00:00In Knightsbridge, one of the city's most exclusive postcodes,
00:04you'll find high-end hotels, luxury shopping, and the unlikely figure of Anes van Stedt.
00:12But how did he get here? And why is he allowed to stay? And how exactly does he live like
00:18this?
00:21I just thought, you know, it would be a shelter for the night.
00:25I'm an avid camper, like an amateur botanist, you know, I'm not afraid of nature.
00:31This is in a way a squirrel's nut collection. I have so many nuts that I won't notice when something
00:37disappears.
00:41Here, on seven layers of Hungarian down, a duvet collection that I haven't had a bad night's sleep
00:50for as long as I can remember. And that goes for four seasons. It's not cold in the winter now,
00:56because I don't have walls, right? So I get an air breeze.
01:00The house at 2 to 8 A Rutland Gate sold for £210 million, almost 250 million euros to a Chinese
01:08businessman in 2020. But he never moved in after the collapse of his property business,
01:12and the house remains a frozen asset. It has 45 rooms, marble bathrooms, views over Hyde Park,
01:19with 116 windows and an indoor swimming pool. But no one goes in.
01:30This is a very sophisticated neighbourhood. I had stayed for a few weeks.
01:34I knew everybody knew that I was here. And I thought, how can I sort of convey my presence
01:43without being present? And I thought, well, my constituency has to be the neighbour's children
01:48and grandchildren. Because if they plead my case at the kitchen table, my prospects improve.
01:58Sometimes they introduce themselves asking, what might I want or need?
02:02And my stock answer has been, well, what you just gave me. A little bit of normal time,
02:07and a little neighbourly vanter. What's given to me, sometimes it's food,
02:13very elegant Italian dinner jacket clothes have arrived on a few occasions.
02:19Juxtapose that with, where do I shower? And how do I get the basics? Because on weekdays,
02:25there's a charity that's near Victoria that provides showers, and they have a canteen.
02:31And then they also have like a charity shop without, at no cost. So they get donations.
02:38So you can always get the basics, the socks and the rest, and the occasional, you know,
02:43Christmas gift. I've been a very happy customer on very many occasions.
02:49This basically is my everyday, you know, the burden of my existence. So about, yeah, five, six,
02:57seven, eight battery banks. And now I can download an infinite number of books. So Tarkovsky's diaries,
03:05history books. And these are just the ones that I've downloaded to the phone.
03:12Anna's life of power banks, makeshift shelters, and floral displays has not always been like this.
03:19He was raised by his mother in Sweden before embarking on a range of careers at home and in the
03:24U.S.,
03:24making a name for himself in the tech world. In 2016, he moved to England, where he worked as a
03:31journalist right up until the time of the COVID pandemic. A share in a tech company from his
03:36days in the U.S. gave Anna's a nest egg he relied on. But it couldn't last forever.
03:41Now I'm a freelancer. Now I'm just waiting for my commission. And the waiting commences. I haven't
03:48given any justification for being cancelled or anything like that. And then circumstances have
03:54sort of intruded and so on. There was enough money for me to live off for a few years. But
03:59only frugally half time in a tent. In that sense, I'm a boiled frog syndrome. So I slowly got used
04:08to
04:08frugality that I didn't even notice when I stopped having money.
04:16Perhaps in this contemporary world, biggest curiosity about my lifestyle
04:21is I'm completely off money. But basically my only expense, filter coffee, brew coffee.
04:31Anna's finally feels safe in his home he's built himself.
04:35It's something he doesn't take for granted after previous experiences in temporary accommodation.
04:40So I'm no longer really worried that I'll cycle around the corner and everything will be gone.
04:45Because I've been here so long, I'm free of worrying now. And if we worry too much,
04:50we won't be happy.
