Slightly off track, but following on from Steve.
In the mid eighties I changed careers and started working for a small Estate Agency chain. The person I was about to replace would tell me about some of the local characters and two spring to mind.
Firstly there was George, who seemed a little eccentric, talked out loud to himself, stood outside looking at our window display most mornings and on wet days would come in and look at the displays inside, chatting to the staff who would give him a cup of tea and listen to his war stories, he would ask about new properties that had come available.
We never really knew exactly where George lived until about 5 months later, a certain terraced house came on the market at £29,950 and he came in to announce that he lived next door to it and wanted to buy it.
That's fine George, you can if you can afford it we said, 2 days later in comes George with a carrier bag containing £29,950 in cash. Can I buy the house now?
We had all assumed that George rented his home but it later turned out that he owned a total of 14 houses in the same road.
Then there was Nellie, she was a neighbour of our office cleaner Mrs Jones, both in their late 70's and lived in small terraced houses just around the corner from the office.
Having no family in the area, twice a week Nellie would come to meet Mrs Jones at the office, have a cup of tea, then they would toddle off to the local market.
Nellie was by all accounts a spendthrift and this was reflected in her bedraggled appearance and her shopping habits.
What we subsequently found out after she died several years later was that she owned nearly 20% of the buildings in the High Street, including the one we rented.
You can never tell !