Shopping
Michigan ‘Rooftop Ninja’ caught living in popular supermarket’s sign for a year: ‘She made it home’
She didn’t have to travel far to buy food.
A Michigan woman, known as the “rooftop ninja,” spent the last year living inside the signage of a popular grocery store.
Contractors hired to work on the roof at the Family Fare Supermarket in Midland, MI, were shocked to find an extension cord leading to the secret living space on April 23.
When they made their way into the space, the workers were met with a fully decked-out living area furnished with a mini desk, flooring, a pantry of food and a houseplant.
“They were like ‘OMG, someone is living in that sign,’” Midland Police Department Public Relations Officer Brennon Warren told Midland Daily News.
Police officers were eventually called in to remove the woman, 34, telling her she needed to find somewhere else to live.
It wasn’t clear how the woman got to the rooftop dwelling in the first place, nor how she eluded being caught for the supposed year she lived there.
The officers offered the unconventional squatter several resources including housing assistance, which she denied all help.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before in my career,” Warren added. “She made it home”
She did not work for the supermarket but did have a job, according to the newspaper.
Police also believe she had access to a car.
She was trespassed from the store, but management agreed to remove the furniture from the roof and return it to the woman.
Family Fare operates nearly 100 stores in seven states in the Midwest as the majority is located in Michigan, but also ranges from North and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
No criminal charges have been filed.
Last month one of Gordon Ramsay’s London $16.1 million restaurants was taken over by “professional squatters” as the celebrity chef was finalizing a deal with new owners.
Members of the Camden Art Cafe, a self-described “autonomous cafe in the heart of Camden,” had occupied the York & Albany gastropub in a form of protest for the “victims of gentrification” and the country’s high-speed railway, H2S.
A court eventually ordered the group to leave while the remaining squatters stood their ground until locksmiths and bailiffs rushed the building on April 22, according to The Standard.