A Chinese man discovered a secret room with another tenant seven years after buying a house (4 photos)
The passage was found during a general cleaning. 
A Chinese man named Li bought a house in the city center seven years ago for 2 million yuan ($280,000). All this time, he did not suspect that he was living side by side with another person. One day, while cleaning, he discovered a secret door under the stairs leading to the basement. The space was littered with boxes, so the man did not suspect the existence of other rooms. 
It turned out that the basement was well equipped: it had ventilation, lighting, and even a minibar. Moreover, another person had been using it all this time - the previous owner of the house. A woman named Zhang explained that she sold her home without a basement, so she has the right to occupy the underground space. How exactly the cunning Chinese woman got there is unknown: the second door from the basement led to the nearest parking lot, but the man does not rule out that the lady could have had spare keys to his house. 
The woman said that the basement is her personal space for relaxation. She does not live there permanently, but only comes from time to time. This room, according to her, is not part of the property, and therefore was not the subject of the purchase and sale agreement. She considers the claims of the Chinese man, who claimed that he bought the house in its entirety with all its contents, including the basement, to be groundless.
"If the basement belongs to you, then where should I relax in my free time?" the lady was indignant. However, Li filed a lawsuit, which sided with the new tenant and confirmed his ownership of all the premises in the house. 
Now Zhang will have to pay the man compensation for many years of using someone else's property, according to the South China Morning Post. Social media users saw in this story a repetition of the plot of the film "Parasite" (2019, directed by Bong Joon Ho). The film tells the story of how a poor family forges documents to enter a rich house as servants: a driver, a tutor, and a housekeeper. When the owners of the house go on vacation, the poor people stay in the mansion and enjoy luxury. However, it later turns out that there is another secret tenant in the house - the husband of the real housekeeper is hiding from the collectors in the basement... The moral is simple: when buying a house, carefully examine all the spaces: suddenly there is a secret door behind some warehouse of boxes.
