A study of tenants' maintenance awareness, responsibility and satisfaction in institutional housing in Nigeria.

ABSTRACT. The housing problem in Nigeria is both quantitative and qualitative. The qualitative aspect, which has to do with the maintenance of the existing stock, has assumed greater significance because of the need to preserve the existing stock and bring it to acceptable standards of living. Tenants in institutional housing are major stakeholders who directly bear the brunt of the disrepair of the houses. Hence they have a role to play to optimise the maintenance of their houses within the very limited resources available to the maintenance departments. The study was carried out to evaluate the maintenance awareness and responsibilities of tenants and quantitatively analyse their satisfaction with the state of maintenance of their houses. The results showed that the tenants had a high level of maintenance awareness and responsibility but their satisfaction with the maintenance of their houses was just average.

KEYWORDS: Maintenance; Institutional housing; Tenant issues; Nigeria

SANTRAUKA

KA NIGERIJOS GYVENTOJAI ZINO APIE INSTITUCIJU BUSTU PRIEZIURA, KOKS JU ATSAKOMYBES LYGIS IR KAIP JUOS TENKINA SIE BUSTAI

Adebayo A. OLADAPO

Nigerijoje busto problema yra ir kiekybine, ir kokybine. Kokybinis aspektas, susijes su turimu istekliu prieziura, tapo svarbesnis kilus poreikiui issaugoti ir sutvarkyti turimus isteklius, kad jie atitiktu priimtinus gyvenimo standartus. Instituciju bustu gyventoju yra gana daug, jie tiesiogiai patiria nesuremontuotu bustu nepatogumu. Taigi jie suinteresuoti prisideti prie namu prieziuros optimizavimo, nors tam naudojami labai riboti prieziuros departamentu istekliai. Siekiant ivertinti, ka is tiesu gyventojai zino apie prieziura ir koks ju atsakomybes lygis, bei kiekybiskai isanalizuoti ju pasitenkinima namu prieziuros bukle, buvo atliktas tyrimas. Rezultatai parode, kad gyventojai yra labai atsakingi ir daug zino apie busto prieziura, bet ju pasitenkinimas namu prieziura tera vidutinis.

1. INTRODUCTION

Housing is universally acknowledged as the second most essential human need after food and is a major economic asset in every nation. This fact is underscored by a statement in the foreword to Foster's (2000) report that "Good quality housing provides the foundations for stable communities and social inclusion". So and Leung (2004) have also established a positive correlation between the quality of life and the comfort, convenience and visual appeal of houses.

A United Nations report in 1976 described the problem of housing in Africa as far from being only technical and economic, but also a problem of social development in its widest sense, encompassing legal, educational and community-building aspects and directed at real human and social improvement (van Wyk and van Wyk, 2001). Indeed, van Wyk and van Wyk (2001) made the important point that "it is apparent that the problems of housing, urban development and economic development are closely interrelated". They added that housing certainly has a large potential to contribute towards providing people with 'the opportunity to live full human lives', and hence contributes positively towards all aspects of development--psychological, social, economic, cultural and institutional, in the individual, community and societal contexts.

Against this background, it is not surprising that since the colonial era (before independence in 1960) successive governments in Nigeria have embarked on programmes to provide housing for public servants. These programmes recorded very little success, with some achieving as little as 15% of their set targets. Nigeria therefore accumulated a housing deficit estimated at five million new units by the year 2000, the target year of the UN's "Shelter for All" agenda. In addition, there was a backlog of maintenance required to bring existing units to acceptable standards of living, equivalent to the cost of three million new units (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1991).

It is clear from the foregoing that the housing problem in Nigeria is both quantitative and qualitative. In fact, Ozdemir (2002) regards the quality problem as the main problem in housing and advocates that housing policies should focus not only on the production of new housing units but also on improving the standards of the existing stock to meet current and changing standards. The qualitative aspect of the housing problem is the problem of maintenance. The problem of maintenance arises because buildings inevitably deteriorate with time due to effect of various causes.

As stated earlier, research has established a positive correlation between the quality of life of tenants and the comfort, convenience and visual appeal of houses. These attributes of a house, no doubt, are a function of its state of maintenance. This is because the essence of maintenance, by definition, is to keep a building in a condition appropriate to its use (El-Haram and Horner, 2002). The implication of this reality is that tenants have a very high stake in the maintenance of their houses, whether they are responsible for the maintenance or not. In fact, Bitner et al. (1997) believe that in the provision of services (like housing maintenance and repairs), the customers (including tenants) have vital roles to play in creating service outcomes to ultimately determine the value and level of satisfaction they receive. It is for this reason that this study aimed at assessing tenants' maintenance awareness and responsibility as well as their level of satisfaction with the maintenance of their houses.

To achieve the stated aim of this study, the following research questions were raised:

* What is tenants' level of understanding of the concept of maintenance?

* In what ways do tenants contribute to the state of maintenance of their houses?

* How do tenants prioritise competing maintenance demands?

* What is the tenants' level of satisfaction with the state of maintenance of their houses?

The following hypotheses were formulated and tested to seek answers to some of the research questions:

1. Null hypothesis ([H.sub.0]): There is no agreement among tenants in their maintenance priority preferences.

Alternative hypothesis ([H.sub.1]): There is agreement among tenants in their maintenance priority preferences.

2. Null hypothesis ([H.sub.0]): There is no significant difference between the maintenance priority preferences of tenants and the maintenance departments.

Alternative hypothesis ([H.sub.1]): There is significant difference in the maintenance priority preferences of tenants and the maintenance departments.

3. Null hypothesis ([H.sub.1]): There is no agreement among tenants in their satisfaction rating of the level of maintenance of their houses.

Alternative hypothesis ([H.sub.1]): There is agreement among tenants in their satisfaction rating of the level of maintenance of their houses.

4. Null hypothesis ([H.sub.0]): There is no significant correlation between users' perception of the level of maintenance of a particular building and the prevalent level of user satisfaction.

Alternative hypothesis ([H.sub.1]): There is significant correlation between users' perception of the level of maintenance of a particular building and the prevalent level of user satisfaction.

2. INSTITUTIONAL HOUSING IN NIGERIA

As a deliberate strategy, Nigeria's housing policies have over the years encouraged employers of labour in both the public and private sectors to provide housing for their workers. Thus in addition to barracks accommodation for the armed forces, the police and other paramilitary organisations, institutions like the Nigerian Railways, educational institutions (especially the universities) and even multinational oil companies, etc. have developed large housing estates for their employees.

Most of Nigeria's universities operate the residential system by which housing accommodation is provided for both students and staff on campus. Over the years these institutions have developed large housing estates, which are among the largest estates in the country in terms of land areas and number of units. Unlike most others (in both the public and private sectors), the university housing estates have well-organised technical departments responsible for the maintenance of the houses. For this reason and the fact that the university housing maintenance organisations are more accessible to researchers than most others, three large university housing estates having a total of 1357 units were selected for this study.

3. TENANTS' ROLES AND SATISFACTION IN HOUSING MAINTENANCE

Building users generate maintenance in two major ways. First, their normal use of buildings results in natural wear and tear as envisaged in the building design and specification. Second, their abuse of buildings, especially through vandalism, results in wilful damage to a building. Another way is perhaps what Olubodun (1996) called passive vandalism, which is wilful neglect of affordable maintenance responsibility by a user. This no doubt leads to further deterioration of the building condition and generates more maintenance. In their study of local authority housing in Scotland, El-Haram and Horner (2002) identified tenant factors like high expectation of tenants, improper use of the property and delay in reporting failures as very significant contributors to housing maintenance costs.