TENEMENT HOUSING AND INDUCED DOMESTIC CONFLICT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Human beings are naturally gregarious and no human being is an island on his own. There is therefore a need for them to interact, cohabit, and do things in common. The Port harcourt metropolis has witnessed continuous growth in demand for housing units by low-income earners for all types of properties, especially during the era of economic boom in the 1980s (Oni, 2008). The low-income earners have peculiar taste for tenement properties because of its low rent, though many of such properties lack basic amenities. The tenement type of residential properties usually consists of unit rooms flanking both sides of a central passage that connects the rooms to shared unit kitchens and toilets at the rear. Sometimes the kitchen is attached to the structure while the common toilets and bathrooms are in most cases detached from the main building. This structure of building was said to have originated from Brazil at the end of slave trade era. The property is also characterized by overcrowding and vices; with several individual families occupying unit rooms or room-and-parlours; and individual occupiers having differing tastes, aspirations and socio-cultural backgrounds. As a result of differing socio-cultural backgrounds, on many occasions the occupiers of the low-income houses engage in regualr arguments and in most cases may result to fighting and violence, and because of the population of occupiers, the facilities are inadequate with the use of available bathrooms, kitchens and toilets carried out on rotational basis. The occupiers often resort to cooking at the central passage. Disagreement, misunderstanding, quarrelling and open confrontations occasionally bloody do occur.

Conflicts are a natural part of human interaction and it is common amongst occupiers of land and buildings have been the concern of many individuals and body corporate. They occur amongst the occupiers of tenement houses in the port harcourt metropolis, and the need to examine the issue of conflicts amongst the low income housing residents with the aim of finding solution has made the study vey significant.

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