St Kilda’s No.1 draft pick Paddy McCartin had a homeless man and a dog living in his new Toyota Prado for close to a month last year.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Appearing on the (highly-recommended) Dyl and Friends podcast, hosted by GWS utility Dylan Buckley, McCartin elaborated on one of the most bizarre off-field stories we’ve heard in years.

LISTEN TO THE STORY IN THE VIDEO PLAYER ABOVE

McCartin had finished a game against Geelong in what he described as “the Saints’ classic Sunday 4.40pm timeslot” in round four last season when he decided to stick around for another day and visit family.

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His parents had borrowed his car and promised to drop it off at his girlfriend’s mother’s house, where he had been staying. But when he went to drive back to Saints training the next morning, there was no sign of the car at all.

“I’ve got up on the Tuesday morning... walk out and the car is nowhere to be seen,” he said.

“I call mum and I’m like ‘hey mum, how was your night’ all of that stuff and then I’m like ‘where’s the car’ and she’s like ‘just out the front’.

Camera Icon McCartin has had the car detailed, but there are days where he can still smell the dog. Credit: AFL Media

“That’s when my heart dropped a little bit and I’m like ‘oh no, the car’s not out the front, it’s gone’.

“I called the cops and said look, my car has been stolen... gave them the rego and all that. My car has been stolen.”

Things got worse from there, with the thieves driving the car to McCartin’s house and robbing that too.

But then the story took a turn for the truly bizarre.

“The car was stolen by a bunch of 17-year-olds who were in this car-stealing crew. They’ve stolen like 20 cars or something,” he said.

“It was a couple of months old and they sold it to a homeless guy for $3000. So the homeless guy and his dog were living in my car for three weeks.

“The insurance company is like, ‘if we can’t find it within three weeks we’ll pay you out and give you money to get a new one’.

“So I’m like, perfect, it hasn’t rocked up, and then on the stroke of midnight I get a call from the cops saying it’s been found in Wyndham Vale.

“It’s been detailed a few times and I’ve got it now and it’s fine... but there was a homeless man and his dog living in my car for about a month.

“Every now and then I can still smell the dog.”

If there was a weirder off-field story last season, we’d love to hear it.