Morning Roundup: Deluxe apartment in the sky edition

Good morning, Houston. Imagine it: a penthouse apartment in the Galleria area, complete with your own personal dome. Nice — and did we mention it's free? Or at least it is for one guy who's been squatting in the attic of an Uptown business: According to KTRK, he's set up a pretty sweet pad, with cable, a flat-screen TV, surround sound, air conditioning and a bathroom. It's a pretty sweet deal for the guy, we suppose, but it's not so great for the owner of the store below: "God forbid, if he's not here and the electronics go off," the owner said. "The whole place could catch on fire." The problem so far is that, though police have checked the rooftop pad out, they haven't actually been able to catch the occupant — though they say they'll remain on the lookout.

>> Ex-TSU CFO might testify against Slade: The lawyer for former TSU financial chief Quintin Wiggins, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for his part in the Priscilla Slade spending scandal, said Wiggins might be willing to testify against his former boss at her next trial — if prosecutors let him out of jail. Prosecutors didn't call Wiggins as a witness in Slade's first trial, which ended in a mistrial after jurors reported they weren't able to agree on a verdict. "At the time we went to trial, we didn't feel [Wiggins' testimony] was necessary. We're willing to learn from experience," prosecutor Donna Goode told the Chronicle. That drew fire from Slade's attorney, Mike DeGuerin, who said a second trial is inappropriate: "The prosecution said they had learned some things in the first trial that will make it easier the second time around," he said. "This is not seeking justice. This is [a trial], not a training ground." Slade is accused of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of public funds on private expenditures, and Wiggins was sentenced in May for helping divert that money into accounts so that it could be misspent.

>> Area home sales take a plunge: There was some bad news in local home sales last month: Namely, they dropped 15 percent in September as compared with a year ago. What's more, it's taking longer to sell a house these days: 79 days on average in September, up from 73 days at the same time in 2006. That delay has contributed to the drop in sales, Houston Association of Realtors Chairman Rob Cook said: "As people who were relying on the sale of their home in [the $80,000 to $150,000] price range have been unable to find buyers for their homes, the sellers have been unable to move up to the next price range." The HAR is expecting a nearly 11 percent decline in home sales over the course of 2007. Even so, things might not be horrible in the long run: Sales and prices are still ahead of what they were in 2005, and the Houston market is better than the national one.

>> Today's weather: Looks like it'll be another potentially damp day: Expect a 30 percent chance of storms this afternoon, with a high of 87. Tonight, the rain chance will stick around as temperatures drop into the mid-70s.

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