Only in Japan

[Peter]

TOKYO - A homeless woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.

One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.

“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."

Woman found the home unlocked
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.

The closet is part of a Japanese-style room, one of several rooms in his one-story house where the man lived alone — or so he had thought.

Police were investigating how she managed to go in and out of the house unnoticed, as well as details of her life inside the closet, and if she had taken anything else besides food.

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

[Pyraxis]

Oh, wow. Talk about invisibility. I thought only frightened little autistic kids could pull that kind of shit off.

(Hm. Was that horribly prejudiced?)

[Christopher McCandless]

[ozymandias]

Oh, wow. Talk about invisibility. I thought only frightened little autistic kids could pull that kind of shit off.

(Hm. Was that horribly prejudiced?)

No, but, I found the woman displayed a keen survivors ingenuity.   Think about it, how would we react or function under similar circumstances.  Desperate times breed desperate measures!

Except for lost food, it could have been so much worse!

[Callaway]

It's amazing she managed not to be seen for a whole year.

He must have worked very hours at the office.

[Parts]

Oh, wow. Talk about invisibility. I thought only frightened little autistic kids could pull that kind of shit off.

(Hm. Was that horribly prejudiced?)

No, but, I found the woman displayed a keen survivors ingenuity.   Think about it, how would we react or function under similar circumstances.  Desperate times breed desperate measures!

Except for lost food, it could have been so much worse!

Like that movie where Gary Busey is living in someones attic

[ozymandias]

Oh, wow. Talk about invisibility. I thought only frightened little autistic kids could pull that kind of shit off.

(Hm. Was that horribly prejudiced?)

No, but, I found the woman displayed a keen survivors ingenuity.   Think about it, how would we react or function under similar circumstances.  Desperate times breed desperate measures!

Except for lost food, it could have been so much worse!

Like that movie where Gary Busey is living in someones attic

Yeah, but, he was playing a psychotic maniac.    This lady doesn't sound psychotic or crazy, just desperate.

[Alex179]

It's amazing she managed not to be seen for a whole year.

He must have worked very hours at the office.

The average Japanese worker does work quite a bit more than the average American.   It is possible that he worked upwards of 60-70 hours a week.

[Christopher McCandless]

It's amazing she managed not to be seen for a whole year.

He must have worked very hours at the office.

I suspect his social life was external to his place too. His place was probably used for little more than eating and sleeping...

[Pyraxis]

The average Japanese worker does work quite a bit more than the average American.   It is possible that he worked upwards of 60-70 hours a week.

The difference isn't as much as you might think. In 2004, the average Japanese employee worked 1828 hours a year, and the average USA employee worked 1777 hours (OECD (2004), OECD in Figures, OECD, Paris.) If you assume 45 working weeks in a year, that's a difference of 40.6 hour weeks to 39.5 hour weeks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#South_Korea_and_Japan

Apparently it's Korea that's really bad.

[Alex179]

I thought it was much higher for some reason.   South Korea does not surprise me at all.   I just remember reading articles about Japanese businessmen overworking themselves and not sleeping a while ago.    The South Koreans are more hardcore workaholics then.

[Pyraxis]

What I'd heard was that it was people from the USA who worked a lot more than they got credit for. But I think it can be bad in both places, just depends on the type of job and industry.