Janitor with ‘nowhere to go’ secretly lives in class and even has his children to remain
A school janitor who said he had “nowhere else to go” was caught secretly living in a hidden room inside the middle school he cleaned – even having his four children stay over
Tim Walters, 36
A long-serving school janitor who said he had “nowhere else to go” has been caught secretly living inside the very building he was paid to clean.
He has even had his kids stay over for weekend visits. Head custodian Timothy Walters, 36, had worked for the Albany City School District for 17 years when he quietly moved into Hackett Middle School in Albany, New York, USA, turning an old fourth-floor storage room above the auditorium into a hidden crash pad.
Dubbed by locals as a “broom with a view”, the makeshift studio was kitted out with two beds, a futon, a mini-fridge and cooking gadgets including a griddle and an air fryer.
Hackett Middle School in upstate New York
“I had nowhere else to go,” Walters told the New York Post, explaining he’d been staying with his sister and her boyfriend but they needed space. He also said spiralling costs left him trapped, despite what sounds like a solid wage.
“I was already paying my partner child support for our four teenage children and I didn’t have enough to get my own place,” he said. Walters earned $64,000 a year (about £50,600) – and said with overtime he made around $80,000 in 2025 (about £63,300).
But he claimed he was “drowning in bills” and paying $2,000 a month in child support (about £1,580), leaving him unable to afford rent locally after deductions. He even brought his four children – aged 11 to 17 – to the school “apartment” during weekend custody time, while letting his sister believe he’d moved into a legitimate place, the New York Post reported.
“I knew what I was doing was wrong”
Walters told CBS 6: “The layout had a futon bed and a bunch of old, older chairs and some furniture that’s just been sitting in there for who knows how long. And I ended up cleaning it out and bringing in multiple beds, mini fridge.”
Walters lived undetected for more than six months, from October 2025 until late April 2026, until school officials reviewing CCTV for a separate probe into suspected overtime fraud spotted him moving through the building at all hours. Walters himself was not accused of fiddling overtime – but the footage led investigators straight to his hidden room.
“I knew what I was doing was wrong,” Walters admitted. “But I didn’t know what to do.”
He was caught secretly living inside the very building he was paid to clean
He added: “When your back is against the wall, sometimes you end up making choices you probably shouldn’t have made.” He was suspended with pay, the district moved to terminate him, and he resigned on June 23 of this year, calling it a “serious judgment error”.
He was later arrested and charged with criminal trespassing. Walters is now said to be living with an uncle in a trailer park while waiting for his own place, and claims he has had two job offers.
Police initially brought trespass charges that were later dropped, and his sister set up a GoFundMe which had raised $14,155 (about £11,200) of a $24,000 target (about £19,000) from 246 donations at the time of writing. In the fundraiser, sister Amber Walters wrote: “He wasn’t hurting anyone.
“He wasn’t stealing or doing anything shady… He knows what he did wasn’t okay…
“ And if nothing else, I just hope people can take a second to remember there’s a real person behind the story.”
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