'Mole Man' Lives In Hidden Home Dug Under City

'Mole Man' Lives In Hidden Home Dug Under City
State Says Home Is Danger To Residents

A homeless contractor known as the "mole man" dug a multi-room 200-square foot home underground in Fresno that surprised police when they recently stumbled upon a hidden entrance.

Police said Bruce Tracy dug the underground home in an area near Roeding Park in Fresno.

The home had a bed, a leak-proof roof, a kitchen and escape hatch, Local 6 reported.

Tracy said it took him about 2 months with a shovel and other tools to carve out the underground rooms.

The state said it is a danger to people living nearby and plan to demolish it.

http://www.local6.com/spotlight/14673988/detail.html

will have to become mortgage man to make the state happy. :eyes:

Doesn't sound homeless to me (unless they destroyed his home already).

he could probably become a major developer.

:)

"The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City" by Jennifer Toth.

Amazon

From Kirkus Reviews
There is, says Raleigh News & Observer staffer Toth, a city below New York City: a fantastic underworld of men, women, and children who are born, live, and die in the darkness beneath the streets. In the early 90's, the author, then a Los Angeles Times intern, spent a year exploring that nether world, preparing this startling report. Toth first heard about ``the mole people'' from a child who claimed that her classmate lived underground; further research brought the author into contact with Sgt. Bryan Henry, a Grand Central Station cop who introduced her to one ``J.C.'' (most of Toth's homeless use pseudonyms), the ``self-described'' spokesman for an underground community of 200--a large but not unprecedented number for one of the dozens of camps, gangs, and roving bands that Toth found in the tunnels. These tunnels--including gas and sewer lines as well as abandoned subway tunnels and stations--honeycomb the city's foundation, descending to seven levels and housing perhaps 5,000 lost souls. To the uninitiated and, at first, to Toth, the tunnels are terrifying: She walks them both guided and alone, aware of forms flitting past, of rats and madmen. She visits camps whose members stay below for weeks at a time; she watches a ``filthy and bearded'' loner skewer and roast a ``track rabbit''--a rat; she talks to graffiti artists, women, teenagers, and a kill- for-hire gang whose services cost $20. Pausing in her chronicle, she surveys underground life in history and literature, from Egyptian slaves living in mines to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Finally, Toth flees the city's depths, her life threatened by a mole man who thinks her a police informer. The life expectancy of the average mole person, stricken by drugs and disease, is under five years. Toth's unusual sociological adventure story, then, is as saddening as it is gripping. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Fascinating read.

People living beneath New York City in the tunnels. Loved that show!

came from the Foresteire Underground Gardens in Fresno. Fascinating place to visit. Here's a link:

http://www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/

Deep Underground Military Bases.

I've been in one underground base in Oahu, Hawaii. There are many others, most of them much deeper.

http://www.fdrs.org/deep_underground_military_bases.html

http://www.subversiveelement.com/DulceSchneider.html

It does make sense to build them. How many are there and what are they doing with them? Who knows? Certainly not you and I.

Geek check...

there was a family who had permission to dig underground in the back forty of a local radio station. They lived there for years. I lived near their location in my second tent under a mesquite tree. My first tent under a palo-verde tree was burned by a lunatic who had wanted the location along with the girl I was with, and we barely escaped in time. After that I was seriously considering digging in a secretive area along the river bank so as to have a safer "home". Now, out of habit, I am always spotting decent locations for sleeping, even though I am currently off of the streets.

:hide:

I just don't see how he did this. We live about 50 miles east of Fresno. The ground here is like concrete for most of the year--hard to dig even with the tractor. I can't imagine doing this with a hand shovel.

Wow! You're the second "noobie" ;-) I've seen this evening from the San Joaquin Valley.

Welcome from your Fresno neighbor. :hi:

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread. Carry on.

If he's in a good spot with no one above him, how is it dangerous? Why not just let him live there?

I hitch hiked from SF to NY in 1971 with a promise of a job. After I arrived the job was no longer available, nor was the place that I was promised that I could stay. It's a long story that I will skip now but I was homeless for about a month. I managed to get a plane ride back to SF via a loan from some people I met. The homeless experience was not much fun, to say the least.

I had let my drug addiction get me there. Now that I am clean I don't see myself going back, at least not for that reason. Living in fear outside and eating behind grocery stores is a hard and all-consuming endeavor. It took a couple of years for my feet to heal. I spent so much time out of society that I have a hard time getting work being 45 now and having only done manual labor all of my adult life. :nopity: . So, I can see how easy it would be to find myself in such a situatio again. Let me say though, all of us should consider the very real possibility of losing everything and finding ourselves there. It's a healthy thing to ponder the possibility of big and sudden change. Peace