The View Wasn’t Much, but the Utilities Were Free : Living: A familiar figure around a Thousand Oaks shopping center turns out to be an uninvited attic dweller.

David Michael Russell had all of the conveniences of home--three rooms, rugs on the floor, books in the library, a desk, a television, a microwave oven, and an eight-track cassette player.

The problem was that it wasn’t his home. It wasn’t even a dwelling. It was a windowless crawl space in the attic of a Thousand Oaks office building.

Russell lived there, undetected, for nearly three years until Wednesday, when merchants at the Village Glen Plaza, on Village Glen Road, finally stumbled onto his lair.

Russell, a 40-year-old transient who grew up in Arcadia, was arrested and charged with one count of burglary for diverting electricity and water, according to Lt. Dante Honorico of the East County Sheriff’s Station. He is being held at the Ventura County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned today.

Merchants said Russell was athletic, hard-working and well-groomed and busied himself picking up trash, pulling weeds and recycling cans.

Russell, interviewed at the jail, said he considered the free work he did around the complex his rent.

“When you don’t have a deed and you don’t have a rent receipt, you’ve got to leave a tip as you go,” Russell said. “The basic things I’ve been doing are picking up the trash, litter control and taking carts back to the market.”

He said he had recycled materials and returned dozens of purses, wallets and briefcases misplaced by hurried customers.

“I’ve saved so many people so much grief over the years, it’s worth all the electricity I’ve ever used in my life,” Russell said.

But W. Dave Torres, whose company manages the complex, doesn’t see it that way.

Although impressed by Russell’s ingenuity, Torres said he is glad to have Russell gone.

“One, we have a major liability here. Secondly, he’s basically stealing utilities from the landlord and the tenants,” said Torres, a vice president of Chapman Evans Co., which manages the 70,000-square-foot shopping center and office complex.

Torres said he was speechless when he crawled into Russell’s meticulously organized living quarters. Torres, a security guard and two merchants had gone to the roof and found Russell’s attic lair.

“This guy was a highly intelligent person,” Torres said.

Torres said he twice before had evicted Russell from the roof, once after finding him using an electric hair dryer. He thought Russell was merely sleeping in the open on the flat roof.

“No one would be able to conjure up a three-bedroom apartment under the eaves,” Torres said.

Russell’s tiny quarters was a feat of organization. He created three “rooms” three to four feet wide between fire walls and the sharply slanting roof. It was impossible to stand anywhere because of the low ceilings, and he had to crawl from one room to another.

The largest room, which Russell used as a bedroom and study, was six feet long--just large enough for a thin mattress on the floor.

But Russell managed to squeeze in a desk beneath the tallest part of the ceiling, on which he set a small black-and-white television and the tape player, which still held a Linda Ronstadt tape Wednesday. From a bench, which doubled as a bookcase, a man of medium height could sit up straight at the desk.

Russell’s books included such titles as the “Politics of Arms Control “ “Composting Construction,” and a well-thumbed copy of “My Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra.”

He also had five volumes of Readers’ Digest books--the condensed editions.

In the kitchen next to the microwave, a large pot of fragrant potato soup sat on an electric frying pan that Russell used as a stove. Above it was a fire extinguisher.

Two dish racks were filled with plates, cups and utensils, and Russell’s larder was well-stocked with spices and oils. Two potholders hung neatly by the opening that served as a door.

Russell entered his quarters by climbing a tree to get on the roof and using a secret entrance.

Torres said he will box all of Russell’s belongings and return them to him.

Russell said he had lived in the Westlake Village area since 1978 and has been on the streets for five years.

“I can cover 2 1/2 square miles and keep it trash-free, carts cleared and back in order, with the added side duties related to recycling,” he said. “I felt I could leave the place in a better condition than it was when I arrived.”

He was well-known to some Village Glen Plaza merchants.

“Oh, David’s the one who painted all the flowerpots blue,” said Judy Norwood, a waitress at Bauducco’s Italian Deli and Bakery. “He pulled all the weeds out by the doughnut shop.”

Although he sometimes asked for food from the deli, she said, “when he got a dollar, he bought us a doughnut.”

Leon Apadana, who owns a Middle Eastern deli at the shopping center, said Russell is very intelligent.

“You could ask him the world. He knew everything,” Apadana said. “He’d clean without any money. He’d take the garbage. Anything.”

Russell’s family maintained its few links with him through Apadana’s deli. They sent money for his birthday and for other occasions through Apadana.

Russell’s mother, Eleanor Russell of Seal Beach, said she did not know what to do about him.

“He just will not conform to our society,” Eleanor Russell said. “I can’t make a home for him because I live in a retirement village.”

Eleanor Russell said she last saw her son during the Christmas holiday, when he stayed for five days.

“He just gives everyone the impression that he’s doing OK, but he’s not doing OK,” she said. “He won’t live like the rest of us. He won’t get a job like the rest of us.”

But Eleanor Russell said she will do what she can to help her son.

“If you see my David, tell him to call me collect,” she said.