Kate Halim
Patricia Dibia is frustrated. She doesn’t know why she would work hard for her money and still be denied the right to rent her own apartment in Lagos. A thirty-three -year-old advert executive with one of the companies on the island, she practically travels from Egbeda to the Island everyday to get to the office. When she told an agent she needed an apartment, she was taken aback when he asked her who would pay for the apartment.
She found that question condescending and sexist. She didn’t understand what the agent was trying to tell her until she was faced with various shades of discrimination while trying to get an apartment.
On the day that she set out to check out the house her agent got for her, Dibia met with the landlord of the two bedroom self-contained apartment. When he saw her, he asked if she was married or if she wanted to rent the apartment for herself. When Dibia told him she wanted the apartment so she could be closer to her workplace, he told her that he doesn’t rent out his apartments to single ladies.
“Young ladies should live with their parents until they get married,” the elderly man told Dibia while maintaining a steady gaze at the agent. “I don’t want my house to be turned to a brothel. Ladies who are not controlled become promiscuous,” he said.
Dibia became angry. She has been frustrated searching for an apartment for months and when she finally saw the one she loved, she was told she can’t have it because of her marital status. For the sixth time in three months, she had been rejected by landlords on account of being single.
Nightmarish experience of searching for apartment
She had checked out another apartment two weeks earlier in the company of her female colleague. She had inspected the vacant two-bedroom flat belonging to a retired civil servant and had fallen in love with the premises.
Happy that she would finally settle down in Lagos Island, she had already started imagining how she would arrange her things when she first visited the vacant apartment. In her mind’s eye, she already calculated where her gadgets would be; how she would place her mattress; where her wardrobe would stand, where her shoe rack should be and how she would decorate the apartment.
The agent had told her the landlord would like to meet with her before renting out the vacant flat. Unknown to her, it was another nightmare in waiting, as her marital status again became the hurdle she must pass. Her frustration escalated.
“When my agent told me of this apartment, I was optimistic that the landlord wouldn’t have an issue with my marital status because I already told the agent to clarify that part before inviting me for any inspection, so when he invited me I thought everything was fine.
“But I was shocked when I got there and they asked about my husband. I told them I was single and the expressions on their faces gave them away. Even when I told them I had a good job and would pay my rent as and when due, they refused. They said they preferred a couple or single but employed man to a single woman.”
Rejected because of marital status
Desperate to get an apartment after being rejected because of her marital status, 35-year-old Opeyemi Adeolu lied to her present landlord that she was married but her husband travelled abroad in search of greener pastures.
“No one can blame me for lying like that because I have been rejected four times because I am a single lady. I was tired of everything, the unending questions, the looks of pity in people’s eyes because I am not married at my age and their unsolicited advice to remain in my parents’ house until I get married,” Adeolu told Saturday Sun.
Adeolu stated that what she found outrageous was how strangers who didn’t know her felt they had the right to question her and pry into her private life because she wanted to rent an apartment and make life easier for herself.
“I couldn’t stand the insinuations that every young woman sleeps around. I don’t know why it’s okay for single men to rent apartments without being questioned but ladies can’t do the same in peace without being hounded with unnecessary questions and unsolicited advice,” she added.
She got the last apartment she checked out in Anthony area of Lagos close to her office in Ikeja because she lied she was married. She had presented one of her colleagues as her husband’s brother so that the landlord would feel at ease. She has been living in that apartment peacefully for four months now without hassles.
Denied the right to owning an apartment
Twenty-eight-year-old Ugwu Judith has a pitiable rent discrimination story. After securing a job in Lagos, she had to relocate from her base in Enugu State. With just two weeks to settle down and resume her new job, Ugwu who sponsored herself through school by selling clothes and shoes got the shock of her life when she was denied the right to own her own apartment.
Ugwu had stayed with her cousin from her father’s side when she came to Lagos for the job test and interview. She squatted with her cousin who got married months earlier but didn’t want to be a burden to the newlyweds after she got the job.
“When I was called to resume on my new job, it was somewhat a bittersweet experience because I didn’t want to go back to my cousin’s house, yet I couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel, so I had no alternative but to go back there.
“After spending two uncomfortable months in my cousins’ two bedroom apartment with his unhappy wife, I was able to get salary advance and started searching for an apartment immediately,” Ugwu revealed.
Beyond the joy of having her own apartment in a short while, Ugwu informed her mum back in Enugu that she would love her younger sister to join her in Lagos so that she can also get a job and support their mum financially too. But she never anticipated the hurdles that awaited her from Lagos landlords, on account of her marital status.
She told Saturday Sun that she didn’t know what she was up against until she started hearing that single ladies are not supposed to live alone because they turn to prostitutes. After she got her third rejection from a landlord in Surulere, she wept bitterly when she got home.
“I cried like I lost my mother the third time I was denied an apartment because I was a single woman,” she said. “I cried not because I didn’t have money to pay or that there were no good houses, I saw beautiful houses that I liked, but the landlords simply wouldn’t let out their flats to me, just because I’m single. They said they preferred married persons.”
Ugwu expressed her disappointment at the way the landlords and landladies spoke about single ladies and the thought that they would be bringing different men to the house. “I told my agents never to call me until they found a landlord who was ready to give out the house regardless of my marital status,” she said.
“One of the landladies after sizing me up and down like I was auditioning for a movie role told me that she didn’t want her house to be turned to a mini-brothel. I told her that not all young ladies are prostitutes. She retorted that I can’t get a husband to marry with my quick temper and sharp tongue. I told her to go to hell and stormed out of the building.”
After five months of searching for a suitable apartment, she eventually got one in Gbagada, but she confessed that it is not where she would love to stay. But she had to take it because she was tired of being rejected and because her cousin’s house was becoming unbearable. Her sister lives with her now and they are trying their best to make life easier for their mum and younger siblings in Enugu.
A single lady’s experience in the hand of landlords
Margaret Luke, another single lady suffered many emotional injuries in the hands of Lagos landlords and landladies all because she wanted to live alone as a single woman. The 34-year-old working class woman who owns her own events and decoration company in Lagos doesn’t have a good story to tell about her apartment hunting.
“The first apartment I wanted to rent was a one-room self contained flat at Ijesha area but the house belonged to a family and they insisted that everyone must be present before the apartment would be rented out to anyone,” Luke stated.
On the day set for the meeting, members of the family were disappointed because the house agent wasted their time by bringing a single woman to rent the vacant self-contained apartment.
“One of the women present told me that in their days, a woman who lived alone was seen as loose and uncontrollable. She asked why I wasn’t living with my parents.”
Luke explained to them that her parents lived in Badagry and she had to move to town because of her growing event business so that she could reach more clients and make more money to take care of herself and her parents. But they refused to give her the apartment.
Over the next six months, Luke faced three more rejections based on her marital status and she asked herself after each encounter if being a single woman is a crime in Nigeria.
Tired of hearing the same stories, Luke told one of her workers to pose as her husband when she went to meet the 60-year-old businessman who owned the apartment she was shown days earlier. She loved the spacious compound as well as the wide room and clean bathroom and didn’t want to miss it on account of being a single woman.
After meeting the landlord with one of her workers and claiming they were married, she got the apartment and moved in two weeks after. Luke has been living happily since then and doesn’t wish her experience for any single lady because it’s not only frustrating but emotionally and psychologically draining to suffer because of something one does not have power over.
Why landlords don’t rent apartments to single women
Regardless of state of origin, level of education and even occupation, it seems that some landlords and landladies, especially in Lagos, have deep reservations about giving out their houses to single women for residential purposes. Sadly, the same treatment is meted out to some widows.
But as common as this is, there are also landlords who are not bothered about the marital status of their prospective tenants; what matters to them is the ability of such a tenant to pay their rents subsequently. All their prospective tenants need to do is disclose their annual income. Some even go a step further by asking for bank statement from their prospective tenants.
Some landlords who spoke to Saturday Sun explained that culture and past experiences informed their reluctance to give their houses to single women. Mr. Ajayi Abiodun who owns a block of six flats in Aguda, Surulere in Lagos, said he would rather rent his house out to married couples than to single ladies. He said he wouldn’t mind asking for marriage certificate if he had any suspicion, adding that past experiences had taught him some lessons.
According to him, he regretted giving out three flats to single ladies in the past. He couldn’t stand their many late night parties and the different men trooping in and out of their flats even at odd hours. At a point, he became afraid that something bad might happen to these ladies in his premises and he would be blamed for it.
“I had to evict them when they started coming home with different men, before they influence the female children in the neighbourhood. I didn’t want the young girls in my compound to think that the best way to live life was to be wild and free.”
Abiodun noted that while it is wrong for men and women to be sleeping around, he added that our culture frowns more at women who sleep with different men. He also added that men are more discreet when it comes to having multiple sexual partners than women. “Though these ladies had money to pay for their rent as and when due, I evicted them because of their lifestyle. I want money no doubt but I don’t want to make it at the expense of the young children who should learn from the adults around them,” he said.
Mrs. Adejoke Soyemi, 60-year-old property owner in Ikorodu road told Saturday Sun why she would never rent her house to a single woman no matter how good she appeared or how much she earns. She said apart from the belief that the comfort and freedom of living alone could encourage unmarried ladies to remain single; such women could go wild and turn the house to a meeting point for all kinds of men, especially those who use that as a source of income.
She said: “I have had instances where estate agents bring single ladies to me but I don’t think twice about it, because you don’t know which among them would turn the house to brothel. Besides, it’s not dignifying for a grown up woman not to have a husband. It is not our culture.”
Soyemi added that parents are giving their female children too much liberty to live wild lives. She said that when her daughter was single and working with a big company, she stayed with her until a man came to seek her hand in marriage and she believes that is the way it should be, given our culture.
Beyond the cultural sentiment, interactions with some landlords also revealed that some landlords and their wives reject single ladies to protect their homes. Some wives of landlords are of the view that allowing a single woman into their homes could serve as temptation for their husbands or their adult male children.
Mrs. Roseline Onyeukwu, who lives with her husband and four children in one of their blocks of eight three-bedroom flats in Surulere said allowing a single woman into the midst of married men may yield catastrophic consequences for marriages especially if the men are lecherous. “I wouldn’t want my husband to fall into the hands of young women especially if they are beautiful and rich because he is human and therefore prone to temptations,” she said.
According to her, couples are easier to deal with than single ladies who are arrogant because of their financial independence. The sense of responsibility is higher in couples than in females who are single, she added.
She further added: “Although single men are also guilty of the same reasons why landlords don’t want single women, our society has a way of looking down on women who live alone more than men. That sentiment is always there.”