http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/406538,bunker053007.article Buffalo, N.Y., man found living in underground bunker home he said took 2 years to build May 30, 2007 BY ASSOCIATED PRESS BUFFALO, N.Y.---- A city fire investigator says he found a man living in a well-equipped underground bunker. James O'Neill, an investigator with the city fire marshal's office, said the man, a 47-year-old veteran, uses car batteries to light the 16-by-20-foot space, which is six feet underground. He cooks food in a hot pot. The man said the bunker took two years to dig, O'Neill said. The walls are covered with insulation and plastic tarps and the ceiling is made of wood and roofing material, said O'Neill, who discovered the home over the weekend while investigating a nearby fire. The man sleeps on a foam bed, O'Neill said. ''Some people would call him homeless, but he's a clean, well-spoken guy. When I spoke to him, he was reading a novel by Joseph Wambaugh,'' O'Neill told The Buffalo News. The fire investigator declined to give the man's name or say where the bunker is located to protect the man's privacy. He said the man earns money doing occasional odd jobs. ''It's not the Marriott hotel by any means, but this man has made it comfortable down there,'' O'Neill said. The man said he has been living in the bunker for about six years. ''He told me it's a peaceful and tranquil place to live,'' O'Neill said. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
There are one-room rat-hole little studio apartments in NY that probably aren't any bigger that would cost you about $10,000/month to rent.
Aside from the concerns of stability (it could cave in) and who's property he's squatting erm, under, it's just a "hey, would you look at that" story. Kinda neat, IMO.
I don't think people were specifically looking for him, but it doesn't say anything about the cause of the fire. The fire may, and I stress that word may, have been next door and they were trying to get neighbors to get out for safety. The article doesn't say anything about how he was discovered nor that he was breaking a law or anything like that.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial] He's not on the grid. He's independent of them, and he obviously doesn't need their "services" to survive. There has to be some law he's violating, else what he does might actually cause people to think, to think that they too can live without the "system" telling them when to do what, how to do it, and if they can even do it at all. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial] They'll probably take it for taxes saying he made improvements to the land and didn't tell them, or it's a building code violation or something, he won't get to stay much longer.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial]Or, since he didn't ask "them" for permission to dig a hole, he will be forced to fill it in.[/FONT] He's lucky it wasn't a slow news week. At least the fire marshal had the decency to keep his pie hole shut (so far) and didn't cite the guy for some phony charge.
I wonder if he actually owns the land. Don't you love how the fireman wanted to protect the guys privacy, yet tells the news
Without paying property tax, and not informing the government about any income he has with his odd jobs, he's violating his social contract. Yank him out and destroy his bunker. He must rejoin the collective... errr society.
And statists can never leave trouble makers alone, especially if the trouble makers start producing soemthing they want. So isolation is out of the question. Better just shoot the statist.
to Wyoming. Can we go back and live there? I could go for weeks or more without seeing a single person.
That's just it. We don't know. The quote "Some people would call him homeless" strongly suggests he does not own the land where he built his bunker.
Just trying to help out Also I'm happy that the collective individual mind on WF seems to have learned a new word.
Or you could take it to mean that he doesn't have a traditional "home" (house/apartment) with utilities.