Kathmandu, June 5: Getting a rented room has become a challenging task in Kathmandu. As, the earthquake has damaged many houses and people are now in search of rented room for their temporary stay.
Inorder to continue the effective day-to-day life many people are seeking for temporarily stay in the capital. Similarly, various facukty has beeen hampered including for work, studies and business in the management of their rented room, which was also damaged in the quake. Many people left for their home towns while some are living under tents since the quake struck.
Similarly, complaines have been made by some of the tenants of the landlord’s decision to hike the rent charge following the quake. Complaints of people not getting a room on rent and landlords charging them exorbitantly has been increasingly receivied by the Hello Sarkar, a hotline telephone service of the government.
Rupesh Yadav, originally from Saptari and now living in Kirtipur of Kathmandu said that the quake actually also helped improve relations between the landlord and the tenants as they were all together inside the same tent during and after the quake where some landlords actually waived a month’s rent considering the sufferings that their tenants suffered.
Uttima Bhandari, who owns a house in Kalanki, said that this was a time for everyone to come to one another’s rescue so, she decided to waive a month’s rent so as to provide some relief to her tenant who suffered loss during the quake.
Hari Adhikari from Dhading who was living on rent in higher floors in the capital houses said that though the house he was living did not suffer any damage where he was living in the fourth floor is looking for a room in the lower floors so that he can run out soon after an earthquake strikes. Like him many of the people living on higher floors too have been searching for rooms in the first or second floor.
Supporting the tenants, the Ministry of Home Affairs had issued a statement urging all house owners in the capital and urban centres not to raise the rent amount. However, with renting service yet to come under the local authorities’ radar, enforcing the directive is a challenging task as well.
