Nairobi, Kenya, Dec 1-Tenants at Nairobi’s 20 Sports Road apartments in Westlands want the Nairobi County Government to order the owner of a security company in their neighborhood to relocate his dogs over noise pollution which they say has become a major nuisance.
According to some of the tenants who spoke to Capital FM news, the dogs belonging to Babs Security Services tend to bark from 3 a.m. until 12 p.m. depriving the residents, of a decent sleep.
“I have been to Airbnb’s because I just want to experience one peaceful night. I have been patient and I am now tired,” Christopher Mbugua, a tenant told Capital FM News.
He said the worst affected are school-going children and infants in the neighborhood who have found it difficult to get any sleep over the dogs’ constant barking, yelping, howling, and whining.
Mbugua stated that, despite the security company sitting on about an acre of property, the dog kennels were installed just 20 feet from their apartment walls.
“On the other side of their property is a road that leads to nothing. We requested that the dogs be moved to the other side. They said that they would relocate the dogs in March year, and they agreed to do so, arguing that the dogs only bark when they return from work,” he said.
However, according to Mbugua, the company has declined to comply more than five months after the City Council Inspector recommended that the dogs be moved to another location.
“There is a prove of dog nuisance and the owner has agreed to relocate the dogs to another part of the compound (which is next to the road) away from the other residents,” reads the summary of the findings of the inspection signed by the city inspector. It is dated April 26.
Instead of moving the dogs based on the recommendations, the tenant says the owner called their landlord and asked him to ask the tenants to stop bothering him.
“Not only did they not move the dogs, they increased in number and told us that there is nothing we can do to them as they are well connected with even the police in their pocket,” he claimed.
An email correspondence between the property manager and the complainant seen by Capital FM News dated May 12 indicates that the company was working on moving the dogs, but the tenant says no action has been taken to date.
“As I promised, I am working on the moving as you know it’s a capital investment. And the area they are being moved to is not here so please be patient,” reads the email correspondence in part.
Capital FM News sought a comment from Babs Security which pledged to reach out later but had not done so by the time of publication.
Evans Maroko, the acting property manager of the 20 Sports Road apartments, on his part said that the problem of noise pollution has been ongoing for over a year and that their efforts to seek assistance from the Nairobi City Council have been futile
“We have complained to the City council, I don’t know what they normally do, they just come into the property, they walk out and no action is taken,” Maroko said.
Maroko said that they have raised the issue at least four times with no success.
Kokil Shah, the property’s landlord said that the issue has become a major nuisance to his tenants and proposed the initiation of stringent measures to combat noise pollution caused by noisy dogs in the residential areas. He noted that the owner of Babs security has declined to listen to their complaints saying that he (the Babs owner) keeps threatening them that he is “well connected.”
“The Babs owner he is so powerful, he tells us “You may lodge any number of complaints, half of the MPS know me, the owner of the property knows me, everybody knows me. you might complain to whatever level you want to.” He is basically not worried about it,” he said.
Shah called on the Nairobi County Governor to intervene on the matter just like the recent crackdown on bars in residential areas.
“If the Nairobi County can give the instruction about the bars, why not about the security dogs also in the residential areas,” he said.
Section 20(4) of the Nairobi City County Public Nuisance Act 2021 provides that “a person who keeps within the City-County any animal or poultry which is a nuisance to the residents in the neighborhood commits an offence.”
