DIY Excuses

Rod · 2008-04-16T06:29:30+00:00

A court order is a difficult-to-beat excuse for not finishing off those odds and ends you've been meaning to do for a while...'Mole man's' £300,000 repair billA 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.Hackney council evicted him in 2006 to allow work to stabilise the house.The High Court ordered him to pay the amount within 14 days or the property could be sold to pay the bill.It is understood Mr Lyttle inherited the 20-room four-storey detached property from his parents.The house, which is dilapidated, could be worth more than £1m if renovated.Public dangerOn Monday the High Court also extended an order which bans Mr Lyttle from going near the property to ensure he does not damage the restoration work.Since he was evicted he has been living in temporary council accommodation.In 2001, his digging led to a 15ft-wide hole in the public footpath.Fiona Fletcher-Smith, of Hackney Council, said: "Mr Lyttle's actions had led to his home becoming a danger to himself and to the general public.William Lyttle's houseWilliam Lyttle has been banned from going near the house"Making the property safe is a matter which has incurred considerable expense to the Hackney taxpayer over a number of years, and we are extremely pleased that the court has agreed we should be able to recoup the cost."Following the order, neighbour Dean Dawson said: "The council has been pussy-footing around him for years."They would just check that any work he did had the right planning permission. There has been a distinct lack of action."I've got every sympathy with him (Mr Lyttle). He's just a bit eccentric and a bit of a recluse."But it does grate on residents when they're told to take down satellite dishes and you just look across the road at all...

DIY Excuses

Apr 16, 2008 29 Replies

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Bob Eager 18 years ago

Yes, that's been done neear here (Whitstable) but it's a big tank with a concrete 'lid' (now a car park).

The tunnels which are now a little more famous, as seen on the speeding motorcyclist's YouTube video on the TV news yesterday!

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Owain 18 years ago

It is for Dribble, no-one's got a mind like his.

Owain

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Owain 18 years ago

If you see an entry in the Prime Minister's expenses for 'cellar extension works' you'll see not only how they got there but who paid for them.

Owain

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Owain 18 years ago

(d) getting fed up eating mushrooms all the time

Owain

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dennis 18 years ago

Its a lie.. I still haven't drilled a hole in this 133 carat diamond so I can hang it as a pendant.

Drill all materials, b@lls!

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Arthur2 18 years ago

In The Hobbit, the dwarves could blows smoke rings that would drift around the room and they could drift through other smoke rings. That might take a long time to learn.

Arthur

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Lobster 18 years ago

I remembered correctly:

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Andy Hall 18 years ago

There was one for sale on Ebay at one stage. Not someone from the Town Hall (they go in the penny bazaar) but a genuine tunnel boring machine.

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Lobster 18 years ago

Here you go - scrap metal:

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Grimly Curmudgeon 18 years ago

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) saying something like:

Pratchett's dwarves, shirley?

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