In the News

Welcome back to Crazy Business Owner Story Time!

November 5, 2025, I received a call from the Geneseo Police Department that our business neighbor, Pat with the Village Florist was complaining that we had banging going on in our building that shares a wall with her building.

My first thought was that an animal was caught in between the shared walls.

Upon arriving at the store, the Police were ready to investigate and immediately ran into our building to look for a possible thief or emergency happening in our store.

Very quickly our business neighbor Pat was able to TALK to a person in the wall.

We were not neccessarily aware of a gap between the walls and it is not easy to get onto the roof of our buildings.   So here is what happened:

The Chimney Sweep Thief (CST for short) Story

The alleged CST spend the entire day in Geneseo casing the businesses.  

She then went into the local furniture store and hid on the 3rd floor until about 4:30 p.m. when the furniture store closed.

She then snuck out of the 3rd floor and started walking along the roof line of the downtown businesses.

She desperately and unsuccessfully trying to access buildings from the roof.   She ripped apart several air conditioning units of many businesses trying to break in.

Finally she found a chimney with a cap.  She removed the cap and then just like Santa Claus jumped down the chimney.  

She fell about 1.5 stories down.

She did not cry out, she did not scream for help - she somehow thought she could escape herself.

For more than 1 hour she was in the Chimney without calling out for help.

Pat from Village Florist was working late because she had 3 funerals to prepare flowers for the next day and she kept hearing something like banging and scratching.  A true poltergeist moment!

Pat called the police twice and then the alleged CST finally spoke out.   

Geneseo Police and Fire broke down the wall and saw dangling feet about ground level.   

They had to break through a brick chimney to get to her.  

Upon extraction the Geneseo Police Department immediately told her she was "under arrest for trespassing" and then the excuses started flying.  She claims she "dropped something and bent over to pick it up and fell in the chimney", she also immediately asked to "have a smoke".

The Geneseo Paramedics were also there and wanted to help her.   She was not interested in getting help from the paramedics or going to the hospital for evaluation.  Crazily she preferred to get arrested over getting medical care.

Thanks to Pat at Village Florist - she really saved the alleged CST life!   If Pat had not been working late and was persistent with the police regarding these crazy poltergeist type sounds in her wall, I am not sure she would have survived long enough.

The rest of the story:

• Several business owners reported the alleged CST had visited their business and hung out and asked really weird questions.  Everyone (in hindsight) reported feeling that she was suspicious.
• Thousands of dollars of damage to buildings occurred.
• Check out her fake eyelashes which survived all the drama

How can you help:

Visit Downtown Geneseo!

Visit Village Florist is the site where the alleged CST was broken out of the wall.  They have a high insurance deductible and over $10,000.00 in damage.  They need your sales and support to cover this unexpected and uncovered expense.

Visit Four Seasons in Geneseo to see the "other side of the wall".  Four Seasons also have incurred $2,500.00 in damage to our roof that is also not covered by insurance.