The ManicaPost
Tinashe Mlambo
Weekender Reporter
A MUTARE man yanked his nosey neighbour to Mutare Civil Court, seeking a peace order against her for taking charge of his parent’s house without his consent.
Macdonald Marange filed for a peace order against Georgina Gurwa, accusing her of needlessly meddling in their internal family affairs.
The two estranged neighbours appeared before Mutare magistrate, Mr Xavier Chipato, who ruled in favour of the applicant, and granted him the peace order.
“Your Worship, my neighbour is interfering with everything at my late parent’s place. We started staying together as neighbours in 2015, and in 2018 my brother, Brandon Zumba started getting along with Gurwa. At the time, I left the family house with my brother in charge.
“I later received sad news from Gurwa that my brother had hanged himself inside the house. We buried our brother and cleaned the whole house. I left some tenants in charge of it. She started telling my tenants that the house was haunted as someone had hanged himself inside it.
“I later came back and realised that she had put new tenants in the house and was collecting all the rentals. When I asked her, she said she was ordered to do so by my sister,” said Marange.
Marange said Gurwa does not respect him.
“She does what she wants at the house. She does not inform me of any developments at the house as the person legally in charge of the property. Even if she reports to my sister as she claims, both of them have no legal rights to interfere with the decisions I make at the house. The estate is still to be finalised and I have full legal control of the house,” he said.
Gurwa hit back at Marange, saying he was not responsible and hands-on.
“In 2021, his young brother died and I called their relatives and the police. The relatives said I should be involved in all matters to do with the house since I was the one who had seen Zumba’s body hanging from the roof trusses. He disconnected electricity and water at the house, claiming he wanted to exorcise an evil spirit that was hovering in the yard. He just abandoned the house like that,” she said.
Gurwa said she was not the one collecting rentals from the tenants at the house.
“His sister is the one who directs me on what to do at the house. I have never collected rentals from the house in question. All the money goes to his sister who is in Harare,” she said. Mr Chipato ruled that only Marange has legal control of the property.
“Mr Marange, the house was left in your custody, and you are the one with the legal authority to make decisions about it. No one else has the right to rent out rooms or interfere in any way with the property. You have the power to remove all the tenants, as you were given this responsibility by the law,” he said.
