyebrows.
  • Single people or working couples without children are easy targets because no one is left at home when they go to work.
  • However, couples will usually have a child and a house-help at home during the day.

My front door, as yours may be, is designed to be fastened with a padlock.

In the four years I have lived in Ruaka, I’ve had to change padlocks thrice, each time buying a larger, heavier, more complicated and more expensive one.

And each time the locksmith assured me that “nobody can pick this lock”.

My neighbours and I have come to expect to find our doors ajar and something missing, at least once a year.

Newbies, like my now former neighbour David, suffer the most. David’s flat, which was three doors down from mine, was “visited” barely a month after he moved in.

He lost a 42-inch television set, a laptop computer... and a brand new padlock.

“The caretaker did it. I know it’s him,” David had told me once as I struggled to open my own door and run inside, where I wouldn’t have to agree with him. But he’d persisted: “He’s the only one who helped me move in, the only one who knows the things I have.”

Two weeks later, David’s neon-green car was no longer in the parking lot downstairs, and the plush maroon curtains I’d come to appreciate him for, were gone.

BREAK-IN
Although David had reported the break-in to the police and had the caretaker arrested, the rest of us didn’t do much. Rattled, our landlord sent us letters advising us to upgrade our padlocks.

He also had a fabricated iron door installed at the landing between the second and third storeys, where the residential part begins.

Even though metallic, however, the door is permanently open, and there is no day watchman guarding it, so anyone off the street can claim to be going to the salon or kinyozi on second floor, where the commercial part ends.

No one would know if they went further up, picked locks and helped themselves to electronics.

While buildings like mine are easy targets because they are part-commercial-part-residential, fully residential complexes are not spared.

Another Ruaka resident — let’s just call him Douglas since he requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter — has been burgled twice since he moved to Ruaka last year.

To his mind, his landlord’s neglect led to the theft.

“In the contract we signed, provision of security falls under the service charge we pay. When there is no day watchman, who do you arrest or interrogate when things go missing? Not having security for your tenants is a breach of contract,” Douglas insists.

“When the thieves first sruck, I lost a TV set, a DVD player and a surround sound home theatre system, all valued at about Sh150,000,” Douglas recounts.

VALUABLES STOLEN

The second time, the burglars took a digital camera, a laptop computer and its accompanying accessories, yet another home theatre system, and a television set.

Following that second break-in, Douglas sued his landlord for breach of contract, citing lack of adequate security. Proving a liability, he was evicted.

For Douglas, a graphic designer, this last loss was a low blow. It cost him, he says, a job which required the use of the equipment he had just been relieved of.

Now, he leaves all his gadgets at the office where he knows they’ll be safe.

But did Douglas have a part to play in the burglary? His landlord seems to think so. “Looking at his lifestyle, we had every reason to believe that he is an easy target for insecurity,” Douglas’ former landlord states in an official letter, and goes on to state that Douglas used to get home very late at night and was in the habit of inviting all sorts of people into his house; the cleaning lady, friends, colleagues, clients.

“Even if I did [invite people], which I didn’t,” counters Douglas, “who would be there to stop them if they came when I wasn’t home?”

A quick observation of Douglas’ former residence gives one the impression of complete security; a high stone perimeter fence; electric razor wire atop the fence; and a high, solid metal gate.

To the ordinary eye, it looks like the Fox River Penitentiary — impenetrable. But when I lean on the gate with one hand, it easily yields.

DAY WATCHMEN
Afraid that there might be as many dogs on the inside as there are on the outside, I knock on the black metal instead. There is no answer and no sign of a day watchman.

A little distance to the side of these flats are three wooden store-like structures, in front of which stands a friendly-faced man, mixing milky contents into a five-litre jerrycan. I approach him.

“It is medicine for my tomatoes,” he says, pointing at a small patch of about 10 plants with yellowing leaves. He then identifies himself as the caretaker of the apartment block.

I ask him if there’s a day watchman. There isn’t; he does all the watching. I do not mention to him that had I wanted, I could have quietly accessed the apartments while he was tending his plants.

Like this one, most buildings in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and other major towns look safe, complete with only one entrance which also serves as the exit.

So how do these burglaries occur without the knowledge of the caretakers — or watchmen, if any.

The answer is simple. They don’t. It’s an inside job, and there is a cartel, insists Douglas. Having witnessed the suspicious behaviour and subsequent sacking of one of my building’s former caretakers, I am inclined to agree.

On any given day, and as early as 6am, there will be a man, woman or a group of them idling near the bus stops, opposite residential houses, or near shops.

BURGLARY VICTIMS

And because most satellite towns in Kenya’s urban zones are growing so fast and there is a steady influx of tenants, a truck hauling furniture and electronics does not immediately raise eyebrows.

Alphonce Otieno, who once lived just off the Northern by-pass in Ruaka, came back home to a “clean” house only a week after he had furnished it.

“It happened on a Sunday afternoon,” he explains. He had just left the house to grab a beer when he got a call from the caretaker, asking whether he had left his door open.

“They took everything; TV, home theatre system, toaster, microwave, even an iron box,” Otieno recounts.

The irony is, after the burglary, his neighbours came forward saying they had seen two women and some men carrying his stuff to a Toyota Voxy down below. A few days later, he moved up the road to Muchatha.

Another victim, Robert Ombette, moved to Ruaka in 2013. His first house, just off Limuru Road at the junction with the Northern Bypass, had both a day and a night watchman.

And although he always called the guard at night to open the gate just before he arrived, he never worried about his house being broken into while he was at work.

“First, I was carjacked with friends while coming home from a night out,” he says. “Next, thieves broke into my house and stole electronic goods.”

EASY TARGETS

Robert, Alphonce, Douglas and I all have one thing in common: we have all lived in buildings without a day watchman, and where the caretaker doubles as the security guard.

“The thugs are known,” says Robert, “but it’s a complicated situation. Because it’s a small community and people know who is from Ruaka and who isn’t, outsiders like me get attacked.”

On the off chance that a “native Ruakan” gets robbed or hurt, community elders confront the known culprit’s families and warn them. That has been Robert’s experience. But there is more to it.

“It’s up-country and no one cares,” continues Robert, “Every time there’s a change of guard, there will be many arrests, a few shoot-outs and then things will go back to normal.”

And in this case, normal means that we’re back to leaving our doors open because locking them would be pointless.

It goes even deeper. Ruaka is full of immigrants today and the natives can always tell. But this can be filtered even further.

Single people or working couples without children are easy targets because no one is left at home when they go to work.

However, couples will usually have a child and a house-help at home during the day.

VERY CONVENIENT

So why don’t we move? For one, it’s expensive; and, two, the three things that keep us loyal to Ruaka are its nearness to the city centre, the low rent, and the fairly attractive buildings.

“It’s too convenient for me to move,” says Douglas, who now works in Gigiri and is studying for his masters degree at the United States International University. From Ruaka, both work and school are easy to access.

Rumour has it, as rumour usually does, that there is a cartel of policemen, caretakers, watchmen and house helps in the Ruaka area.

“Residents are unwilling to report their cases because, like me, they might never receive even a follow up phone call regarding it,” Robert laments.

Ruaka is roiling with ravenous rascals, some of whom are our neighbours, relatives and even a few of those wayward policemen.

All these factors, coupled with an ill-equipped police force and reluctant, introverted and suspicious residents, mean that Ruaka will remain thus for a while to come, unless we do something about it.