In our culture, we always find it hard to look at things, people and situations beyond what is presented on the surface. Most people take things at face value and by 'most people', I've also found myself in that category at certain times in the past.
Believing things to be exactly how they present themselves on the surface has also been the reason why a whole lot of people have gotten the short end of the stick in several situations. Think of all the victims of scams and shams. While it's not very obvious that they got scammed because of their fault, one of the undeniable facts is that they fell for the scam and sham because they didn't dig deep enough into the offer on the table.
Truly, all that glitters are not Gold. The statement stands tall the more you get to experience life in its truest form. I have an experience to share on this and I hope y'all get to learn from it.
The House Hunting Experience
After wrapping up my National Youth Service in the first half of 2021, I travelled from the northern part of Nigeria to the Southeastern part of the country so I can live with my family and get my finances right before fully moving out from home to start an adventure of my life.
I lived from February to July (2021) before I started to dig into moving into a space of my own. We have 36 states in Nigeria and I had the finances to start life in any of the 36 states. However, I narrowed down my search to Oyo State. In my usual fashion of living in the capital whenever I go to most places, I decided to start a House Hunting exercise in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.
House Hunting in Nigeria is not exactly an easy exercise. It's as wild as it gets and it's not uncommon to House hunt for 3 months without getting a house that suits your taste in a very decent location. It gets worse when you can't directly engage in the house hunt yourself.
For crying out loud, the distance from where I was living with my family to the Southeastern part of the country where I'm house hunting is 455km away.
Yeah. Not cool, right?
I genuinely wanted to go through the house-hunting process from that distance, so I consequently got in touch with SEVERAL real estate agents who run their businesses in the City I plan to move into. Each of them came forward with lies. I gave them a description of the kinda house I wanted to rent. However, every single one of them sent pictures of buildings that just didn't match what I asked for.
After going back and forth with them, I decided to go through a friend who was born and currently living in the town I planned to relocate to. Since he was there, he would easily go to the houses to have a first look and be sure it meets my specs before I go ahead to make the payment.
He took on the House hunt on my behalf and we were able to get a very decent house that matches everything I needed. The House was just getting completed and I was going to be the first tenant to live in the compound. Everything looked perfect on the outside even though it wasn't painted. Turns out landlords in Ibadan don't paint houses for reasons best known to them. Lol.
I took care of the painting, paid all the fees in addition to the yearly rent and moved into my new home by October 2021. When I moved in, I started to find faults with so many things in the house. It was ridiculous.
The plumbing was poorly done
The water supply in the building was poor
The electrical works had to be redone
We paid for security, yet no security personnel were hired by the landlord.
Things were messed up and it cost a fortune to fix the fixable things. I even had to redo the plumbing in the kitchen. I remember paying a fortune to work on the soakaway pit. I have already paid a year's worth of rent and I was ready to live there for a year. However, the inconveniences became a little too much when we entered the rainy season.
I got to realize that rainfall somehow manages to get into my building whenever it rains. That was just a few months after moving into the building.
On one particular occasion, I travelled out of town and came home later to notice that my apartment was already a mess. It didn't even rain heavily, yet the foodstuffs in my home got damaged badly. Thank Goodness... Most of my electrical gadgets didn't get affected. However, I was not ready to risk that anymore.
I started looking for a new house and luckily came across one that's so much better than the former. I decided to move out despite having 5½ months of paid rent in the initial building. Don't get curious about what happened to that rent though. Haha.
It's an experience I learned so much from. Now, whenever I'm doing any transaction of any sort, I pay special attention so I can get something that is worth the price. You know, all that glitters are not gold.
Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop Or Comma.
Thumbnail Image is taken from Unsplash