A teenager in Spain was so annoyed after an argument with his parents that he decided to dig an underground den beneath the garden – spending six years creating his own subterranean oasis.Andres Canto was 14 when he fell out with his parents when they told him he couldn’t go out wearing a tracksuit, prompting him to grab a pickaxe and head out to the garden in La Romana, Alicante, to let off some steam.
Six years later, Canto has managed to create the ulti-mate man cave, complete with its own sitting room and bedroom. Now 20, Canto doesn’t really understand what compelled him to start ha*ki*g away back in 2015, but is happy with the result. Canto, an actor, said: “My parents wanted me to change clothes to go to the village, but I wanted to wear the tracksuit that I liked to wear at home so I could m-ess around in the village.
“They told me I could not go out dressed like this and I said: ‘No w*rr*es, I can entertain myself’, and I went to the back of the property and started to d** a hole.”
But the hole continued to grow as Canto wound down after school and in his free time exca-vating the earth by hand. His friend Andreu then brought round a p*eum!atic drill, which sped up the process – with the pair eventually creating a 3m (9.8ft) deep cave, which they spent up to 14 hours a week d*gg!ng. Now Canto plans to extend the site – which already features mod-cons like a heating system, WiFi cour-tesy of his mobile phone tr!nsmit*ing from the entrance and a music system.
He said the temperature remains a constant 20 or 21°C between May and September. Canto continued: “It’s great, I have everything I need.
It can be tiring to work here as it is wet and there is not much air going around, but I have found my own motivation to keep on d!gg*ng every day.” He’s not too *orr*ed about the the odd flo-od or even the occasional visits from insects, sp!ders and snails, especially as he ‘destr-oyed their house’. “I let them build it in a new place in the wall. It’s no problem,” Canto said.
He explained that he has ‘always like to build little h***’, as he lives in the countryside, and went on to start creating tree houses.
“I was a kid with a lot of imagination,” he said. Canto estimates that the project cost him no more than €50 (£43) as most of the constr-uction materials were much cheaper than he expected. He mainly d** by hand using buckets to carry the soil from the h-ole, but eventually decided to study other excavation techniques to help him – which was when he came up with the idea of using a pulley system.
Canto also reinfor*ed his cave roof using arched entr-ances and vaulted ceilings reinforced with columns, as well as concrete walls to prevent collapses.
He went viral after posting a video of the cave online, soon attracting the attention of the local authorities. The Civil Guard and its environmental protection department paid him a visit to ens-ure the den was legal, with Canto saying: “As I am the first person in Spain doing something like this, when the Civil Guard arrived there was not a specific report for that, it was not a basement, neither was it a store house, it was only a well-built underground h**.”
Amazingly, his parents are fine with their son’s underground retreat, with Canto saying: ” My mum came down and told me that it was smaller than it seemed in videos.”