Tenant's under-garments disappear, bed mysteriously catches fire in haunted house

With stones and bricks pelting them every now and then and water mysteriously springing from underneath their beds, Ms Patricia Matari and her mother do not even know what to expect next in their house which is located in Kuwadzana Phase 3.

Then strange fires come from nowhere to consume pieces of upholstery.

Even their clothes disappear.

Whether their house is haunted or not remains a point of conjecture.

But what is certain is the trauma of the owner of the house and her daughter.

"These things have been happening since June 2016. We thought they would end but they haven't. We are now afraid of living in our house," Ms Matari told The Sunday Mail.

The Mataris, well known in their neighbourhood, bought the property through a co-operative in 1995.

Mr Matari died years ago, leaving his widow to fend for the family, and all seemed perfectly normal until last month.

Ms Matari recounted that one afternoon, she and her mother were startled to hear the sound of stones hitting one of the house's inner walls.

They investigated but could not establish what was going on. Only the stones were recovered.

No one else was around at the time, save for the pair.

So who could have thrown the stones?

It was a mystery that got the mother and daughter on their knees in prayer.

Days passed before the next mystery.

This time around, Ms Matari's daughter who is of school-going age was injured when stones were thrown at her inside the house.

Two neighbours, Ms Madeline Towo and one Mai Blessing, were fortunate to escape unharmed as pebbles were also thrust their way.

But as before, only the stones were recovered, with no concrete leads to the strange episodes.

"Some time last week I had nightmares. In the morning, stones were thrown in a manner that I had never seen before. It was so intense that I had to hide behind some items in the house until I managed to get out," says Ms Matari, tears flooding her eyes.

"I went back inside after things had cooled down. I then started praying as I'd been instructed by a prophet we had consulted the previous day. As I was praying, I felt heat all over my legs. l then realised that my bed was on fire," she said.

"I stay here with my mother and a tenant. This is a family house. Last Thursday, the tenant's undergarments disappeared as she was bathing.

"Just the other day, we also discovered human waste in one of the bedrooms. We don't really know what is going on. This is a really traumatic experience, we are not sleeping peacefully," she narrated.

Mai Blessing chipped in.

"Stones are being thrown there and some of them have landed in our yard at times. This has been happening for some time, but it appears to have worsened over the course of the week," she said.

The Sunday Mail visited the home last week to get a first hand experience.

When our team got there, scores of residents were at the house to offer their support to the Mataris.

Roman catholic members were present to pray with Ms Matari, one of their own.

The arrival of our crew seemed to take the crowd aback, suddenly there was silence.

Would The Sunday Mail proceed into treacherous territory without any qualms about the dreary tales?

That was the question on their minds, it appeared.

Ms Matari invited us to proceed into the house, explaining that her mother was not available to take us on this unusual tour.

While any other six-roomed structure which is still under construction is not intimidating, entering this particular one was spine-chilling.

As we were about to make the first step into the house, the crowd behind us made a rapturous shout.

It was a call for us to back off.

There was genuine fear that danger lurked behind those unpainted walls.

Cowardice and gallantry stood face to face.

Apprehension lingered but gallantry eventually won and we negotiated our way through the kitchen and ended up in the bedroom where the mysterious fire had started.

By this time, more people had made their way into the house, now emboldened.

No fire started, no water appeared, no stones were thrown at us and our clothes were not stolen.

The tour ended with the crowd concluding that the mysteries are spiritual.

Ms Matari vowed to stay put; besides, she and her mother have nowhere else to go.

Contacted for comment, Zimbabwe National Practitioners' Association president Sekuru Friday Chisanyu said, "In most cases, there might be someone in that family who could have murdered a person with stones and threw his or her body away.

"Mhosva hairovi, the spirit of that dead person might be trying to avenge. They must look for the information and pay back – kuripira – otherwise more dreadful things will befall them," said Sekuru Chisanyu.

God's Power House Ministries leader Apostle Michael Shumba said, "The family needs to pray without ceasing. With God, everything is possible. This is just Satan who is up to his usual tricks."