Painful lesson for a peeping Tom

By Mwangi Muiruri

A man who has been spying on couples in their bedrooms in Githurai 45 was recently beaten senselessly by fellow tenants.

He is said to have been obsessed with listening to couples having sex.

Identified only as Mukwana and in his early 30s, he is accused of staying out until the lights went off in target couples’ rooms and then tiptoeing to the window to listen to the pillow talk.

The apartment’s caretaker says he had received complaints that an unknown person was peeping and moving around the premises at night.

"Tenants suspected that it was a burglar but they were not sure," the caretaker says.

After receiving numerous complaints, he decided to investigate.

"I made patrols and there was nothing unusual. But before I giving up I made an interesting discovery," he recalls.

He often found Mukwana at the communal sink doing nothing.

"He would be standing there doing no laundry or fetching water. The odd behaviour sounded a bell in my mind," says the caretaker.

He would salute Mukwana and even engage him in small talk and saw nothing unusual.

"But the complaints persisted and some tenants became paranoid to the extent of fearing to leave their houses at night," he says.

Fear was real

After some tenants threatened to move out and claims that there was a night runner, the caretaker became apprehensive.

"I realised the fear was real and I had to do something about it," he says.

On the night of June 10, the caretaker hid on the top floor of the building and kept vigil.

"At 11.30pm, I saw Mukwana move out of his room towards the sink. He looked around and on realising nobody was around, he made towards the door of one of the tenants," he recalls.

He tiptoed and pressed his right ear to the window and appeared to be excited about something.

Mukwana is said to have moved to three other flats before the caretaker shouted at him.

"He ran back to his room. I went there and threatened to break down the door and flush him out," Njeru says.

He attempted to bribe the caretaker to obtain his silence but some tenants had already stormed out after the noise and apprehended him.

"He was almost killed but I dissuaded them fearing that the police might make it a big issue and I would be victimised," he says.

Mukwana confessed that he was too shy and poor to approach a woman for sex.