Woman Arrested For Secret Squatting

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]58 year old Tatsuko Horikawa has been arrested by police in Fukuoka. Her crime was to break into the house of a 57 year old man and begin living in storage space above his closet without his knowledge. It's unclear just how long she had been living there - the Asahi report says it was several months - but the man had become increasingly uneasy as he found food missing and couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't alone. He eventually set up a motion sensor surveillance system which would send images to his mobile phone and, one afternoon, it caught Horikawa on camera. The man called the police who went to his house and found her hiding in the storage space where she had her own mattress. It appears that she has done this kind of thing before.

She was living in the tenbukuro which, taking the picture on the right as an example, is the space above the closet at the same height as the airconditioner.

[Midwinter]

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*checks his closets*

In all seriousness though, I half expected to find a story here about a woman taking a piss in some dark corner of a Tokyo garden/park. Way to surprise us

[ttjereth]

That, is seriously frigging hilarious.

[Charles]

Ha.. reminds me of an incident from my days living in LA. I had a parking spot in an open garage, it had a storage locker on the wall but I never used it. One day I came home from work, and as I parked with the nose of my car under the locker, suddenly a scruffy homeless guy sprang out of the locker, jumped onto the hood of my car, and ran away.
I padlocked the locker after that.

[Greji]

That, is seriously frigging hilarious.

Hey! Ya can't beat the rent!

[Iraira]

Horikawa missed out on some great blackmail potential. I mean, she basically got to observe this guy's life for several months. Meaning, she probably saw him picking his nose, rolling it and flicking it, perhaps even playing pocket pool. She may have overheard him talking to himself about some fetish he has for bald Latvian quadruple amputees.
I'm definitely checking out the space above my closets tonight.

[ichigo partygirl]

that guy must have only been at home when drunk, i can't explain how you could not 'feel' there was someone else in the room otherwise.

[Mulboyne]

The overseas newswires have picked up the story:

AFP: Japanese man finds woman living in his closet

A Japanese man puzzled by food mysteriously disappearing from his refrigerator got a shock when he found out a woman had been living in his home for months without permission, police said Friday. The 57-year-old man living alone -- or so he thought -- in the western city of Fukuoka installed a security camera and called the police when he saw images of someone walking around his home while he was out. "We searched the house in the man's presence. We found the woman in the closet," said a local police spokesman. The woman, named as 58-year-old Tatsuko Horikawa, was found in a flat storage space only just big enough for a person to squeeze into lying down. She had sneaked a mattress and several plastic bottles into the cubby hole, police said, adding that the women had been arrested. "She told police that she had nowhere to live," the spokesman said. "She seems to have lived there for about a year, but not all the time." It is unclear how she managed to enter the home undetected. Police suspect she might have been closet-hopping, moving from house to house.

[American Oyaji]

If I found a woman living in my closet and I was living alone, I sure wouldn't call the cops. I'd ask her down to share my table and then my bed!

[Midwinter]

If I found a woman living in my closet and I was living alone, I sure wouldn't call the cops. I'd ask her down to share my table and then my bed!

Even if she was 58 and homeless?

[American Oyaji]

Even if she was 58 and homeless?

He was 57 and she was 58.

I'm 34 and if she was 35....

See how I'm looking at the situation?:cool:

Anyway, she was limber enough to climb up there...

18 to 80, blind, crippled or crazy. Only made it up to 40 and haven't done any blind ones yet.

[GomiGirl]

Any port in a storm hey AO?

[American Oyaji]

Any port in a storm hey AO?

What are you doing this evening?

[Greji]

Any port in a storm hey AO?

Hey, watch that! That's my line!

or should that be any goat in a gale?

[American Oyaji]

Hey, watch that! That's my line!

or should that be any goat in a gale?

Alpacas are better. Taller.

[Greji]

Alpacas are better. Taller.

Hmmm....

[American Oyaji]

Hmmm....

They also don't spit.

[ttjereth]

Ha.. reminds me of an incident from my days living in LA. I had a parking spot in an open garage, it had a storage locker on the wall but I never used it. One day I came home from work, and as I parked with the nose of my car under the locker, suddenly a scruffy homeless guy sprang out of the locker, jumped onto the hood of my car, and ran away.
I padlocked the locker after that.

I'd have just put up a "for rent" sign

[ttjereth]

What are you doing this evening?

Anything but you.

[American Oyaji]

Anything but you.

Indeed, my girlfriend wouldn't appreciate that, would she?

[DrP]

Precious -- (from Yahoo)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080531/ap_on_re_as/japan_closet_woman;_ylt=Ahsz0_xaRIx2thjhtZMC508Z.3QA

[kurohinge1]

that guy must have only been at home when drunk, i can't explain how you could not 'feel' there was someone else in the room otherwise.

Ha! So you say, but look up and smile for me!

BTW, can we change those curtains?

[Greji]

[quote="kurohinge1"]Ha! So you say, but look up and smile for me!

BTW, can we change those curtains?

]

That wasn't what did it Kuro. It was "Not tonight, my back hurts!"....

[ichigo partygirl]

[quote="kurohinge1"]Ha! So you say, but look up and smile for me!

BTW, can we change those curtains?


]


unless you are in the gum trees i doubt you are watching me now; and even if you were who says you are the one benefiting from the situation

[kurohinge1]

unless you are in the gum trees i doubt you are watching me now . . .

Close - it's not a gum tree, though.

Here's a photo of my neighbours:



Can you change the TV channel for us?

[nottu]

[Visitor K]

i dont know why this woman had to live in somebody else's apartment, there are so many vacant buildings that are good for squatting in japan. i often thought that it would be so easy to just get into a building and live there.

are there squatters rights in japan?

[Visitor K]

a little off topic, but thinking about squatting and stuff, has anybody noticed the apartment buildings that have been turned into horse stables near the horse tracks on the train ride to narita? its really bizarre, all this hay around and these horses hanging out in 2LDK rooms.. i searched for a picture, but cant find anything on the google machine.

[Greji]

a little off topic, but thinking about squatting and stuff, has anybody noticed the apartment buildings that have been turned into horse stables near the horse tracks on the train ride to narita? its really bizarre, all this hay around and these horses hanging out in 2LDK rooms.. i searched for a picture, but cant find anything on the google machine.

Those aren't apartments. They are the actual stables. The usual set up is that one end of them is for the trainers quarters and the other end is for the head lad and other grooms. The one upper floor(s) are for feed and tac storage. You can see this closer on the way to Haneda by the monorail when it stops by Ohi Racecourse. All thought they look wide open, actually all of them are inside the racecourse grounds and not accessible by the public.

[Visitor K]

Those aren't apartments. They are the actual stables. The usual set up is that one end of them is for the trainers quarters and the other end is for the head lad and other grooms. The one upper floor(s) are for feed and tac storage. You can see this closer on the way to Haneda by the monorail when it stops by Ohi Racecourse. All thought they look wide open, actually all of them are inside the racecourse grounds and not accessible by the public.

hmm.. they sure are ugly as shit.. any reason they make stables look just like cheap mansions? just lack of imagination, i would guess.

thanks greji, how about the question before, are there squatter's rights in japan? i would assume not, but you never know.. how does the government treat permanent homeless camps like the large one in yoyogi park?