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.
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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."
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The house is also filled with so much junk surveyors are worried about the pressure on the floors.
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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.
He very nearly discovered gold, as a local bank sent the cops after him because they thought he was burrowing into the vault.
maybe the 1 million is for the extra suite of reception rooms he's dug.