Mole Man fined £300,000

Posted by Emperor in Architecture, Everything Else on April 17, 2008 at 10:38 pm


moleman_150

A pensioner who created a labyrinth of tunnels under his house over 40 years has been forced to pay £300,000 for repairs carried out by a council.

Excavations by William Lyttle, 77, who is also known as the “mole man”, almost caused the property in Mortimer Road, Hackney, east London, to collapse.

In 2001, his digging led to a 15ft-wide hole in the public footpath.

An earlier news report gives an idea of the scale of his obsessive tunnelling:

AN eccentric known as The Mole Man has been banned from his £1million home after digging a 60ft network of tunnels beneath it.

William Lyttle, 75, spent 40 years burrowing under his 20-room house, removing 100 cubic metres of earth with a spade and pulleys.

It is now feared the street could give way. Philip Wilman, a surveyor for Hackney Council, told Thames magistrates: “There has been movement in the ground. He’s fortunate a London bus is not in his front garden. It’s liable to lead to catastrophe.”

The house is also filled with so much junk surveyors are worried about the pressure on the floors.

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COMMENT

13 comments to "Mole Man fined £300,000"

  1. marie
    April 17th, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    No one's gay for Moleman. :(

  2. Alex
    April 17th, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    Whoa! Did he dig all that by hand? (DNR)

  3. sikantis
    April 17th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

    omg, everything seems to be possible if somebody wants it really ...

  4. the robot child
    April 17th, 2008 at 11:50 pm

    it's such a shame that his hobbie was shut down like this. I bet they wouldn't have stopped him if he discovered gold.

  5. Parker
    April 17th, 2008 at 11:59 pm

    It would've been more of a shame when a busload of passengers crashed because the road gave out.

  6. oezicomix
    April 18th, 2008 at 3:29 am

    that's a £1million home??

  7. Pol x
    April 18th, 2008 at 4:31 am

    I used to live right next door to this guy.

    The whole building was at a 12 degree angle.

    Google map

    Stamford Rd
    Hackney, Greater London N1

    It really is a shame as he was quite demented.

    Apparently he built a "sauna" room down there by plumbing in about 30 bathroom sinks and running all the hot taps (fawcetts) at the same time.

    Mad as a cut snake the old bloke was.

    He is actually the Mole Man of Dalston,if you live in Hackney, and the Moleman of De Beauvior if you live in Dalston.

  8. Pol x
    April 18th, 2008 at 4:32 am

    THE ROBOT CHILD.

    He very nearly discovered gold, as a local bank sent the cops after him because they thought he was burrowing into the vault.

  9. avraamov
    April 18th, 2008 at 4:36 am

    i knew that the property prices in hackney were overinflated, but i didn't know they were this bad...

    maybe the 1 million is for the extra suite of reception rooms he's dug.

  10. ted
    April 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am

    Wow, it's amazing it didn't sink if it weighed one million pounds.

  11. CheeseDuck
    April 18th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    That is awesome. I wanna be a Mole Man. Except without the fines of course!

  12. Alannah
    April 19th, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    If my neighbors started digging beneath their home I'd just be pleased to see them *working* for once.

  13. Becky
    April 21st, 2008 at 1:15 am

    Man, how's he gonna dig himself out of this one? (Bah-dum-cha!)


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