Two households in the vicinity had their dogs poisoned recently. The people concerned asked for their identities to be kept secret out of fear of victimisation.

“I think they poisoned my dog because she kept on barking the moment someone entered the yard. So they could not do as they please without the fear of being discovered,” one of the neighbours said.

“This is a house from hell. Everyone comes here to do nasty things,” another neighbour complains.

Drug addicts and criminals frequently visit the empty house. Power cables have been ripped out of the walls and everything of value has long been stolen by scrap thieves. The ceiling has a gaping hole in it, big enough for several people to climb into should the need to hide arise.

In the bathroom human excrement lie in smelly piles on the floor, the toilet long forgotten. Green flies, going from pile to pile, were the only occupants of the house when the Middelburg Observer visited the premises.

The neighbours complain that they cannot look out their windows at the house without the fear of seeing something shocking taking place.

One woman tells of seeing a boy, which she estimates to be no older than 13, making jerking movements.

“I thought he was busy with something naughty, like breaking something. But when I took a closer look I got the fright of my life.”

The boy was busy having intercourse with an older man. When they saw that they were being watched, the man simply carried the boy into one of the backrooms and continued with their business.

When the boy was confronted later on he simply denied having sex or doing anything wrong.

Rumors that an attempted murder took place in the vicinity of the house after a woman’s handbag was stolen and the robbers ran into the vacant house, could not be confirmed by police.

People in the area say however that they have been warned by police to steer clear of the house because it is a known criminal hangout.

The owner of the house, Jurie Ras, lives near Lydenburg. He said that everything went well with the property until his now ex-wife, suggested they sell the property.

“The tenants moved out because they became fed-up with allowing strangers into their house, opening their closet and invading their privacy every time a prospective buyer wanted to look at it.”

The house has been vacant for more than six months and has been so severely damaged that it seems improbable that it can be fixed.

“I hope the scrap thieves break it down until there is nothing left. Then I can build a couple of flats,” said Mr Ras.

He is currently busy developing the Steenkampsberg Trout Lodge near Lydenburg and planned to pay attention to the house in Middelburg only in 2015.

After he was told about the state thereof and the complaints of the neighbours, Mr Ras undertook to make the time to travel to Middelburg, with the needed equipment, and demolish the house within the next month.

“I will make sure there is nothing left to steal and nowhere left to hide.”

• Two men were last week arrested whilst they were busy stripping copper wires in a deserted house in Dennesig. Cornelius Thomas Johannes Horgan (28) and Corrie Marais (29) appeared in the Middelburg court on a charge of theft. Drug paraphernalia was found hidden in a leather pouch on one of the men.

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