A woman was found living inside a grocery store's rooftop sign for a year

An aisle in a New York grocery store. Talia Lakritz/Business Insider

• A woman lived inside the rooftop sign of a Michigan grocery store for about a year, police say.
• Contractors working at the store found the woman, the Midland PD said.
• She’d decorated the space with a mini desk, flooring, pantry, and houseplant.

A woman spent about a year living inside the rooftop sign of a grocery store in Midland, Michigan, police say.

Brennon Warren, the public relations officer at Midland Police Department, told Business Insider that the woman was found on April 23 by contractors who discovered an extension cord on the roof. Police determined she had been living there for about a year, he said.

The Midland Daily News first reported on the woman being found.

Warren confirmed to BI that the woman was 34 and had a job. She’d decked out the space with a mini desk, flooring, pantry, and houseplant, he said.

Per ABC News, Warren said the woman also had a Keurig coffee maker, a printer, and a computer.

“She was homeless,” he added. “It’s a story that makes you scratch your head, just somebody living up in a sign.”

Warren told BI that it was unclear how the woman accessed the roof. However, he said that once on the roof she was able to enter the inside of the sign using a 3’x4′ access door.

He added that the woman had refused an offer for contact information for housing assistance in the area and that police didn’t know where she had been living since she left the roof.

The woman wasn’t formally charged, he said.

Warren told The Midland Daily News that police had nicknamed her the “Rooftop Ninja.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before in my career,” he told the publication.

Little is known about the woman, including what led her to living on the rooftop.

The Michigan Homeless Policy Council estimated that in 2022, about 32,589 homeless people lived in the state, an 8% increase on the previous year, which it attributed to an “uncertain housing market” and the winding down of pandemic-related programs.

Family Fare is owned by SpartanNash and has 80 stores, mainly in Michigan.

A spokesperson for Family Fare said the company was “proud” of its associates for responding to the situation “with the utmost compassion and professionalism.

“Ensuring there is ample safe, affordable housing continues to be a widespread issue nationwide that our community needs to partner in solving,” they added.

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