Homeless People Secretly Living In Your Attic

Have you ever had the feeling that you might have a ghost living in your house? And that it steals your clothes just to mess with you? Or maybe you have food in your pantry that seems to vanish. Well, it may actually be worse than ghosts. You could have a homeless person living in your attic.

To be honest, I don't know if that's worse than ghosts. But it sure is messed up.

Recently, I've done quite a bit of research on the topic. That means I did a google search for "secretly lives in attic." In my studies, I have found three actual cases where this happened. I was so amazed, I had to share. So here they are, in order from: "That's messed up" to "dude, shut the eff up, there's no way that happened, and if it did, it must have happened in Japan."

The Story of Miguel Lua


(Miguel Lua's "Attic-Home")

Our first story is a classic, "crazy-stalker-creepy boyfriend goes nuts on his girlfriend" type of case. Apparently, Miguel Lua is the jealous type, so he decided the best way to keep tabs on his ex-girlfriend would be to hide out in her attic for a few days. The article I read refers to her as Lua's "girlfriend," but they also mention that she had obtained restraining orders against him. So, I'm going out on a limb and at least giving her credit for breaking up with him. Here's the creepy highlights from the article:

"One of our deputies actually crawled up into the attic and found him in there hiding under some insulation and evidence appears he had been there some time, there were several burnt candles that were fresh, a Pendleton jacket, and some shoes, appeared he been staying up there on and off for who knows how long."

The girlfriend first thought something was out of place when she noticed her cell phone was missing.

MacKenzie says, "The scary part is he came down sometime during the night to steal her cell phone while it was charging to go through it to see if she had been calling any guys or new boyfriends."

Lua faces a stalking charge, violation of the restraining order, and burglary charge.

Source: TodaysTHV.com


The Story of Stanley Carter



Meet Stanley Carter. In December of 2008, he had himself a Merry Little Christmas in the attic of the Ferrance family in Philadelphia. Stanley spent about a week in their attic. Below are the article highlights, followed by a video newscast that covers the whole event pretty well.

Homeowner Stacy Ferrance said: "When he came down from the attic, he was wearing my daughter's pants and my sweat shirt and sneakers. "From what I gather, he was helping himself to my home, eating my food and stealing my clothes."

"When we were going through the inventory of what he did take, we found a note labelled 'Stanley's Christmas List' of all the items he had removed from the residence and donated to himself," said Plains Township police Officer Michael Smith.

His attorney, public defender Basil Russin, said Carter, "He was very peaceful up there and kept to himself."

Sources: Police Oracle
Chron
16 WNEP


The Story of Tatsuko Horikawa

The most ridiculous story is unsurprisingly from Japan. What makes it amazing is that this 58-year old woman lived in another man's closet, unnoticed... FOR A YEAR! The homeowner got suspicious after food was disappearing from his kitchen. He then installed security cameras, and noticed images of someone going through his house while he was gone. Here are the highlights from the article:

“We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide,” Itakura said. “When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."

The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man’s house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.

Police suspect she might have been closet-hopping, moving from house to house.

She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, calling the woman "neat and clean."

Sources: MSNBC
Breitbart

Bonus Homeless Person Story!
I also came across this creepy video of a guy who claims to have caught a woman hiding in his closet. The only reason this isn't included in the above list is that some claim it is a hoax and I couldn't find any news articles verifying the story. Still an entertaining video:



Update: More Crazy People Living in Attics!
Just when you think there's no way this stuff still happens, it happens again.  Not to be outdone by the homeless, another crazy boyfriend has found his way back up into an ex's attic.  In Rock Hill, South Carolina, some crazy dude got out of jail and figured the best place to hole up for a few weeks would be his ex-girlfriend's attic.  He slept in the heating unit.  Here's the highlights:

She heard a thump coming from the ceiling after she put her children to bed Saturday night.

Officers did find several "Route 44" Sonic cups filled with feces and urine in the attic.

The man also appeared to have rigged the ceiling vents so he could see into the woman's bedroom.

The only entrance to the attic is inside the home, in the hall that connects her children's bedrooms. 

"Then all the nails just popped out of the ceiling over my bed. Like 'bing, bing, bing,'" said the woman.

And below is a videoclip from the local news.




Sources: WCNC.com
WALBNews.com

Frank Abagnale: Catch Me If You Can

Came across this video of Frank Abagnale giving a brief synopsis of his life. The dude was a crazy genius. Ran away from home at age 16 and made millions forging checks and identities for the next five years or so. Watch his story in his own words, it really is an amazing story.

Talking Funny: Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, and Louis CK

Talking Funny is an HBO special where Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Louis CK, and Ricky Gervais sit down together and talk about being comedians. It's one of the more interesting things I've seen in a while, so I thought I would share.

The entire special is around an hour long, so view it in chunks if you don't have the time now. There's lots of funny stuff in there, but honestly, the best part is listening to some comic geniuses discuss their craft. See if you can pick out the least experienced comic. As a warning (or a bonus?), there is some NSFW language and crude subject matter. Hope you enjoy:

The Euthanasia Coaster

Suppose you could choose how you wanted to die. What if one of your options was death by roller coaster? Imagine slowly moving up the lift to a height of 1,673 feet (almost the same as the Sears Tower). This climb would take about two minutes, which is plenty of time to think back over your life. Then there's a ten second drop where you reach a top speed of 220mph. After this drop, you enter into seven consecutive loops where you experience 10g, and eventually pass out (G-induced Loss Of Consciousness). Except that you pass out permanently.

Julijonas Urbonas designed the "Euthanasia Coaster." It is "engineered to humanely – with elegance and euphoria – take the life of a human being." Apparently, the loss of oxygen to the brain creates a state of euphoria and then the passenger just loses consciousness and dies. Not a bad way to go?

At any rate, the coaster is purely hypothetical and will probably never be built. I just thought it was extremely interesting (although sort of sick and morbid), so thought I'd share. Below is a quick video of Mr. Urbonas explaining the design.



If you're still interested in more, here is a link to his site where he goes into all the details about the "Euthanasia Coaster." It really is interesting if you can get past the purpose of the whole thing: Euthanasia Coaster


And for fun, here's a video of a pilot experiencing GLOC:

Movie Review: Thor

You may be thinking, "How can you be writing a review about a movie that hasn't come out yet?" The answer is: I won tickets to a pre-screening of Thor! Suckers!

No, but really, I got to go to a screening of Thor last night. Here's a few things I learned if you ever get tickets to see a blockbuster movie before it's actually released:

1) Get there early. They overbooked the theater, so even though people had tickets, a lot of them didn't get in. Below is a fuzzy picture of the people who didn't get in. I heard there was over 77 of them.

2) Media-types get the best seats in the house. The best three rows in the theater were all reserved for the media. Ah well.

3) Movie theater security guys live for these nights. Seriously. Our security guy was a super hero himself that night: directing traffic, giving speeches, and threatening patrons with obscure theater laws.

4) You can't take pictures in the theater. Apparently, there's a $25,000 fine. Even if nothing is up on the screen and the photo is taken of the audience. And you can't see anything in the photo.

5) Oscar the Grouch t-shirts are unbelievably awesome. See above (click picture for close-up).


Thor Review:



I'm not a movie buff by any means, but I watch a ton of movies and know a good movie when I see one. Thor was a lot of fun and is pretty much everything you might expect of a comic book movie.

I should mention that I know nothing of the history of Thor; either from Norse Mythology or comic book lore. So, my take on this movie will probably differ greatly from anyone who goes into it with these predispositions. (Kind of like how I ripped apart Prince Caspian because it butchered the book version)

Here's just a quick list of things that stood out to me:

1) The comic relief in this movie is well done. It doesn't feel forced and isn't over the top and for the most part it is actually funny.

2) Stan Lee's cameo was a sweet addition.

3) Anthony Hopkins is awesome, especially with a golden eye-patch.

4) They did a good job of giving enough background to tell the story. The story is easy to follow and could've been bogged down with details.

I really only had two complaints. The first complaint is that I officially do not like 3D. It was cool in Avatar and can work in animated movies, but it adds absolutely nothing to a movie like Thor. There may have been two scenes where there was a broad background and it was neat to feel the depth of the scene. Other than that, it was just a nuisance. Action scenes are difficult to follow and it just gets annoying. I hope 3D is a novelty that eventually wears off, because it seemed like it made this movie worse. If you haven't seen the movie yet, just see it in IMAX or whatever. Don't waste your money on 3D.

The other thing that didn't make sense to me had to do with the story line. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT. So there's the rainbow road and everybody is running around it the whole movie. Then at the end, apparently it's extremely dangerous if you fall off of this road. What? Shouldn't they have built a railing or something? And aren't they gods anyway? Then when Loki does fall off, he just appears again at the end of the movie. So either Loki has some magic that prevents him from forever floating through the universe, or falling off of this ledge isn't as permanent as they make it look. Just seemed like a weak way to end the battle or whatever.

So there's my two cents on Thor. Lastly, a big thanks to The Film Yap for giving away the free tickets. Also to Indianapolis Bloggers for bringing my attention to the contest.

Korean Kids Playing Guitar?

So I just saw the video of the five Korean kids playing guitar. If you haven't seen it, here's the clip;




I think the most amazing thing is that people actually believe these people are in kindergarten. There's no way. Those "kids" are at least 30.

To prove my point, I just did a google image search for "80 year old Korean." Here's the picture that came up:



See? Koreans are ageless. If you see a Korean, he could be anywhere from five to five hundred years old. You just never know. So when I see a video of a group of Korean "kindergartners" playing guitar, my BS sensors go crazy and I see it for what it really is: a group of highly trained 30 year old Korean guitarists. Nothing special at all. Except for their Korean agelessness.

In other news, did you know North Koreans are banned from making international cell phone calls? I feel so sorry for their citizens.