Etiquette: Nyumba Kumi elders faulted for advice to Nakuru residents squabbling over hanging underwears on clothesline

By , K24 Digital
On Thu, 16 Apr, 2020 10:21 | < 1 min read
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Nyumba Kumi officials have had to be called to settle disputes in Nakuru town plots over whether its okay to hang underwears outside. PHOTO | COURTESY
Nyumba Kumi officials have had to be called to settle disputes in Nakuru town plots over whether its okay to hang underwears outside. PHOTO | COURTESY

It’s not just families who are fighting and disagreeing among themselves amid coronavirus pandemic, but neighbours’ in some plots in Nakuru town are clawing at each other over the perceived bad manners of hanging knickers on clothesline like the national flag.

In one of the incidents witnessed by KNA in a Nakuru town plot, Nyumba-Kumi elders were called to solve a disagreement over the appropriate ways of drying underpants.

John Chege, a resident, said they were called in by their landlord to assist in the escalating wars of what some members of the plot perceived to be indecency in the displaying of underpants on the cloth line as if they are national flags. 

Chege said they solved the conflicts by advising all the adult members of the plot to dry their undergarments inside bathrooms for the sake of decency. 

However, a nurse in Nakuru West Dispensary, Harun Kerama, faulted the Nyumba Kumi advice saying it is wrong and misleading, explaining that if undergarments are not dried properly may lead to fungal infections.

The nurse said that sunlight is a natural killer of bacteria and undergarments should be hung out to dry outside rather than in the bathroom.

Kerama added that in the worst-case scenario the pants which are dried in the bathroom remain dump and that could easily cause candidiasis which leads to thrush on the tongue, private parts and it is costly to treat.

But Mzee Chege disagreed with him and stated that displaying adults’ undergarments in cloth lines is disrespectful to neighbours and goes against African traditions.

There has been a notable increase in domestic violence since the enforcement of the Covid-19 regulations, which require families to stay indoors, a move aimed to assist in breaking the chain of infections of the diseases.