back to article Woman finds Lithuanian living in shed

We know that some of you were rather sceptical about the shocking tale of Kosovan loftdwellers, so let's see what you make of the strange case of the Lithuanian lorry driver and the Banbury garden shed. According to the Telegraph, 25-year-old Kelly Dudley first clocked the squatter wearing blue overalls in the overgrown garden …

COMMENTS

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  1. beast666

    A lesson to us all...

    Whilst I can completely understand the worry this must have caused to the lady mentioned, even she recognises that the bloke was 'a nice guy' and that she would have taken him on - a bit of extra income for renting the shed, free gardening, free security guard. Hats off to this bloke for just trying to get by, without becoming a criminal!

    I for one, welcome our gardening Lithuanian overloads...

  2. Mike Crawshaw
    Joke

    I don't have a shed...

    But he's welcome to bed down with my dog in his Wendy House / Kennel for sorting out my garden!

    (PS: Televisions?? So the shed had electricity, then? Posh...)

  3. Lee Dowling Silver badge

    Someone give him a job.

    Come on, local council, you're missing a perfect opportunity to get a hard-working, honest, proud man in your coucil teams - whether it's cleaning up the road, or maintaining a park or whatever - what a perfect man to have on your team. Arrange him a visa if he doesn't have one already (I assume he has, because it doesn't say his previous job was breaking the law).

    Or get the locals to whip round and give him a couple of weeks work gardening in the neighbourhood, enough for a plane ticket home if that's what he wants.

    It's just a shame that he was moved on without, it seems, a lot of his possessions (the photos in the paper seem to indicate he left most of the stuff behind).

  4. Vaidotas Zemlys
    Happy

    wilibox

    Shame, shame and shame again, for not finding connections with another El Reg story with Lithuanian motives, the one about Lithuanian firm selling Wifi products named Wilibox (http://www.wilibox.com/). How do you call a shed with Lithuanian living in it? Wilibox :)

    For those keeping score (poor sad bastards like me) it is the third lithuanian story in el Reg :) Whoo-hoo :)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    eh

    Why exactly was she worried about her daughter?

    What does anyone (bar like 1 in a million) people want to do with a kid? The totally normal 999,999 people will either

    a: want the child to shut up

    b: think aww what a lovely child - I hope it all the best

    c: Hey check out this tonker truck, when I was traveling from ship to ship long ago I saw many a things, grow up and don't become like me okay kid!

    d: What child?

    What the hell is wrong with people now days anyway, why do (apparenlty normal) people keep thinking that men want to harm or have sex with their children? In my reasonably lengthed life I'm yet to meet someone who wants to harm or hump real children, (now people that want to hump Fate or Nanoha - that's a different story.)

    I mean what gives?

  6. andy gibson

    and...

    (Making assumptions here though) - what's powering the TV and has he paid for a TV licence?

  7. min

    now this is one hell of a Squatter.

    some of my neighbours could take a leaf out of his book, although admittedly they only leave their garden tools in my shed and not their daughters (all well over 20...) with single beds and bidets. probably something i should raise with the old neighbour when i see him.

    what an absolute gem of a squatter...

  8. Anonymous John
    IT Angle

    How do I contact him?

    I've got a shed, and my back garden needs a bit of attention.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    That is a lovely shed

    It's a lot nicer than my shed.

    My shed has spiders that could be seen on Google Earth.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. James Le Cuirot

    "He hadn't committed any criminal offences..."

    Had he paid his TV license?

  12. Dalek13
    Joke

    Still preferable...

    ...to finding gnomes!

  13. CharleyBoy

    Shed?

    That's the shed?

    I took a look at the image on the link and have to admit I was expecting a small, boarded shed type thing, maybe enough for a few spades and tins of screws and the likes - but that looks bloody massive. No wonder he moved in. Bit of find if your homeless I should imagine.

  14. Samantha Clinton

    Why...

    ...is the picture on the Telegraph website credited to the Manchester Evening News? Could the local papers not get to Banbury in time?

    And more importantly, why am I bothered...you can tell I'm procrastinating on a Friday can't you...?

  15. andy gibson

    "He hadn't committed any criminal offences"

    He cleared the undergrowth without permission, that's criminal damage for one.

  16. Dave
    Stop

    What?

    "He hadn't committed any criminal offences"

    But everyone else in the country has, so he must be some kind of spy...

    Honestly, the police just don't make any effort sometimes - surely those plants were potted out maliciously?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    The important question

    If he had (2) TV(s), did he pay his TV license? If not, there's your offence!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re : Eh

    Possibly your reference to Fate and Nanoha are overly obscure even for RegReaders.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Girl_Lyrical_Nanoha

    ...And do you mean 1st or 3rd series of Nanoha? In the 3rd she's 19 (at least in the anime).

  19. Ron Eve
    Coat

    @A lesson to us all...

    "I for one, welcome our gardening Lithuanian overloads..."

    Overloads? Is he the thin end of the wedge? Are there 'shed loads' more arriving soon...

    <ahem> Oh very well...

  20. Tim
    Go

    Wanted - legal immigrant

    Free room and board for anyone willing to tidy up my garden.

    English speaking non essential, provided you can draw pictures.

    Hot 18-30 year old female immigrants preferred.

  21. This post has been deleted by its author

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re:re : Eh

    Loli fate is best(s1/2), but healthy Nanoha is better(s3). Although it doesn't matter becouse they only have eyes for each other. The ferret must be destroyed >.>

    Season 3 was such a let down I was so hoping for a magical girl/high school yuri romance *sigh*

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdkBe_zQRw0 < epic car is epic

  23. Luther Blissett

    All blokes must have a shed (apparently)

    > Dudley concluded: "It's an amazing, funny story but it's also very frightening."

    Now there goes one woman who's in touch with her feelings - all of them at once.

    PS Who said the TVs worked? Maybe he was aiming to fix them up and sell them. He's quite entitled to watch videos without a TV licence.

  24. roper simon
    Stop

    Soggybiker

    Why oh Why are people going on about a TV license/criminal offense.

    Shout very load about or rapidly encroaching police state, where it's pretty much possible to find an offense to pin on anyone?

    He was living in a shed uninvited using the occupants electricity. She didn't complain or he would have been charged. Presumably Ms Dudley has a TV license covering her property. I am sure if there was the slightest hint of him needing a license he would have recieved post from Ross McTaggart or whatever ficticious name is used to scare little old ladies by TV licensing these days.

    BTW try explaining to nationals of nearly any country that you have to pay the government to watch TV and they will think you are joking. Then say if they tried that at home there would be a revolution.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @ Luther Blissett

    Not sure if that's quite correct, I think you need a licence to operate an appliance which is capable of receiving television signal regardless of your intention to watch said signals. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sury thats the way it is (it's unfair so it's probably right!)

  26. Matt

    With regard to the TVs

    Met a nomad in the Gobi desert who had a fridge. I asked him if he liked it, he said "yes, but it would be better with electricity!".

    With the current crop of crap on TV, perhaps their better without electricity. Or perhaps not speaking English helps?

  27. Joe K
    Thumb Down

    No home for you!

    "You are a man, and i have a baby daughter, therefore you must want to rape her. To the streets with you!"

    Disgusting.

  28. Joe K
    Thumb Down

    Oh actually.....

    If she hadn't been such a Daily Mail reader, the guy could have been a free and reliable baby-sitter.

    Yes, just like that Little Britain sketch. "yurr baby is fine"

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmm

    Nanoha and Fate aside -

    Back in the day people used to pay to have a hermit living at the bottom of the garden, she could of used it as a talking piece at dinner parties (yes I have a hermit at the bottom of my garden, would you like to see it?) Although she's probably too scared to have a dinner party. No other human beings will eat my offspring and blow up!

  30. Peter Redding

    If she paid her TV license

    Wouldn't other TVs on her property be covered as well?

  31. Darren Lovell
    Boffin

    "I liked britain back in 1065 before all the bloody foreigners came over."

    Err.... I'm guessing you mean the year before the face off between William the Conqueror, Harold Godwineson and Harald Hadraada?

    Weren't the Romans bloody the foreigners too? They invaded Britain in 55/54BC, didn't they?

  32. Abel Lineberger
    Dead Vulture

    Devolution

    So trespassing is no longer illegal in the UK? Itinerant students, workers, and tourists can just set up camp in your front yard, eh? Locke's crypt should be tapped to run a turbine - probably power most of Essex.

  33. Ian Ferguson
    Happy

    Bless

    I feel quite sorry for him. Kudos to him for trying his best in a hard situation - much better than sitting under a bridge drinking white cider.

    I sincerely hope he wasn't just moved on by the police and then forgotten about.

  34. lIsRT

    @ Abel Lineberger

    I'm not exactly sure of the distinction, but there's also "aggravated trespass" which includes things like vandalism, refusing to leave when asked, threatening behaviour etc. - this is very much illegal and arrestable - as far as I'm aware, merely *being* on someone else's property is either legal or de-criminalised (at least in England).

  35. Scott Swarthout
    Stop

    With the TV License

    Not being from the UK, I don't know much about the TV licenses. However, I would think that if he had a job where he could have afforded the two TVs he'd have paid the license(s?) then. It was after he lost his job that he moved into the shed.

  36. Matt
    Boffin

    Tv Licence

    I could be wrong but presuming she had a TV licence he wouldn't have needed one as one licence covers the whole property.

  37. Graham
    Stop

    Child labour gardening!

    It seems everyone is missing the more serious issue hidden in the subtext: "He offered to do my gardening for free if I let him stay there. I've got a six-month-old daughter and I might have considered it if I didn't have her."

    Darn you underfunded Banbury police constabulary, how many more child labour taskmasters will go unnoticed.

  38. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Child labour gardening!

    Heh.

  39. Luther Blissett

    @AC @Luther's licence to watch videos

    I read the Act so I was certain - and it was worth it for the pleasure of having the TV man came around. The law may be different now, as detector vans cannot detect TFT LCD screens in operation - but in which of nu labour's 3000 nu laws might it be found?

    Maybe the story is that SHE hadn't paid the TV licence, and wasn't insisting the police do much in case they started snooping around a bit more...?

  40. Simon Harris
    Happy

    Yes, but...

    ... where's the Playmobil reconstruction?

  41. Adam Williamson
    Thumb Up

    Tut tut...

    Coming over here, taking our sheds...

    And I thought I *was* the Register / Nanoha demographic. Oh, well. I guess now I'll have to take comfort in being the *gay* Register / Nanoha demographic...

  42. Keith Williams
    Pirate

    @Darren Lovell

    And so were the Damn'd Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Danes. (400ish - 1066)

  43. Mike Moyle
    Coat

    I have a solution.

    Perhaps the poor fellow should get in touch with Arthur Jackson.

    I hear that he has two sheds; surely he can spare one!

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Adam Williamson

    Fateo chaaaan!

    A series with some of the greatest insert songs about -

    It's always nice to be *the* demographic. I'll just have to live with being part of the Reg/Nanoha demographic though.

    I met a guy who made a nuclear fusor becouse it looked like Starlight breaker ahh there it is http://uruchai.com/2007/09/17/a-fusor-story funny guy. He's still destrought over the fail that was season 3.

    O well it's the weekend - time to drink.

  45. kns2c
    Joke

    I suspect an Estonian conspiracy here

    @Lee Dowling

    Lithuanians don't need visas to work in the UK. Not that it stopped them before though.

    @Vaidotas

    I'd say this is a lame story as far as Lithuanians are concerned. It completely tarnished the image of cannibalistic criminal alcoholics roaming the EU. I mean what's up with that guy - lost his job, started gardening for free, was co-operative with the police? I'd be relieved to find out that the Telegraph and the police mixed something up and he's in fact an Estonian.

  46. Mike
    Paris Hilton

    What?

    "I put some pot plants out and he even planted them in the garden one day."

    And the cops didn't notice her little "homegrown" garden?

    Paris, cause she likes a little pot too.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Abel Lineberger

    Not 100% sure but I think trespass is a "civil" thing not a "Criminal" thing so I think you can take some action (of some sort) to get some redress but it isn't a "criminal" offence

  48. Stan P
    Alert

    Bloody Limeys

    We'll be back to dominate your Island and then your hot 20 y.o. ladies will beg for a place in my Grandpa's "shed".

    Peace.

  49. DMG

    Poor fella

    I feel sorry for him, he did something in exchange for staying there - he didn't mean any harm!

  50. Pierre
    Joke

    Shed (s)

    Maybe she should have gotten another shed. I wonder if she considered the option. Do we know if her friends call her "two sheds"?

  51. Jay
    Unhappy

    Hold on a sec...

    The other half has asked if she can have a Lithuanian gardener who's pays to live in and maintain her garden as a Christmas present this year?

    Sad that someone who means no harm and actually helps is treated this way, tells us something about the state of society today,

  52. Gordon Crawford

    taxs suck

    i gave up drinking , due to outrages taxes [ok and additional costs due to problems [mebad]], and next year hear in usa i'll give up tv when they switch to hidef tv, face it in the age of computers which are supposed to make us more efficient .. should not the taxes be going down? but noooooooooooo, our gov employees do not become more efficient except at goggling for personal pleasure ..and still over spending..but i feel for the ones that pay the tax and even more for the ppl that are harassed for not even having a tv. my only ? is ..is your tax per tv or property or dwelling.. after all he was in a different building.

    so due tv cards for computers put out that signal?

    due you pay a tax for radios also?

    due you have to pay tax on for video on the internet?

    tv on internet is now available [oops sorry , did not mean to give the revenuers more ideas to tax..]

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    TV Licence @Peter Redding, Matt

    There's no "I'm living in someone's shed without permission - Do I need a TV Licence" FAQ on the TV Licensing web site but the section on lodgers seems most applicable:

    http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/landlords.jsp#link5

    He'd need his own TV Licence.

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Re: Gordon Crawford

    Gordon, we already have a resident crackpot here who is unable to form complete and intelligible sentences. I suggest you move onto another forum, or you might have to have a vagrant fight with Amanfrommars, in which case, I should like tickets and a liter of cider!

  55. Tawakalna
    Go

    alternatives..

    "He offered to do my gardening for free if I let him stay there. I've got a six-month-old daughter and I might have considered it if I didn't have her."

    silly fellows, she wasn't talkin' bout him being no r4pist/child m0lest0r/p33-dough-file, this is cos the nice lady was scareds of him being The Lawnmower Man cos he did offers to cut the grass for free - if he'd wanted payment, she'd have known he wasn't no virtual reality weirdo.

    Or maybe she just thought that he wouldn't cut the grass to the standard that her Royal Horticultural Society subscribed offspring would appreciate. Anyway, she's missed the chance of some free babysitting so no nights out for you for a few years yet luv!

  56. Kelly M Dudley
    Happy

    Umm yeah, I got's a shed.

    Hi All, I am Kelly Dudley, and it's my now infamous shed. Interestingly, I have made no comment to any press other than my local people, so please take everything you hear in the nationals with a pinch of salt!

    Let me clear some stuff up:

    1) I did not say I would have let this guy stay. I joked about it. I was not afraid that he had set up home in my shed in an effort to defile my daughter or kill me in my sleep. If he had, I doubt he'd have done the whole 'Changing Rooms' shebang on my outhouse. But the kind of guy who moves into your shed without you noticing is not the ideal playmate for one's 6 month old daughter, right? And besides, subletting goes against my tenancy agreement.

    2) He should have had a bloody TV license! I think the law states that anyone who's domicile has a lockable door of its own requires one. That's how they sting all the students in halls at uni. My (completely paid up) license does not cover him!

    3) Yes, there was electricity in the shed. This does not make me posh - it just means that it is possible to mow the lawn. I didn't even know it was in there (a rented property, an unused shed) but I guess it made sense when the landlords were adding the extension.

    4) This was never meant to hit the headlines - I am a journalist who just decided to tell her local paper about her weird and wonderful Sunday! I almost wet myself when I saw it all over the tabloids.

    5) If I ever look as rough as I did in the picture they used, it'll be because I am living in the shed.

    6) Lazy bad mother? Pah. I took my six months of maternity leave and am now back at work. You guys are all sat in your offices reading The Register - where is your work ethic?

    Right, is that everything? A big thanks to all the commenters at The Register who regularly make my day. The guy left without taking his stuff, so the shed is still set out as a bedsit. You are all welcome any time - I think you can actually steal wi-fi from the hotel across the road in there. I'll ask Jon the trucker if he comes back!

  57. Gav
    Thumb Up

    Thanks Kelly!

    That's brilliant - well done Kelly for commenting.

    I really hope the guy gets some help and a job though - he's clearly got a decent work ethic, do you know what happened to him? I'm sure as the chap above said, the local council or someone could surely give him a job as a gardener in return for a bit of food and lodgings until he gets himself sorted.

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Gordon Crawford

    It's clear that the USA should spend more of your precious tax dollars on education.

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WTF?

    "TV License"? Satellite/cable isn't expensive/restrictive enough?

  60. Cortland Richmond

    Well done Kelly

    It would have been nice to hear you took him on as a a gardener til he got a new driving job. But I quite understand

    Only, the Brownies ALWAYS go away if you thank them!

  61. Mark SPLINTER
    Happy

    Your Man In Lithuania Says:

    Lithuanian lager louts are also better behaved than yours. In fact almost all English stereotypes have a more polite Lithuanian equivalent, except for old female shopkeepers who are infinitely more rude in Lithuania. But also they are sometimes Russian so that doesn't count.

    Hooray for Lithuania! Now even our ridiculous Mayor is less ridiculous than yours. Overlord overload coming your way!

  62. Chris

    Kelly!

    Hey, I'm the younger brother of Kelly Dudley. I personaly think that keeping Jon around would've been a good idea, as any manual labour that does need doing within our family is done by me... I could use a little help.

    And I still want some of the stuff he left behind.

  63. Kelly M Dudley
    Happy

    The shed is no longer for rent!

    Ok Chris... you can rent the shed pro bono in return for your contributions to gardening.

    However, you are responsible for removing his 'toilet' and slightly tattered Page 3 girl.

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