Some years ago I was flipping through the channels in a corporate housing unit somewhere and I stumbled on to this popular cop type show. I do not remember its name, but it was the best of a bad situation so I watched it. Glad I did. You could chalk this up as another entry in the “teach something no matter how small” list, but it isn’t. This show must have been where one or more of “The West Wing” writers landed. Police were investigating some murder and the only witness to the actual crime was a squatter. Oh, for sure, there was as intricate a murder plot as television could squeeze into a single episode, but the side story of the squatter is what caught my attention.

Just let your writer’s imagination run with this.

The guy would learn of people who where going out of town or the country for many weeks. He would slip in and meticulously photograph everything in the place, not so he could steal it, but so he could put it back. He would then take up residence in the place, using only a small part of it. He wouldn’t just stay there, he would fix whatever he found not working. A dripping faucet, slow drain, paint a room if the paint was already there, etc. People would return and thank their building super for finally fixing something they had been complaining about for months. The supers just thought they were being sarcastic and continued to ignore their requests for maintenance.

How did the cops catch the guy to ask him about the murder? They kept hearing about all of these different places he supposedly “lived” and every time they went calling they found someone else lived there. All of the other people had three things in common. During the past two years they had all been out of town for at least a month long stretch. All of them returned to find their place professionally cleaned. All of them subscribed to the same newspaper and paid for in-building delivery.

The reason nobody noticed him is all of the doormen were used to seeing him delivering papers. They saw him come in and never paid attention to when he left. The cops finally nabbed him in the wee hours of the morning when he came to the paper to pick up that day’s deliveries. Yes he really witnessed the murder. It happened in an apartment he was squatting in. Yes he helped the cops nab the actual murderer. In a twist of fate, nobody pressed charges on the squatter. People were that happy to _finally_ get all of that stuff fixed and come home to a professionally cleaned place.

Okay, in real life, you know there would be at least one rectal sphincter who pressed charges, but seriously, a creative writer could turn that tiny sub-story into an entire book series or at least a really long novel. Admittedly, he chose to not squat in the ghetto. These were all high end buildings with tenants/owners used to having service people entering their dwelling while they were gone. People who own homes in the suburbs probably cannot fathom this, but, if you are in a high rise in a major city it is the only way to get something done. You simply lock up what you don’t want stolen. Having lived in many corporate housing units and extended stay hotels as a traveling consultant I can attest to this being an ordinary way of life. I met one person who traveled so much he kept his bourbon in a prescription cough syrup bottle. He told me hotel staff would drink your booze but never touch prescription cough syrup.

What can your mind spin of this?