Spanish teenager spends six years digging a hole in the garden and turns it into a HOME

A teenager has spent six years digging a hole in the garden which he has turned into a home after having a fight with his parents.      

Andres Canto, 20, from La Romana, Alicante, Spain, first began his project after arguing with his parents over an outfit in 2015 when he was 14.

He took his anger out on the ground in the garden by hitting it with a pickaxe, and it quickly turned into an obsession. 

The actor has since created his very own underground cave almost ten foot into the earth, with steps leading to a living and bedroom.    

A teenager has spent six years digging a hole in the garden which he has turned into a HOME after having a fight with his parents

He plans to expand the underground dwelling even more, but it currently has two rooms, a heating system, a music system and gets WiFi from his phone.

Although his parents were fine with the build, it was visited by the authorities’ environmental protection department to ensure it was legal. 

They didn’t find any issues because it couldn’t be defined as a basement, extension or storage structure. 

He said: ‘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. 

Andres Canto, 20, from La Romana, Alicante, Spain, first began his project after arguing with his parents over an outfit when he was 14

‘It was not a basement, neither was it a storehouse, it was only a well-built underground hut.’

Andres said: ‘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 digging every day.

‘I have always liked to build little huts. I live in the countryside and often when I found abandoned wood there, I would build a nice house. I was a kid with a lot of imagination.

‘I did not want to be on the ground anymore, but in the air,’ he said. ‘The last evolution was the underground hut.’ 

When he first began building, his friend Andreu brought round a pneumatic drill, and the pair spent up to 14 hours a week digging. 

He has since created his very own underground cave almost ten foot into the earth, with steps leading to a living and bedroom

Removing the dirt was mainly done by hand with buckets to carry the soil from the hole. 

Eventually, Andres decided to study other excavation techniques to help him, and he came up with the idea of using a pulley system. 

To prevent collapse, he used reinforced columns and arched entrances in the rooms, and estimates the whole project cost him £43 (€50) because the construction materials he used were cheaper than he expected. 

The layout of his man cave was often determined by stones that appeared in his way during the project.

He said: ‘Sometimes I came across a big stone and it could be frustrating after hours of digging that I had done almost nothing.’

Although the cave occasionally floods after a downpour, he adds that the constant 20 degree temperature means it is somewhere cool for him to spend hot summer days. 

He plans to expand the underground dwelling even more, but it currently has two rooms, a heating system, a music system and gets Wi-Fi from his phone

He admitted that there are regular visits from insects, spiders and snails, but he does not mind.

Andres said: ‘I do not have problems with them, if I have destroyed their house, I let them build it in a new place in the wall, it’s no problem.’

Andres has taken to Twitter to share his journey, and created a thread documenting the start of his dig. 

In Spanish, he wrote: ‘THE CAVE, the thread of how a 14-year-old boy started a cave.

1. March 9, 2015; After a prepubescent tantrum, I started to hit the terrace, I did not handle emotions very well.’  

Although the cave occasionally floods after a downpour, he adds that the constant 20 degree temperature means it is somewhere cool for him to spend hot summer days

Inside the hole, Andres has built a single bed, and added that it really began to come together during lockdown. 

He Tweeted: ‘The room takes shape when the pandemic hits. A good 4m² of tranquility 4m underground. Worth it’. 

After seeing his videos, his mum paid a visit to see for herself, and he added: ‘She came down and told me that it was smaller than it seemed in videos.’

Andres has been keeping his followers up to date with his progress, and people are very impressed with his work.