An abandoned mansion in Barangay Simsimon, Mati, Davao Oriental, harbors one of the most complex hauntings in Mindanao — a convergence of poltergeist activity, supernatural imagery, and ancestral wrath that has kept the building vacant for years. Former residents and visitors describe a house that seems to resist human habitation, punishing those who enter with escalating disturbances.
The most basic phenomena are the sounds: stairs creaking under invisible weight, doors slamming in rooms with no draft, and the rhythmic tapping of footsteps pacing the upper floor. These are consistent across accounts and have been reported by multiple former residents who occupied the house at different times, each eventually driven out by the persistence and intensity of the disturbances.
The most disturbing legend attached to the house involves a portrait. According to local accounts, the mansion contains a painting of a mother holding a child — an unremarkable domestic scene until witnesses claim the child in the portrait transforms into a tiyanak, a vampiric infant-creature from Filipino folklore. The child's face distorts, its mouth opens impossibly wide, and the painting begins to weep blood from the tiyanak's eyes. Whether this legend is based on an actual painting or has accreted around the house's reputation over time, it speaks to the deep-rooted Mindanaoan fear of the tiyanak — spirits of unbaptized or abandoned infants who take monstrous form to prey on the living.
The most compelling explanation offered by locals for the haunting centers on the house's original owner. According to the story, the patriarch left explicit instructions that his remains should be carried with the family wherever they relocated. When his heirs abandoned the house and left his remains behind, his spirit — furious at the disrespect — transformed the mansion into a place of perpetual unrest. In Filipino culture, the obligation to honor the dead and maintain their physical remains is among the most sacred family duties, and the violation of a deathbed wish is considered an invitation for supernatural retribution.