When this wealthy Chinese businessman purchased an 18^th floor penthouse apartment in Guangzhou city several years ago, he appeared quite contented with it. But soon, he began to make changes that the neighbors thought were weird. At first, he planted all kinds of huge trees and thick bushes on the roof, which neighbors assumed were meant to protect his privacy. But then he took it one step further, by surrounding the property with camouflage nets filled with plant foliage, which was very unusual.

That’s when the neighbors began to worry for his sanity, but it turns out the businessman wasn’t insane at all. He was actually using all the camouflage as a cover up for the additional two floors that he was secretly adding to his apartment. While he told everybody that he renovating, he was actually adding a 19^th and 20^th floor to his already massive apartment. And he did this in secret to work around the local planning laws.

Unfortunately, the clever businessman’s well concealed secret couldn’t be hidden for long. When the other residents of the posh Haitang Ge neighborhood realized what he was doing, they made several complaints to local building chiefs. But the complaints went unheard for two long years – officials feared that the well-connected businessman could not be penalized. According to a construction director who preferred to remain anonymous, the two-storey construction could ‘put the safety of the apartment at risk’. He added that the construction should have been approved by the management department and other home owners in the building.

Now, construction experts have finally decided to step into the matter – they’re conducting tests to find out if the illegal construction could affect the rest of the building. If that’s the case, they will have no choice but to demolish the two new floors.

As weird as this sounds to most westerners, this sort of illegal building has become pretty common in China. We covered two similar stories just last year – one mountain villa complete with fake rocks built atop a 26-floor apartment building, and a traditional temple built on the roof of a skyscraper.

via ECNS