Boarding houses rentals too high

Dear Editor,

Allow me to express my concern over exorbitant rentals some landlords are charging for their boarding houses in Lusaka. My heart bleeds for parents who have more than one child or students in tertiary institutions.

How will such parents afford these excessive rentals coupled with the tuition fees?

Some landlords have taken advantage of the prevailing shortage of student accommodation to charge unreasonably high rentals per bed space of between K900 and K2000 per month.

While we appreciate the buildings are theirs and can they charge as much as they wish, surely, there is the human side of life, and it is not just about making a killing or is it?

Even disappointing is the fact that despite students paying these huge amounts per month, some landlords have totally failed to provide security and worse still, their houses are of low standards.

For example, in some boarding houses, floors are not tiled, no warm water, overcrowding in rooms, substandard kitchen and study facilities. Further, some landlords have even failed to provide Wi-Fi facilities to help students in their research and academic assignments.

What is worrying is that some landlords do not even care to enforce the rules in their boarding houses such as visiting time and general rules pertaining to morality.

Resultantly, we hear stories about students spending time partying, going out on drinking sprees and coming back late against the given time.

As a concerned parent, and I am sure others feel the same, I urge landlords to strictly enforce the rules at their boarding houses or they risk becoming breeding grounds of immorality. Jones K Katuta Lusaka