A 33-year-old Japanese man has been getting a lot of attention for his ingenious way of putting a roof over his head – asking total strangers to let him sleep over.

Shuraf Ishida has slept in over 500 different homes over the last five years. After quitting his job, he decided to sell all his belongings except for a few essentials that fit into his backpack and travel around Japan using his savings. Normally, accommodation would have ranked highest on his list of expenses, but the 33-year-old man found an ingenious way of putting a roof over his head for free. Every day, Ishida stands in crowded areas sometimes for hours at a time, holding up a sign that reads “Please Let Me Stay Over Tonight!” As weird as it sounds, he almost always finds someone willing to take him in, mostly lonely homeowners in need of someone to talk to.

Most people who pass by Shuraf Ishida at train stations or busy interactions simply ignore the expressionless man holding up a sign asking anyone to let him sleep in their home, but it’s very rare that he doesn’t find anyone willing to take him in. On those rare occasions, he simply contacts one of the people who let him crash on previous occasions. Some even consider him a friend now, after sharing several nights in his company, confiding their secrets to him, even though he coldly refers to all the people who opened up their doors to him as “homeowners”.

“It’s exciting, like casting a fishing line and waiting for a fish,” Shuraf Ishida says about the experience of standing motionless with his sign until someone approaches him. However, the most exciting part of the experience is listening to the homeowners’ life stories, which he claims “feels like reading a different novel every night, never boring.”

Ishida said that he used to be a very shy, reclusive person, but everything changed during his university days when he went to Taiwan, where he met people and was treated to delicious meals. He became obsessed with traveling, so after graduating from university, he got a job at a Japanese corporation with the goal of “saving up money to travel around the world.” He quit at age 28 and has been traveling ever since. Although his savings are dwindling, he has no intention of going back to work, instead trying to save as much money as possible to keep his unique lifestyle going.

Ishida says that many of the homeowners he interacts with open up to him, sharing secrets and hardships that they have had to endure, but he never shows empathy and doesn’t offer words of encouragement. Instead, he just listens to them and asks direct questions, which most of them seem to enjoy, because it makes the interaction more genuine.

“I think of it as ‘content’. I really enjoy listening to it,” Ishida told Japanese news outlet FNN, adding that he never feels like he owes the homeowners anything for allowing him to spend the night in their homes. “It may sound arrogant, but I just want to have a bit of fun.”

Ishida’s attitude has received a lot of criticism on social media from people accusing him of “relying on the kindness of others instead of working,” but the homeowners welcoming him in their homes find his presence “good value for money”. Over ninety percent of them are single homeowners, mostly men, who feel lonely and enjoy having someone to talk to. He offers them an escape from painful loneliness, and all they have to do is let him sleep over.

“On nights when I feel like I can’t get through it, I often end up spending a lot of money or drinking until I throw up, and it’s not very productive,” one woman in her 20s said. “But when I was with him, he helped me get through it. I just lent him my house. So I thought it was really good value for money.”

Shuraf Ishida’s story recently went viral in Japan, catapulting him to celebrity status. He has been getting requests from people looking to welcome them into their homes, and from news outlets wanting to interview him. But the 33-year-old man said that no matter how famous he becomes, he intends to keep sleeping in strangers’ homes. His main concern right now is wanting to revisit many homes he has spent the night in and having trouble fitting them into his busy schedule.