Residents at Haven Park Apartments in Ruaka, Kiambu County, have raised grievances over what they describe as persistent negligence by the management, setting the stage for a dispute that has been building for weeks and that now threatens to draw attention to the way the property is being run.
The management in question is Fahari Realtors Limited, the firm tasked with the operational oversight of the complex, and it is this entity that residents hold responsible for the conditions they say they have been forced to endure.
Behind the apartments, however, sits a far more consequential figure, with the property linked to billionaire Mary Wambui, a shrewd businesswoman whose deep networks in the ruling regime have placed her at the centre of some of the most lucrative state appointments and procurement deals of the past three years, and whose ties to President William Ruto have made her a figure of both influence and controversy.
It is that proximity to power, residents say, that has made their complaints feel futile, because the woman they believe sits behind the property is not an ordinary landlord but a well-connected operator whose reach extends into the institutions that are supposed to hold landlords to account, and whose daughter, Evelyne Nyambura Mungai, is said to be associated with the managing agency and therefore positioned to know exactly what tenants are enduring.
The family's track record has done little to reassure the residents, because Wambui and her daughter have in recent years found themselves at the centre of disputes that raise uncomfortable questions about how they conduct their business, including a court ruling this week that cleared the way for the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to investigate their ties to a state fibre supplier over ownership changes and alleged proxy arrangements that the court said must be probed rather than waved away by the Attorney General.
At the heart of the complaints at Haven Park is a water shortage that has left residents without supply for days on end, even as the bills they receive at the end of every month continue to reflect charges for a service that is not being delivered.
The residents say they have lodged these complaints through formal channels and informal appeals, and that each attempt has been met with silence or indifference, leaving them with no recourse but to escalate their grievances beyond the management's office.
It is against this backdrop that they have now issued a formal demand, one they say has been ignored, and it is this refusal to engage that has pushed them to seek a wider audience for their plight.
The residents' frustration is rooted in a simple question they say has never been answered: who actually controls the entity running their building, and to whom does it answer when something goes wrong?
For the tenants of Haven Park, the answer matters less as a matter of corporate structure than as a matter of basic dignity, because they are paying for services they are not receiving, and they say the people responsible have shown no intention of addressing the problem.
"Good afternoon Cyprian. I'm a resident at Haven Park Apartments in Ruaka managed by Fahari Agents. We as residents have been going through lots of issues occasioned by the negligence of the management. We have been without water for a week now and the management doesn't give a damn and inflate our water bills on a monthly basis yet they don't do anything to help in situations like this. On top of this the management has failed in most of its duties and don't even care that residents have asked them time and time again to fix these issues. We have even issued a formal demand which they continue to ignore. Kindly highlight our plight and maybe then this management will take us seriously. It is also believed that the apartments are owned by Mary Wambui (Wambui wa Ruto) and the daughter has first-hand information on what is going on being a member of the agency, but they just do not care."
