Given these circumstances, landlords building new houses or tenements to let could count on losing their entire property to fire every three to five years. In order to recover and fructify their investment within this short period, they resorted to building low-cost wooden structures for which they charged exorbitant rent (in the case of nasaya, however, there was a limit beyond which rents could not rise). In other words, included as part of rent for paid by the poor for lodgings no better than wooden barracks was a charge corresponding to “fire insurance” However, the crudely constructed wood- and bark-roofed buildings put up by landlords were extremely vulnerable to fire, thus assuring that the vicious cycle would repeat itself