The man appeared to live a cosy life before he was arrested (Picture: Shanghai Daily)
A man managed to evade security guards and live comfortably in a Shanghai shopping mall for six months.
He had fit a tent, table, computer and chair under a staircase and went unnoticed despite wandering out each day to charge his devices.
One security guard actually stumbled across him months ago, but let him stay out of pity when the man claimed he ‘needed a place to study’.
But on October 30, however, another guard came across the man and arrested him for the illegal makeshift home.
Video of the man showed him reclining in his chair while appearing to watch something on his laptop.
In a similar bizarre incident, Michael Townsend and seven other artists lived in a 750-square foot underground area in a Rhode Island shopping mall – for four years.
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When developers forced Michael out of his home, he came up with the idea to move into the underground area he had spotted while on a run by the mall years ago.
He said on his website: ‘During the Christmas season of 2003 and 2004, radio ads for the Providence Place Mall featured an enthusiastic female voice talking about how great it would be if you (we) could live at the mall.
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‘The central theme of the ads was that the mall not only provided a rich shopping experience, but also had all the things that one would need to survive and lead a healthy life.
‘This, along with a wide variety of theoretical musings about my relationship to the mall – as a citizen and public artists – provided the final catalyst for making the apartment.’
Townsend said he viewed the mall as an ‘escape and oasis’ from his creation of a 9/11 memorial around the same time he moved into the mall.
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