It's no surprise, hundreds of homeless people here in Madison crowd shelters every night. But after responding to an EMS call, the Town of Blooming Grove firefighters were surprised to find out what place the victim called home.

"In route we realized this was a storage units over on Fair Oaks Avenue," says Blooming Grove Assistant Fire Chief, Jay Salvo.

The storage units they responded to, although not built to be occupied, contained a mattress and night stand as well as several clothing items and a portable heater. Homeless shelter directors in Madison understand that this is another alternative chosen after shelters reach capacity every night.

"There are a number of different reasons why and we can speculate," says Porchlight Executive Director, Steven Schooler. "For one, the drop in shelter is crowded. With 120 men in 2 different locations, that's crowded and it may very well be that they just don't want that additional people that they're sleeping with."

You may recall last October when police found the dead body of David Peters who had been living in a storage locker for some time. Although crowded, living in an unheated storage locker puts a person at risk for hypothermia. Heating these small spaces isn't such a good idea either.

"We were more concerned with carbon monoxide poisoning coming from the heating unit that he had and the fact that should a fire breakout, there would be no way for him to get out," says Salvo.

Stock N Lock, the company that owns the storage lockers did not immediately return phone calls.