I have a realty customer who buys old apartment buildings and fixes them up and makes them habitable.
Recently he purchased a a very rundown building in the South Hills of Pittsburgh in a very prominent community .
Needless to say the local Code Enforcement where ecstatic he was going to clean up this property.
But unknown to them and my customer was a small secret apartment with just 5 ft ceilings you access off a boiler room stairway.
At 6 ft tall I had to crouch down to even fit in the rooms which where very small . The apartment had Cable TV and internet a small kitchen stall for a toilet and separate stall for a tiny shower but the person occupying it had already moved out .
You never would have suspected this apartment was there in the Boiler / laundry room because you had to go up a set of metal steps which looked like it was the back door for one of the 9 apartments.
Neeedless to say it can no longer be used as an apartment it has been cleaned out and turned into storage for maintnance men.
The mysstery thou was why was it even built and who lived there.
We found out it was rented aparently for free or big discount by a elderly widow .
The Big Question is How did it get built and no one knew?
There is no way Fire prevention would have allowed it . Only one door out past a boiler room and bedroom was behind kitchen no way to escape if stove caught fire.
Like Fire Inpsector said . This would have ben a classic case of a fire entrapping some one and they being found days later because no one knew to search for her .
What ever the story the old owner has split town for florida and he is not talking .
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