Single Mum Building Dream House, Says She's Braved Journey After Being Evicted

• On the eve of Christmas, Susan Warui and her two sons aged 10 and seven were thrown out of their rented house over rent arrears
• It was Susan's lowest point, one that made the single mum feel like she had let down her children
• The low moment turned out to be a blessing in disguise as she started building and recently moved into the incomplete house, but with the peace of not paying rent

After procrastinating for several years, Susan Warui embarked on an ambitious project to build her dream house in Matasia, Ngong.

It was a decision she arrived at after hitting her lowest point in time on December 24 when her landlord evicted them over rent arrears.

Felt she'd let her sons down

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The single mother told TUKO.co.ke that when that happened, she felt she had let down her two sons aged 10 and seven.

What was meant to break her became the motivation as she wanted to have a home that nobody would ever evict them.

When I rose again, my dream was just have the house done. I figured out I can buy something to improve the structure every end month with the money I'd been spending on rent," she said.

It was a bold decision but the turning point she needed because these days, she finds herself doing improvements every month, however small.

Sons were biggest cheerleaders

According to Susan, the journey has not been easy but her biggest motivation came from the push by her boys.

"On better days, we would cook nyama or matumbo and eat at the site then they would sleep over, so they literally owned the process," the young mother said proudly.

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Her other cheering squad was friends who know most of her past ups and downs, her nuclear family, and the builders themselves.

Susan reveals the builders would give timelines and cheer her up, sometimes proposing to work on loan as long as she raised some money for materials.

Not an easy road

She was also lucky to land suppliers who were good to her despite not meeting any of them physically as transactions were through the phone.

"They came to trust me. Today, if I ask for a load of sand to pay end month, I am given without many questions. When I get money, I pay," she added.

Having been there done that, Susan says the hardest part was starting, getting guidance, and the right people to work with.

She lamented the challenges of a single woman building such a house alone as men, who are the majority players in the industry, look down upon women.

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"They think you don't know what you want. You also get a lot of chauvinist and naysayers who think a woman cannot build, so I vowed to only work with those who believed in me," she said.

Errors and omissions

Susan moved into the incomplete house in April this year despite not having some of the would-be basics like curtains.

But she wanted the peace of living in her own house, which also gave her the opportunity to point out the mistakes she had made during the process.

"The first mistake was altering the plan too much, because I ended up with more rooms than I needed, and a kitchen smaller than it originally was," she expressed.

The dotting mother is hopeful that she will manage to talk her neighbor, who is yet to build, into selling her the adjacent plot so that she increases her free space.

Mother receives house

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Elsewhere, another single mother named Lydiah Wamuyu shed tears of joy when she was handed her the keys to a three-bedroom house she had been paying for off-plan.

It marked the culmination of a 12-month journey which started with taking a leap of faith and depositing KSh 500,000 for a structure she could not see.

What made the handover to the house she calls "My London" even more memorable was that it coincided with her 50th birthday.

Since moving into her own house, Wamuyu has been visiting different countries in the world to congratulate herself for achieving the home ownership dream.

Source: TUKO.co.ke