CRIME Man spends days unnoticed in Pa. family's attic

dissimulo

Membership Revoked
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081228/ap_on_fe_st/odd_attic_intruder

Man spends days unnoticed in Pa. family's attic
Sun Dec 28, 5:59 pm ET

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – A family didn't realize it had an unexpected Christmas guest until a man who had been in their attic for days emerged wearing their clothes, police said.

Stanley Carter surrendered Friday after police took a dog to search the home in Plains Township, a suburb of Wilkes-Barre about 100 miles north of Philadelphia. He was charged with several counts of burglary, theft, receiving stolen property and criminal trespass.

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

Police said the 21-year-old Carter had been staying with friends who are Ferrance's neighbors in a duplex. He apparently accessed the shared attic through a trap door in a bedroom ceiling.

Carter disappeared Dec. 19, and the friends filed a missing person report a few days before Christmas.

Ferrance said she had heard noises but thought they were caused by her three children. She notified police on Christmas Day when cash, a laptop computer and an iPod disappeared, then called police again the next day when she found footprints in her bedroom closet, where the attic trap door is.

Carter kept a list of everything he took, said Plains Township police Officer Michael Smith.

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

Carter was in jail Sunday at the Luzerne County jail with a preliminary hearing set for Jan. 5. He did not yet have an attorney.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081228/ap_on_fe_st/odd_attic_intruder
 

Kronos

Veteran Member
LOL! Calls to mind Shirley MacLaine. ... The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (1968)

One comment regarding the above-mentioned film ~

The film is (loosely) based on a real incident.

In the late 1910s and early 1920s,
Dolly Oesterreich kept her lover, Otto Sanhuber in the attic where he lived for many years.

Her husband Fred ran a company that made aprons.
Otto even moved with the couple from Milwaukee to Los Angeles to stay above his lover.

Unfortunately, the real story doesn't have the happy ending of the movie.
 

imaginative

keep your eye on the ball
As a long-term real estate investor- I've always spoken against the wisdom of buying duplexes & twinplexs.

This article exemplifies precisely why- you really never know who else is in your shared basement/yard/garage/attic- porches ect. 2 units are always recipes for disaster.
 

Rich30N90W

Contributing Member
As a long-term real estate investor- I've always spoken against the wisdom of buying duplexes & twinplexs.

This article exemplifies precisely why- you really never know who else is in your shared basement/yard/garage/attic- porches ect. 2 units are always recipes for disaster.

My parents have a pair of duplexes, one is a single story 3/2 with a completely shared attic - I haven't thought about the ramifications of it until this article, creepy! AFAIK neither tenant there uses the attic for storage, but it is a security issue, I'll pass this on to my parentals. Not sure what they could do, short of denying access to the attic.

The other is a townhouse that my wife and I lived in one side for a few years - it has 1/2" sheetrock on either side of the trusses in the attic, so if someone wanted to break into the other attic, they would have to at least take the time to break a pair of sheetrock boards and shimmy thru a 16" opening.

Modern units may have 3"+ thick concrete between the common walls - burglars would need a jackhammer to get thru that, I think the tenants would notice :P
 

bobpick

Inactive
Ya Gotta remember a few things...

This took place in Plains, PA. Not really up there in the food chain. :groucho:

1) The attic is the safest place because the Susquhenna River floods yearly.
2) They aren't called duplexes here, they're called Splits.
3) Splits can go as low as 20K in some boroughs (small towns)
 

_dd

Senior Member
The townhouses we moved out of last spring only had to have firewalls every 4 units. And they were brand new construction. Guess that is the law around here. And there was no soundproofing material of any type between units...so we all knew everything that was said and done in the neighbors unit. We were going to be kicked out for noise complaints because we watched tv in our bedrooms at night and the neighbors on one side complained continually. I was so glad to get out of that place! We all had one of those attic access doors so they could get up there to do work if needed. We weren't allowed to store anything up there. But, that wouldn't have stopped anyone from another unit wanting to come on in and help themselves.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Had this happened and the owner had a large angry dog, I promise you that nothing would have been stolen. All that would have been left in my house would have been the pee-stai on the carpet where the guy p*ssed himself when the Uberpup came at him...


ETA: Fire wall or not, all someone would need would be a sawz-all and a hole could be made in minutes.
 

Palmetto

Son, Husband, Father
I used to live in a two story duplex (constructed in 1934).

It had a foot thick fire wall (concrete) between the halves. However, it ended at the attic. Both sides could access the attic.

Seems a few nails would do the trick.

BTW, he is lucky that woman was not a gun owner.

Palmetto
 

BigBadBossyDog

Membership Revoked
I find this story oddly satisfying. He did no real harm other than eat some of their food. I'm sure the slightly used stolen goods have been recovered.

The whole thing sounds like something I might like to do just to see if I could. Not that I would, but it's something of a fun fantasy. I would take my own clothes, though.

I find it fascinating.
 
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