(Memphis) A homeowner bought a new house but it came with something unexpected, another tenant. A teenager was sleeping in the home.
According to police, the owner was checking on his home after he noticed a broken back window.
You see a sign clearly on the front door, property owners warning folks to stay out. But according to Memphis police 18-year-old Michael McKinnon, didn’t.
Police records say McKinnon was found by the owner sleeping in a closet of this house on Birdwood Dr. The owner says when he woke McKinnon up and told him he had to go, McKinnon did. But police say, he came right back and they found him with his legs dangling from a hole in the ceiling.
“You can fall through. All you got to do is miss one of the rafters, it just has dry board. You fall and that’s the ceiling,” neighbor Charles Bircham tells News Channel 3.
Bircham says, it’s strange a squatter would be caught in his neighborhood, but he isn’t surprised and he’s heard about a lot of crime over the past three years.
“One house was broken into the night before the owners moved in. They broke in and took the fridge, washer and dryer,” said Bircham. “I come from Illinois and people here are just bolder. I call myself getting away from the violence in Chicago, come down here it’s more violent.”
McKinnon faces criminal trespassing and vandalism charges. He heads to court later this month.
Michael McKinnon