On a cold day in autumn, I came in for night shift and was briefed that one of the guards had found a maintenance hatch unlocked inside of a stairwell in the parking garage. When the guard looked in, he found items that suggested someone was living inside. The hatch was then locked and the items were left as is. I decided to go take a look after I got settled in for the night.

The stairwell services from parking level 6 to ground and runs parallel to elevators inside of a structure which continues up to a covered bridge that connects our property to a neighboring hotel. Since its design is that of an emergency stairwell It looks much like you would expect and lacks frills most people associate with high profile buildings managed by multi-billion-dollar corporation's and their overseeing shareholders.

The walls are unpainted cinder block, the floor unpainted cement, the lighting is dim and lacking in some areas, and everything is covered in a thick layer of dirt. The security team does our best to keep the graffiti to a minimum but one of our frequent fliers has taken to colouring each cinderblock alternating primary colours with permanent marker. To be honest it's quite artistic. The air smells of cigarette butts, urine, car exhaust, and mold from the perpetually wet carpets in the adjacent elevator lobby. The entire stairwell reverberates the sounds of passing cars both in the garage and on the street complete with the summer symphony of car horns. The guide wheels of elevators can be heard rolling up and down the shaft which seems to hit a resonant frequency which makes them sound louder than they should. The stairwell is a perfect means of escape in the event of an emergency, but it's not a place where I would volunteer to spend any amount of time in its condition.

I made my way up the stairs from the parking garage to the street level to investigate the find. Upon arrival, I found that the exit door to the street had been rigged to allow entry from outside. The latch was jammed into the door so that it wouldn't secure and while the door wouldn't otherwise be accessible because there is no handle on the street side, someone had tied a string to the crash bar and I imagine would leave it dangling outside the door for quick entry as they came and went. With the string outside the door, it would appear closed and might pass the inspection of a security guard if they didn't push on it.

Across from the exit door was a small two by two foot hatch which sat on the landing of the stairs approximately two feet off the ground complete with door hardware. It was very unassuming and is the same type of maintenance hatch that you can find in pretty much any large building. I used keys to open it since it was now locked and shined my flashlight in to find a room approximately ten feet across by 15 long filled with items that caused long shadows. The room occupied the area over where the elevator lobby would be in the parking garage but the elevators didn't service street level so a large void was left. The room was the height of the elevator shaft and stopped only at the floor of the bridge maybe twenty feet above. The walls, like the walls of the stairwell, were unpainted cinderblock and the air was stale due to the absence of air flow. The stench of urine and old beer assaulted the nose. The room itself had no light and the dirt coloured everything a drab brown making it difficult to distinguish the boundaries of it's contents with my flashlight. I had to concentrate on each item to take it in.

A dirty blue and red sleeping bag left unzipped in front of the doorway, a patio chair flipped onto it's back, two large potted plants which had since died, various pieces of wood strewn about, an old broken suitcase which contained only a microwave, dirty clothes thrown into a pile, a Nintendo game cartridge but no console, several empty beer cans, a couple of crack pipes; this was how the other half lived.

"Fuck me," I muttered.

I closed the door and went on with the shift wondering who the occupier was and what their circumstances were. I think we've all tried to imagine at some point or another what it would be like to sleep on the street and strategized about the sacrifices we would make in order to survive. But I've never seen or imagined anything like this. This event really brought home the realities of what street life was like and the fact that living inside this filthy, dark, loud, cold, stinking hell hole, was better in someone's mind's eye than being out on the street.

I had heard stories at my previous job about a person who lived inside a wall in the parking garage and would occasionally be seen, but no one knew where he lived or how he was getting in or out. I didn't believe it. It was impossible to believe that in a building as large as the ones in which I work, a person could go undetected for several years living in the shadows. But then someone went undetected for an unknown amount of time, in a parking garage, in a large building, in a major urban centre, at my place of work, while I was doing a job where I ought to be aware of that sort of thing.

Since that incident, I am aware of another person who was found at my work to be living inside a maintenance hatch and had to be subsequently evicted. It was in a back corridor of the mall and the room had similar properties. It may have even been the same person.

What did I learn? - Life is unfair. The will to survive is strong and creative. People who find themselves on the street often turn to drugs in order to cope and or escape the realities of their situation, I can appreciate why. There are people living in the shadows all around you that you aren't aware of and wouldn't even know where to start looking for them.