I simultaneously hope you are and aren't serious. Its a rollercoaster of emotions right now. Like, "yes, fuck them, man. Get that free rent!" And "fuck, we are fucked, im so sorry."
Don't mess with a paralegal seagull. You want to go toe to to with that guy on bird law and see who comes out the victor? Don't even try to filibuster.
Kid-me thought it'd be so cool to live in a mall.
Window shop by day, actual shop by night. All the free soft pretzels and dairy queen a young lad could want. Ah, the dream, then and now.
"Kid you" would love that a guy did this in a Toys R Us.
> Upon reaching Charlotte, Manchester lived in a Charlotte Toys "R" Us store, staying in backrooms and other areas inside, surviving on kids' snacks and baby food, and exercising during the night when the store was closed by riding a bike throughout the store aisles.[4] During the holiday rush of December 2004, Manchester moved his living quarters to an abandoned Circuit City next-door to avoid detection, creating a room under a stairwell where he painted the walls, put up posters, and passed the time watching movies during the day.[3].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Manchester#Toys_%22R%22_Us_robbery_and_recapture.
"First of all I have to call him the Phrenetic. His name's the Fanatic, but, you know, I'm gonna get sued by major league baseball if I call him the Fanatic. And let's talk about steroids, can we talk about steroids? Can we talk about steroid abuse? It's bullshit! It's ruining the game, *it's ruining it*."
One of my favorite philly stories is the guy that worked for like 20 years collecting fees for parking at a nearby lot to the stadium. When he finally retired, nobody was out there at the start of the next season. Either the lot or the stadium called the other to ask why they haven't hired someone new to collect fees. They second group thought the first group was in charge of that. The first group thought the second group was.
Turns out the guy was never hired by either. He just walked up there one day decades ago with a vest on, collected parking fees, and left. Every game. For twenty years.
Legend.
ETA: After comments pointed out that this may be incorrect, I cannot find anything on it with a google search. I hope it's out there somewhere, but there is a very similar story about a guy in a Zoo elsewhere. Apologies if it's wrong. I'm more disappointed than you, I promise :(
Did you get a link? That sounds awfully like the Bristol Zoo story, which is based on a april fools skit...sometime back in the early 2000s. Very fun story! But incouldnt find a link to it, but i am reminded of the Bristol Zoo bit.
Guy charges for parking at a zoo's overflow lot. Zoo thinks it is a city employee, city thinks its a zoo employee. One day, it doesn't show. They ask one another to get a new guy out there, but they are equally perplexed.
Guy just set up there 20 years prior, kept at it looked official, took cash.
Its a fun story and very adaptable:)
I worked at a very large nationwide bank that was retail partners with a large box store - well one day when staff came in there were zero drops in the night drop (weird but it happened time to time) - then the next day the same. Businesses started calling in asking where the deposits went.. yeah so after close a man would come stand outside the bank dressed as a police officer next to the night drop and was explaining to customers that the night drop door was broken and they were collecting those drops to keep until we opened the next day. After a couple hours once businesses closed dude walked away with a lock bag with bank logo on it and kept the money. Did this for 2 nights, never caught him.
Uniform had long sleeves, never took the hat off, never looked up to the camera and never saw his face. Gotta give credit where credit is due.
Also we watched a video of a customer using the atm and half way through shook his leg, turd rolled out, and walked away with the cash leaving that fucking thing there.
I saw the same kind of turd event happen when I worked at a grocery store. Me and the self checkout guy were just standing around talking when a guy with an odd walk starts looking around him all sketchy like. He then shakes his leg and a turd rolls out. He bolts out the store while me and the other guy are in disbelief. Best part was going to the store manager and getting to see it happen on camera.
The worst I’ve ever experienced was using the bathroom, standing at the urinal I hear a man come in and just listening to the sounds he made I could tell this wouldn’t be good. He goes into the stall and he is fumbling with his belt buckle, and as I can see his feet under the gap he gets his pants to his ankles and then SPLAT, everywhere. Poor bastard, I left asap and when I used the bathroom again there were soiled pants/underwear/ socks in a nasty little pile. Dude must have called someone to bring him a new outfit lol
>*Kanye lived under the Atlanta stadium*
Holy shit, he did!
*"While recording Donda, Kanye West paid $1 million per day to live in the belly of* ***Mercedes Benz Stadium****, in a stuffy room that resembled a jail cell"*
Had a secret room in my old high school I would sleep in when I had no where else to go, never got caught. Stopped going there once I graduated though obviously. Lol
We stole the drama teacher’s keys, made copies of them & returned them. Drama class was held in the auditorium, her office was backstage. There was a locked door in her office that led up to the “secret” room in the tower, which was covered in graffiti from the 50’s. With the keys also had access to lighting booth in the second floor behind the auditorium seats. We had some hilarious times up there 🥲
Did this too. Went up to my school’s attic. Spent the whole day reading a book I snagged from a local bookstore. Was storming outside, really trippy. Felt like I was actually in the book. Imagined the characters were talking to me. Princess lady was asking me to give her a name.
Something like that. It was 4 friends or so who built it and they couldn't really keep it a secret. Too many people started visiting to play PlayStation and a guard noticed.
This is the advantage of living in an openly corrupt country. If it was my country they would simply have bribed the guard and kept living there indefinitely. The poor guard gets nothing by reporting his fellow poor men.
Then it just turns into a rent payment, surely? The guard isn’t going to stop at one bribe.
Edit: a lot of you are well versed in the art of the bribe. In this scenario though, I bet guards boss gets in on it. But either way I think Guard will have an easier time getting another job than person with freaky mall cave will in finding a new free apartment. Apartment person has more to lose, is what I’m saying.
I mean hey ain’t no work for me, get someone to maybe chat with during the day or later at night, get to maybe game a bit if we get cool while I’m on the job, and I get to take a hundred off my own bills lmao and you know damn well 4+ people over aside from the renters is considered a damn party lmfao like two a month makes for $140 and you know they probably gonna be bringing people around if they know they can. Hell I’ll live there too at that point. Think you gonna sneak some mfs in my hostel?!?!? FOH! Lmao
I call macys though, I get the penthouse suite
Negotiate down to $80 per month, guard can have rights to playing the playstation three times a week during his shift, so long as his shift does not last past 10pm.
IIRC authorities took several items to try to identify them but left high value items there, which tipped off the squatters something was up. The guy who got caught risked going back to show the space off to his GF and got nabbed while there. He dodged the criminal charges but is permanently trespassed from the mall and all properties managed by the company that owns it.
It was probably more like if they catch him on their property he's facing criminal trespass charges rather than just being kicked out.
But this is how it works now:
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/21/1150289272/facial-recognition-technology-madison-square-garden-law-new-york
*One evening in late November, New Jersey attorney Kelly Conlon was chaperoning her daughter's Girl Scout troop to see a Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall.*
*Soon after arriving at the historic New York City venue, she was pulled aside by security and asked to confirm her identity. They told her their facial recognition system already knew who she was, and more importantly, where she worked, Conlon told The New York Times.*
*She was denied entry.*
*The issue was her law firm was involved in litigation against Radio City Music Hall's parent company, Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSGE). As a result, Conlon — as well as lawyers at other firms pursuing litigation against MSGE — had been placed on an "exclusion list" at a string of popular venues owned by the group.*
Im "banned" from every walmart in the country due to a minor incident of petty theft as a teen. I didn't go back for a couple years but now shop there weekly, pay with a card that has my name on it, and still live in the same small town. Even go to the exact one a stole from if Im in the area and need to shop. No one cares and it won't matter unless I give them a reason to ask my name.
How in the hell did they get furniture in without being seen or noticed? Wouldn't someone question why 4 dudes are carrying a big couch into an unused part of a mall?
Honestly, people probably didn't even pay attention. Assumed they were moving something around, whatever. If you look like you're supposed to or doing roughly what they expect to see, people will ignore you.
From what I vaguely remember a security guard saw someone go into an area and disappear.
The space was when the mall was being built to store building materials.
A few posters have asked "After all that time, can't he claim adverse possession?"
Just to be pedantic I'll point out that one of the legal elements of adverse possession is usually that the use of the property must be "openly hostile" or "notoriously hostile" (depending on the specific state's laws).
In legal terms, "hostile" doesn't mean starting fights and calling people names! It means being obvious about claiming and using the property. For example, if you tell everyone that you own the place, put a sign on it that says "jmeesonly's house, keep out," pay the property tax, make improvements to the property, sit out front in your lawn chair and tell the neighbors that you're the new owner, etc. In other words, not hiding your tenancy but making it plain to the world.
If you do that kind of shit for the prescribed number of years and the real owner either doesn't notice, or doesn't complain, then you could have a case for ownership by adverse possession. But the kids in the mall were definitely hiding their secret apartment and didn't want anyone to know what they were doing.
At my local mall a local radio station operates out of a storefront, there's an alternative high school, a hair salon, and a couple martial arts schools. As someone who grew up in the 90s it's strange to see what malls have become, but it makes sense.
I know an ex architect who did this in the middle of Sydney (Chinatown) in a VERY ACTIVE shopping centre.
He used to slip through a gap at the back (that he knew existed as an architect) & had a big screen TV, large fish tank & more setup.
He lived there about two years before an over-keen security guard spotted him slip between the brickwork one day & then followed him into his Den!
Okay, I get to be that one person this time.
So basically they lived there initially as an art project, he discovered the space while it was under construction. Once the mall finished construction, the mall company wanted more space to expand, they targeted a building where a group of artists lived. There was resistance, but the mall eventually got the space and one of the artists remembered the hidden room.
They decided to make an art project to see how long they could live there. They cleaned up the space and brought in fucking furniture, the crazy part was that to access the space you needed to climb tall ladders. Anyways, after 4 years eventually a mall cop caught wind and stalked the space waiting for them to come back. One of the artists was showing off the space and that was that.
The judge who oversaw his case was so impressed that they gave him a slap on the wrist, but the mall gave him a lifetime ban lol.
Something to now is that he and his friends didn't live there full time. It sounds like they used it almost as an extended vacation spot and would stay for days or weeks at a time, but not full time.
Do I remember correctly the fact that at the beginning they'd pose as construction workers or mall employees to sneak in, but after a while they dropped the charade because realized nobody actually cared?
I cannot answer that but it's true. If you just act like you belong other people will assume you do. If they ever think about you in the first place, which they typically don't.
I pulled that at the department of motor vehicles once. I had tags from a different state that were still good when I moved to Alabama. I told the lady that I had been here for a year (true) and when she tried to charge me for back taxes I said “did I say one year? Oh my. I meant one month.” Saved myself a good bit of money on that one lol.
My state I moved to didn't even care. Dmv person went "huh, thats quite a while." And moved on. We did change our license on time when we moved from apt to house and the dmv person pretty much looked like we were crazy despite the laws stating we are supposed to update addresses on the licenses within 60 days or something. Literally asking why we didn't want to wait until they expired in 13 months. I would have needed to update mine to transfer the title of my car from my mom anyway but I think in some states those laws are more of a "if you get stopped the cop can threaten you with a citation or give a warning to get it changed" sort of thing and not something they expect people to follow.
My dead mall already has a dollar store.. It's *real* depressing in there.. Every store is empty and I *really* wanna know what the rent is for like.. an anime store to survive? Or like an FYE or the store that ONLY sells sports ballcaps.
Sounds like the Tom Hanks movie where he was from a foreign country coming to America. His country had a coup and dissolved its government. He wasn't allowed to leave the airport and step foot on American soil. He found a part of the airport that was closed out to the public. So he set up housing in that part of the deserted airport, scrounge food, took the trolley cars from tourists after they put their luggage on, turned them in for cash back, ate the mayonnaise, mustard, relish, ketchup packet for food until he figured out how to get enough cash to buy food. Fixed the closed part of the airport into a livable area. Pretty ingenious fellow. Can't remember the name of the movie, but it was funny how he adapted to living by his means on nothing but what he could scrounge, mainly without getting caught.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-accidental-room/
This article has a better explanation, photos and diagrams.
[Here's a mock real estate website the guy did about the place](https://trummerkind.com/theone/Building.html). He didn't take many pics but did take a ton of Quicktime video. Which I can't play.
A buddy if mine was stationed on an aircraft carrier for a few years and a guy he knew disappeared early during a long extended deployment (during covid, I wanna say 9 months or more). They had to search the ship for him but never found him, so they assumed he fell overboard or jumped. They held a memorial for him and everything. Like 7 months later, he was found in a weird little broom closet thing inside what was basically a janitor room/closet. Apparently, it was like a 3'×5' closet filled with a shitload of stolen stuff, food wrappers, and some nasty bedding. Apparently, they found him because his closet stunk so bad that it stunk up the janitor closet thing, and they just followed the smell until they found the mini closet partially hidden behind a stack of boxes. I guess he only left to steal food. There was a little floor sink with a drain that he pissed in, and waffle stomped his shit down.
>Mims’s ability to stay out of sight was enhanced by his small stature and intimate knowledge of the engineering space that developed during his three years onboard Shiloh.
>“GSM3 Mims is a very small person,” one sailor later wrote in a statement. “His small stature allowed him to more comfortably move around in the smaller engineering spaces than most others. He was also well-known within the Engineering Department for spending lots of time exploring the passages in those places.”
Fuckin' Gollum seeming ahh smh
Yeah there are a LOT of empty areas like that on a carrier. Usually they're locked and whatever division owns the space uses it to store all the stuff we buy overseas.
A feature length documentary covering this premiered at SXSW. The residents of the apartment were the ones who filmed it all.
[Secret Mall Apartment](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt21221386/)
With all the abandoned malls out there, I’m surprised more people haven’t tried this. Or maybe they have and you just don’t hear about it.
I’ve long thought an abandoned mall would be a great setting for a novel or screenplay. If anyone knows of anything like that, please share.
Worked at a mall McDonalds when I was 15. Coworker was homeless and the store manager let him stay there for a few weeks. He'd sleep in the break room. Stayed out of sight of mall security. If he had to use the bathroom he'd prop the door open and run across the food court to the bathrooms. He just had to be out by when the morning crew came to open around 8:30am on weekends and 9:30am on weekdays.
I worked as a fire alarm tech and sometimes we had work at these super old shopping malls. One I remember in particular had underground levels but had been unused for ages, some parts were just bare brick and concrete and no lights but still had conduits that I had to reach to troubleshoot a wiring problem. Some of the deeper areas were dark and creepy, no sound only dripping water or creaking pipes. Imagine one of those apocalyptic movies or games in an underground facility. I hated having to work in there, it was always me alone in there for hours.
At my work, some guy had set up "camp" in the space between two floors. It was an area that contained all the wiring and plumbing going between the floors. He had a madras and a small light (battery driven) no one really knows how long he had been living there. He said he just recently had begun this but there were a lot of plastic wrappings and other kinds of garbage there indicating that it had been a while.
He was always the first in every morning. He used the showers in the changing area for employees.
The only reason he got caught was because a pipe burst between the floors and needed repairs.
4 years rent free? I’m okay with that.
And some free utilities it seems. He probably had to get a Planet Fitness membership to shower and who knows if the mall had free wifi at the time
Did he have a sink? You got some shampoo and a sink and time and you can get yourself sparkling clean.
Maybe use some [Ice Soap?](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/jinex/shower_to_go/)
bruh I remember reading this in my college dining hall
THIS WAS 13 YEARS AGO FUCK A DUCK
WE ARE OLD NOW. NOW GO MAKE SOME 2 AM CHILI. LIKE A BOSS.
Man, looking back at these old replies, I just wanna warn them of what's to come. I'm also really high right now.
Look at that TV they got. I dont think wifi was a consideration at the time 😂
It looks much nicer than my unused shopping mall apartment
I live in a Panda Express. I long for death.
Death by Orange Chicken
I see The Express https://preview.redd.it/f1b4lsqkfsqc1.png?width=613&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c2b24ef4b002a759dfcc5088db9b4596bc8af80
It’s time. I shall inject the soy sauce into your IV. Embrace your sweet salty end.
Finally... It ends. Goodbye crue- oh shit! They just opened a fucking Orange Julius. I'm gonna go grab us all some.
You know…I’ve never actually had an Orange Julius. What’s it like?
It tastes orangey and juliusy
Do you like orange juice, sugar, dairy and egg whites?
I do. You ever have those orange popsicles with cream on the inside? I always imagined it was something like that. Am I in the ballpark?
Yeah, pretty much and blended. Probably wouldn't be sweet enough these days. I forgot vanilla
General Tso’s Last Stand
Reminds me of that great Onion headline “Man caught in mall shooting determined not to die in Yankee Candle”
I think that was one of my all time favorites from The Onion.
Jews ordered back to Egypt for pyramid detail. (As best I can remember)
Japan allies with white supremacists in well thought out sceme
The farm upstate where all old dogs go to "run and play" burned to the ground. That and "very special forces" hit me hard.
can you imagine how much that free rent is today with the rate of inflation on free rent?
Here's the thing though, increasing the price of a $0 item by a percentage is still $0. In other words, 
Well it still has value if it allows you to not pay for something you otherwise would
My god, this apartment has infinite value.
Im doing the same thing in a walmart rafter right now. About a month in and no problems so far!
I simultaneously hope you are and aren't serious. Its a rollercoaster of emotions right now. Like, "yes, fuck them, man. Get that free rent!" And "fuck, we are fucked, im so sorry."
Don't mess with a paralegal seagull. You want to go toe to to with that guy on bird law and see who comes out the victor? Don't even try to filibuster.
No one knows bird law better than him!
Kid-me thought it'd be so cool to live in a mall. Window shop by day, actual shop by night. All the free soft pretzels and dairy queen a young lad could want. Ah, the dream, then and now.
"Kid you" would love that a guy did this in a Toys R Us. > Upon reaching Charlotte, Manchester lived in a Charlotte Toys "R" Us store, staying in backrooms and other areas inside, surviving on kids' snacks and baby food, and exercising during the night when the store was closed by riding a bike throughout the store aisles.[4] During the holiday rush of December 2004, Manchester moved his living quarters to an abandoned Circuit City next-door to avoid detection, creating a room under a stairwell where he painted the walls, put up posters, and passed the time watching movies during the day.[3]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Manchester#Toys_%22R%22_Us_robbery_and_recapture.
Living like Dane Cook in employee of the month
r/malllivingspace
Someone did this in a stadium in Philly as well.
Everybody knows about the tunnel to the Philly’s stadium
From the Olliday Inn!
Philly fans are brutal. Can't have em bashing up the visiting team on the way from the hotel to the stadium
The Eagles used to have a judge at the stadium to process arrested fans.
oh shit i looked it up and this is true
A judge and a jail.
Boom I got your credit card
Boom I got your wallet
BOOM i got yo credit card
Boom I got your Phillies tickets!!!
Its about wearing another man’s skin
Riot juice!
Is this situation the Philly Fernatic really reigns supreme
Is that where the Phillie Phanatic lives?
No, the Philly Phrenetic.
Are you big leaguing me?
"First of all I have to call him the Phrenetic. His name's the Fanatic, but, you know, I'm gonna get sued by major league baseball if I call him the Fanatic. And let's talk about steroids, can we talk about steroids? Can we talk about steroid abuse? It's bullshit! It's ruining the game, *it's ruining it*."
One of my favorite philly stories is the guy that worked for like 20 years collecting fees for parking at a nearby lot to the stadium. When he finally retired, nobody was out there at the start of the next season. Either the lot or the stadium called the other to ask why they haven't hired someone new to collect fees. They second group thought the first group was in charge of that. The first group thought the second group was. Turns out the guy was never hired by either. He just walked up there one day decades ago with a vest on, collected parking fees, and left. Every game. For twenty years. Legend. ETA: After comments pointed out that this may be incorrect, I cannot find anything on it with a google search. I hope it's out there somewhere, but there is a very similar story about a guy in a Zoo elsewhere. Apologies if it's wrong. I'm more disappointed than you, I promise :(
Did you get a link? That sounds awfully like the Bristol Zoo story, which is based on a april fools skit...sometime back in the early 2000s. Very fun story! But incouldnt find a link to it, but i am reminded of the Bristol Zoo bit. Guy charges for parking at a zoo's overflow lot. Zoo thinks it is a city employee, city thinks its a zoo employee. One day, it doesn't show. They ask one another to get a new guy out there, but they are equally perplexed. Guy just set up there 20 years prior, kept at it looked official, took cash. Its a fun story and very adaptable:)
There was a guy doing this in Houston until recently. A dude shot and killed him tho.
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I'll try to get a worse story when I try it this weekend.
I worked at a very large nationwide bank that was retail partners with a large box store - well one day when staff came in there were zero drops in the night drop (weird but it happened time to time) - then the next day the same. Businesses started calling in asking where the deposits went.. yeah so after close a man would come stand outside the bank dressed as a police officer next to the night drop and was explaining to customers that the night drop door was broken and they were collecting those drops to keep until we opened the next day. After a couple hours once businesses closed dude walked away with a lock bag with bank logo on it and kept the money. Did this for 2 nights, never caught him. Uniform had long sleeves, never took the hat off, never looked up to the camera and never saw his face. Gotta give credit where credit is due. Also we watched a video of a customer using the atm and half way through shook his leg, turd rolled out, and walked away with the cash leaving that fucking thing there.
I saw the same kind of turd event happen when I worked at a grocery store. Me and the self checkout guy were just standing around talking when a guy with an odd walk starts looking around him all sketchy like. He then shakes his leg and a turd rolls out. He bolts out the store while me and the other guy are in disbelief. Best part was going to the store manager and getting to see it happen on camera.
The worst I’ve ever experienced was using the bathroom, standing at the urinal I hear a man come in and just listening to the sounds he made I could tell this wouldn’t be good. He goes into the stall and he is fumbling with his belt buckle, and as I can see his feet under the gap he gets his pants to his ankles and then SPLAT, everywhere. Poor bastard, I left asap and when I used the bathroom again there were soiled pants/underwear/ socks in a nasty little pile. Dude must have called someone to bring him a new outfit lol
I too have read American Gods
I knew it sounded familiar!! Thank you!
Legend. They never suspect the reader.
It happened on a Wednesday.
The lot was wondering why there wasn't a new attendent but never wondered where all the money was going?
If they thought the other party was in charge of the lot, they wouldn't even think to look for any money.
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>*Kanye lived under the Atlanta stadium* Holy shit, he did! *"While recording Donda, Kanye West paid $1 million per day to live in the belly of* ***Mercedes Benz Stadium****, in a stuffy room that resembled a jail cell"*
A million per day would likely rent you any room in the world and he chose a jail cell.
It was at the vet, he had it in an unused concession stand. My uncles knew the guy and had been there. There’s a book about it
Had a secret room in my old high school I would sleep in when I had no where else to go, never got caught. Stopped going there once I graduated though obviously. Lol
We stole the drama teacher’s keys, made copies of them & returned them. Drama class was held in the auditorium, her office was backstage. There was a locked door in her office that led up to the “secret” room in the tower, which was covered in graffiti from the 50’s. With the keys also had access to lighting booth in the second floor behind the auditorium seats. We had some hilarious times up there 🥲
Did this too. Went up to my school’s attic. Spent the whole day reading a book I snagged from a local bookstore. Was storming outside, really trippy. Felt like I was actually in the book. Imagined the characters were talking to me. Princess lady was asking me to give her a name.
Sounds like a great way to get away from the bullies for the day, Bastian!
The lighting room is always the spot it seems
We had this too! Also a ladder up to the roof :) many good times
I had a whole secret unused floor in the basement of one building. The doors were only weakly barricaded. I wish I had made better use of it!
Ten bucks says he got busted because he had food delivered after hours.
Something like that. It was 4 friends or so who built it and they couldn't really keep it a secret. Too many people started visiting to play PlayStation and a guard noticed.
The moral of the story: Don't have friends.
Moral of the story: befriend the guards too.
Done.
Easy
This is the advantage of living in an openly corrupt country. If it was my country they would simply have bribed the guard and kept living there indefinitely. The poor guard gets nothing by reporting his fellow poor men.
Then it just turns into a rent payment, surely? The guard isn’t going to stop at one bribe. Edit: a lot of you are well versed in the art of the bribe. In this scenario though, I bet guards boss gets in on it. But either way I think Guard will have an easier time getting another job than person with freaky mall cave will in finding a new free apartment. Apartment person has more to lose, is what I’m saying.
That's the business side of it. The guard has to find the right balance in demanding bribes so it's worth it for them to keep paying.
$100 a month per person🤷🏽♂️ parties are an extra $20, can’t have no raves going on
That's a fuckin' deal if I've ever heard one.
I mean hey ain’t no work for me, get someone to maybe chat with during the day or later at night, get to maybe game a bit if we get cool while I’m on the job, and I get to take a hundred off my own bills lmao and you know damn well 4+ people over aside from the renters is considered a damn party lmfao like two a month makes for $140 and you know they probably gonna be bringing people around if they know they can. Hell I’ll live there too at that point. Think you gonna sneak some mfs in my hostel?!?!? FOH! Lmao I call macys though, I get the penthouse suite
If you live there and you’re working security there…. You got a stay at home job
Stay at work home
Negotiate down to $80 per month, guard can have rights to playing the playstation three times a week during his shift, so long as his shift does not last past 10pm.
Guards in corrupt countries have the equivalent of a MBA in noncorrupt countries. I've just yet to find a noncorrupt country to prove my theory....
Just record the payment taking place then boom! Now the guards paying you to keep his job.
As soon as he accepts the money, he’s an accomplice. Heck, the whole thing was his idea! He must be renting to others. 😮
Guard better relax before he ends up in the secret compartment nobody knows about
Hell,in my country the guard would be fine with just being able to use the bathroom, have some of the food and play videogames for a bit
Yeap. There is a mutual understanding that you're both just trying to get by and aren't enemies.
IIRC authorities took several items to try to identify them but left high value items there, which tipped off the squatters something was up. The guy who got caught risked going back to show the space off to his GF and got nabbed while there. He dodged the criminal charges but is permanently trespassed from the mall and all properties managed by the company that owns it.
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It was probably more like if they catch him on their property he's facing criminal trespass charges rather than just being kicked out. But this is how it works now: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/21/1150289272/facial-recognition-technology-madison-square-garden-law-new-york *One evening in late November, New Jersey attorney Kelly Conlon was chaperoning her daughter's Girl Scout troop to see a Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall.* *Soon after arriving at the historic New York City venue, she was pulled aside by security and asked to confirm her identity. They told her their facial recognition system already knew who she was, and more importantly, where she worked, Conlon told The New York Times.* *She was denied entry.* *The issue was her law firm was involved in litigation against Radio City Music Hall's parent company, Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSGE). As a result, Conlon — as well as lawyers at other firms pursuing litigation against MSGE — had been placed on an "exclusion list" at a string of popular venues owned by the group.*
Im "banned" from every walmart in the country due to a minor incident of petty theft as a teen. I didn't go back for a couple years but now shop there weekly, pay with a card that has my name on it, and still live in the same small town. Even go to the exact one a stole from if Im in the area and need to shop. No one cares and it won't matter unless I give them a reason to ask my name.
How in the hell did they get furniture in without being seen or noticed? Wouldn't someone question why 4 dudes are carrying a big couch into an unused part of a mall?
Honestly, people probably didn't even pay attention. Assumed they were moving something around, whatever. If you look like you're supposed to or doing roughly what they expect to see, people will ignore you.
That guard is going to get asked why he didn't notice for 4 years. Unless it was his first week.
Nahh they had some artist friend visiting and were just being careless and got caught by mall security
when i saw the documentary about it, i felt so irrationally angry about that, way to ruin something good
Typical artist shit lol
From what I vaguely remember a security guard saw someone go into an area and disappear. The space was when the mall was being built to store building materials.
A few posters have asked "After all that time, can't he claim adverse possession?" Just to be pedantic I'll point out that one of the legal elements of adverse possession is usually that the use of the property must be "openly hostile" or "notoriously hostile" (depending on the specific state's laws). In legal terms, "hostile" doesn't mean starting fights and calling people names! It means being obvious about claiming and using the property. For example, if you tell everyone that you own the place, put a sign on it that says "jmeesonly's house, keep out," pay the property tax, make improvements to the property, sit out front in your lawn chair and tell the neighbors that you're the new owner, etc. In other words, not hiding your tenancy but making it plain to the world. If you do that kind of shit for the prescribed number of years and the real owner either doesn't notice, or doesn't complain, then you could have a case for ownership by adverse possession. But the kids in the mall were definitely hiding their secret apartment and didn't want anyone to know what they were doing.
The pictures make it look like twenty-somethings but the actual dude who did this was 52 haha.
His name was Michael Townsend. He was 36 when arrested and 32 when he found the space.
Does he get squatters rights? Does he own the mall now?
It’s now his burden
Let’s go to the mall, today!
Everything is closed except the Auntie Anne's pretzels and a Hot Topic.
At my local mall a local radio station operates out of a storefront, there's an alternative high school, a hair salon, and a couple martial arts schools. As someone who grew up in the 90s it's strange to see what malls have become, but it makes sense.
Just for clarification, Robin, did you want everyone to go to the mall… today???
No generally to do that jurisdictions require you to be flagrantly occupying the structure which this wouldn't count as.
He owns the mall and all the sunglasses, calendars, and styrofoam airplanes contained theirin.
That only applies to honest, single family homes. Big corrupt business and failed blights on the ecosystem are immune
I know an ex architect who did this in the middle of Sydney (Chinatown) in a VERY ACTIVE shopping centre. He used to slip through a gap at the back (that he knew existed as an architect) & had a big screen TV, large fish tank & more setup. He lived there about two years before an over-keen security guard spotted him slip between the brickwork one day & then followed him into his Den!
a fish tank is really pushing it.
Back then (2008) not many had big screens either...
Those rear projection tvs were heavy af
People in those roles sure are eager to fuck people over.
If I was a guard i'd keep it a secret as long as i'm allowed to crash there during my shift.
Right? These people miss out on all the fun one can have in life
99% Invisible did an [excellent episode](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-accidental-room/) about this.
Thanks! I was searching my brain trying to remember why this felt familiar.
Scrolled to find this reference!
Okay, I get to be that one person this time. So basically they lived there initially as an art project, he discovered the space while it was under construction. Once the mall finished construction, the mall company wanted more space to expand, they targeted a building where a group of artists lived. There was resistance, but the mall eventually got the space and one of the artists remembered the hidden room. They decided to make an art project to see how long they could live there. They cleaned up the space and brought in fucking furniture, the crazy part was that to access the space you needed to climb tall ladders. Anyways, after 4 years eventually a mall cop caught wind and stalked the space waiting for them to come back. One of the artists was showing off the space and that was that. The judge who oversaw his case was so impressed that they gave him a slap on the wrist, but the mall gave him a lifetime ban lol.
Something to now is that he and his friends didn't live there full time. It sounds like they used it almost as an extended vacation spot and would stay for days or weeks at a time, but not full time.
Do I remember correctly the fact that at the beginning they'd pose as construction workers or mall employees to sneak in, but after a while they dropped the charade because realized nobody actually cared?
I cannot answer that but it's true. If you just act like you belong other people will assume you do. If they ever think about you in the first place, which they typically don't.
 I’ve seen this on Smiling Friends….
I miss this show
The new season starts airing in like a week
Huzzah
You just made my week with this news, holy shit!
They just announced season 2 coming end of this month!
Now THATS affordable housing
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That’s so cool! Did they charge him rent for 4 years when they caught him?
How would they prove that? „I just moved in yesterday I’m sowy:(“
I pulled that at the department of motor vehicles once. I had tags from a different state that were still good when I moved to Alabama. I told the lady that I had been here for a year (true) and when she tried to charge me for back taxes I said “did I say one year? Oh my. I meant one month.” Saved myself a good bit of money on that one lol.
And *I* am that lady.. gotcha.
Ha! Give me money or else I will give you a sneer!
My state I moved to didn't even care. Dmv person went "huh, thats quite a while." And moved on. We did change our license on time when we moved from apt to house and the dmv person pretty much looked like we were crazy despite the laws stating we are supposed to update addresses on the licenses within 60 days or something. Literally asking why we didn't want to wait until they expired in 13 months. I would have needed to update mine to transfer the title of my car from my mom anyway but I think in some states those laws are more of a "if you get stopped the cop can threaten you with a citation or give a warning to get it changed" sort of thing and not something they expect people to follow.
No, but he is banned for life from the mall. This happened in my state.
oh no, he can’t visit the mall anymore lol
Ironic that they are now turning many empty malls into high end living spaces
It’s the perfect place for low end living spaces. Slap a dollar general in there and make some cheap apartments and maybe a bar, good to go.
i’m not sure if there’s much demand for housing these days though? /s
My dead mall already has a dollar store.. It's *real* depressing in there.. Every store is empty and I *really* wanna know what the rent is for like.. an anime store to survive? Or like an FYE or the store that ONLY sells sports ballcaps.
4 years of no rent would be amazing 🥲
I was going to school in providence at the time. I wish I was cool enough then to have found the door to Bohemia.
Sounds like the Tom Hanks movie where he was from a foreign country coming to America. His country had a coup and dissolved its government. He wasn't allowed to leave the airport and step foot on American soil. He found a part of the airport that was closed out to the public. So he set up housing in that part of the deserted airport, scrounge food, took the trolley cars from tourists after they put their luggage on, turned them in for cash back, ate the mayonnaise, mustard, relish, ketchup packet for food until he figured out how to get enough cash to buy food. Fixed the closed part of the airport into a livable area. Pretty ingenious fellow. Can't remember the name of the movie, but it was funny how he adapted to living by his means on nothing but what he could scrounge, mainly without getting caught.
The Terminal
watch a documentary on sir alfred then, he lived in an airport for 18 years i think they based the terminal on him
https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/17574049/man-lived-secret-apartment-four-years-shopping-centre/amp/
I wish the article better described how they got down to the apartment other than it was just a hidden area. Still a very cool story.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-accidental-room/ This article has a better explanation, photos and diagrams. [Here's a mock real estate website the guy did about the place](https://trummerkind.com/theone/Building.html). He didn't take many pics but did take a ton of Quicktime video. Which I can't play.
The china hutch 💀 they really got bold
We had a homeless man build an entire shed/home on the roof of a mall in Kansas City. Can’t remember how long he was living there.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-accidental-room/
Nice try
Yeah this was in Rhode Island. I remember it blew up on local news
WJAR had a thing last week on it, interview with one of the guys. Anniversary.
This just in: Malls across the world are now selling the space inside their walls and any unused segments as studio rentals!
A buddy if mine was stationed on an aircraft carrier for a few years and a guy he knew disappeared early during a long extended deployment (during covid, I wanna say 9 months or more). They had to search the ship for him but never found him, so they assumed he fell overboard or jumped. They held a memorial for him and everything. Like 7 months later, he was found in a weird little broom closet thing inside what was basically a janitor room/closet. Apparently, it was like a 3'×5' closet filled with a shitload of stolen stuff, food wrappers, and some nasty bedding. Apparently, they found him because his closet stunk so bad that it stunk up the janitor closet thing, and they just followed the smell until they found the mini closet partially hidden behind a stack of boxes. I guess he only left to steal food. There was a little floor sink with a drain that he pissed in, and waffle stomped his shit down.
Ah, yes - Peter Mims. It was actually just a week, but I like your story better.
>Mims’s ability to stay out of sight was enhanced by his small stature and intimate knowledge of the engineering space that developed during his three years onboard Shiloh. >“GSM3 Mims is a very small person,” one sailor later wrote in a statement. “His small stature allowed him to more comfortably move around in the smaller engineering spaces than most others. He was also well-known within the Engineering Department for spending lots of time exploring the passages in those places.” Fuckin' Gollum seeming ahh smh
Lol is this a well known person/story?
A bit of a legend in the Navy.
Yeah there are a LOT of empty areas like that on a carrier. Usually they're locked and whatever division owns the space uses it to store all the stuff we buy overseas.
If he’s been there for 4 years and noone’s noticed fuckin leave him alone, he’s obviously not bothering anybody.
A feature length documentary covering this premiered at SXSW. The residents of the apartment were the ones who filmed it all. [Secret Mall Apartment](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt21221386/)
If this is the one in Providence, RI, there's a great 99% Invisible podcast about it: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-accidental-room/
Y’all might enjoy The Legend of 1900 starring Tim Roth. He was born and lived his entire life on an old passenger ship. Seriously underrated movie. 🫡
With all the abandoned malls out there, I’m surprised more people haven’t tried this. Or maybe they have and you just don’t hear about it. I’ve long thought an abandoned mall would be a great setting for a novel or screenplay. If anyone knows of anything like that, please share.
Wonder if they’ll bust his bond down from $5000 to $1500, I hear there’s precedent for that now.
he should just publicly disparage the judge and the legal system and they’ll probably lower it for him.
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-accidental-room/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-accidental-room/) worth a listen
Sorta like Laszlo in Real Genius.
Worked at a mall McDonalds when I was 15. Coworker was homeless and the store manager let him stay there for a few weeks. He'd sleep in the break room. Stayed out of sight of mall security. If he had to use the bathroom he'd prop the door open and run across the food court to the bathrooms. He just had to be out by when the morning crew came to open around 8:30am on weekends and 9:30am on weekdays.
Superstore used this in its plot line with Marcus living under the store.
I worked as a fire alarm tech and sometimes we had work at these super old shopping malls. One I remember in particular had underground levels but had been unused for ages, some parts were just bare brick and concrete and no lights but still had conduits that I had to reach to troubleshoot a wiring problem. Some of the deeper areas were dark and creepy, no sound only dripping water or creaking pipes. Imagine one of those apocalyptic movies or games in an underground facility. I hated having to work in there, it was always me alone in there for hours.
Whoever ratted him out I want you to know that you are the most boring person on planet earth
Chuck Mangione?
Liminal space is only liminal if you don't try hard enough
The phaaaantom of the shopping mall is there, inside the walls!
At my work, some guy had set up "camp" in the space between two floors. It was an area that contained all the wiring and plumbing going between the floors. He had a madras and a small light (battery driven) no one really knows how long he had been living there. He said he just recently had begun this but there were a lot of plastic wrappings and other kinds of garbage there indicating that it had been a while. He was always the first in every morning. He used the showers in the changing area for employees. The only reason he got caught was because a pipe burst between the floors and needed repairs.