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Home, Strange Home: Odd Abodes

liveinabin

liveinabin

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I heard this on the today programme this morning. I personally think it is a april fool but see what you think.

Yith's Edit: Original Link Dead, but likely based on this story:

Subterranean Living:

Perched high on a hill overlooking the Nottinghamshire countryside, it's the latest des res for these troubled times.&nbsp;<br><br>For just an anticipated few thousand pounds, a nuclear shelter built 15 feet under the ground can be yours. Damp and without mains electricity it may be, but there's no shortage of inquiries about this disused Royal Observer Corps monitoring base.

The bunker at Kelham Hill near Newark is impossible to see from the small country lane that runs nearby. A short trudge over a field brings you to the small concrete entrance tower and a few nondescript pipes, all that remain of the bunker's equipment which would have been used to measure nuclear blasts and radioactive fallout.

Robin Ware, who's handling the sale for Chartered Surveyors J.H. Walter, says there has already been great interest in the sale of the Nottinghamshire bunker and two others in rural Lincolnshire. One of those to take an early look around the site was Nick Catford who helps run Subterranea Britannica, a study group dedicated to investigating man-made underground sites across Britain. He owns a similar bunker himself and has visited more than 1,500 others. Mr Catford thinks the most likely buyers will be enthusiasts like himself or former members of the Royal Observer Corps.

He also believes that it could prove tempting for those concerned about possible attacks by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction. He already knows some people who are so concerned at the international situation that they've already built shelters in their own homes.

Link With Images:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/archive/features/subliving.shtml
 
Although saying that I have just found this which Today mentioned!
 
People have been buying places like this for ages, it's definately not an April Fool's joke. There is actually a lot of interest in buying such places!
 
For odd palces to live.

2 bedrooms, kitchen and a concrete dam built near El Cajon

By Greg Gross
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 4, 2006

EL CAJON – It wasn't the TV, VCR and DVD player hooked up to batteries in the drainage tunnel that had sheriff's Cpl. Troy DuGal shaking his head yesterday.

And it wasn't the homemade methamphetamine pipe or the improvised kitchen, complete with a pantry. It wasn't even the mirror over the bed.

It was what the homeless residents had built behind all that: a dam.

Having turned a storm drain into a two-bedroom apartment, they had erected a waist-high barrier of masonry and concrete to stop water from flowing through their makeshift home.

“It's really quite amazing to see what human ingenuity can come up with,” said county flood engineer Cid Tesoro.

Deputies found the encampment Wednesday in an unincorporated area between Greenfield and Hart drives, near a Graves Avenue apartment complex, after spotting a woman trying to get through a fence down into the culvert, where deputies had found her living last fall.

She and a man living with her were arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism, as well as a number of misdemeanor charges.

The culvert was divided into three sections by the two long concrete walls that held up the walkway above it. On the other side was another “apartment.”

Between the two sets of living quarters, deputies found a middle chamber filled with bags of trash and human waste.

“Just really nasty,” said Deputy C.E. May.

County public works crews face the chore of cleaning out the entire culvert, which may have to be treated as a hazardous materials site because of the presence of toxic chemicals and human waste. The tunnel will have to be ventilated to ensure that no dangerous gases remain.

The job is expected to take at least two days. The costs are expected to run into the thousands of dollars.

“We find these in places around the county, but not this elaborate,” Tesoro said.

About 900 feet to the west, work crews were already dismantling and cleaning out an even more elaborate encampment that was previously occupied by the same people. That cleanup work is expected to cost about $80,000.

Having an encampment crop up so soon after shutting down an earlier one is frustrating to law enforcement officers like DuGal.

He knows the two transients on sight. He chased them out of other encampments in the same culvert last year.

“There are four outstanding warrants on each of them, from me,” DuGal said.

“The homeless are in a sad situation, no doubt about that, but this is a public safety hazard.”

Scattered across the encampment floor were about 30 cell phones, all believed to have been stolen.

“You ask them where they got the phones and the answer is, 'I found it in a Dumpster.' People don't throw away perfectly good cell phones,” DuGal said.

Deputies also found syringes – some of them used – and realistic-looking toy guns amid the bicycles, mattresses, camp stoves and bedroom furniture.

“They'll tell you they're not criminals, but we find them with meth pipes, marijuana pipes, weapons, stolen property,” said Deputy Angela Pearl.

For those who set up housekeeping in the drains, it's often a matter of convenience, DuGal said. They complain to deputies that getting into homeless shelters like St. Vincent de Paul is just too hard.

But if they get caught in the culverts when storm runoff is flowing through, their home could quickly become a deathtrap, Tesoro said.

“These culverts are designed to channel floodwaters. On big storms, that flow is turbulent and fast,” he said. “Something like that can be drastic, even deadly, for the folks in there.”
Click to expand...

www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060 ... ncamp.html
 
Well,if 'big brother' the current police state wasn't in the business of driving people underground (remember USA imprisons a greater % of it's people than any other nation in history) then perhaps..just perhaps people wouldn't need to resort to such extremes!The criminal here is big brother & his gun toteing useful idiots!!!


Ps. why not ask yourself 'WHY'!!people have to resort to living in sewers!!?in the first place before you judge those people!?Do you think they do it by choice?
 
February 3, 2006

Talk About Renting a Hole in the Wall

By JANNY SCOTT

So you think your place is small? One night recently, a group of architecture students staying up late in a loft in Brooklyn took to amusing themselves by stuffing a mattress into a hole cut into the wall above a bedroom door. Then they tried the mattress out for comfort. Not half bad! It occurred to one of them, Nick Freeman, that people might pay money to call that elevated mattress home.

So Mr. Freeman posted an ad on the Web site Craigslist: "$35 — elevated mattress-sized space between rooms." He used a minimalist pitch. "Opening between hall and room available for long/short-term use, accessible by ladder, sheets and pillows not provided." The ad went up around noon, and by the end of that day, Mr. Freeman had a dozen potential takers.

"I was actually surprised with the amount of places that fall into that category — kind of like 'I'll rent a corner,' " said Drew Hart, who answered the ad. "I went to look at a place recently in Queens; I wasn't aware until I got there that it was a cloth shower curtain separating part of the living room."

Into the six-ring circus that is the housing market in New York City — where a house can sell for $40 million, an apartment can rent for $25,000 a month and extended families sleep in shifts in single rooms — came the airborne mattress, at least briefly.

As real estate prices remain stratospheric and people keep pouring into the city, some housing experts believe the market for space within other people's space is on the rise.

On Craigslist alone, one can find hundreds of ads for rooms within apartments, beds within bedrooms, even the occasional couch — if not living quarters, then living eighths. Some are available from Monday evenings through Friday mornings, some only on weekends. Some exclude kitchen privileges, request teetotalers, insist upon plant care, limit sleepovers.

A few will take some of the rent in trade.

"The regular value of this studio is $2,000 per month," one recent ad seeking a roommate for a West Side apartment said. "Your share of the rent is specially reduced to only $250 per month for a female in exchange for doing small chores a few hours a week (i.e. cooking, cleaning, answering phones, massage, etc.)."

The ad suggested helpfully, "Perfect for a student, tourist, actress, etc."

What, no cabdrivers?

"You're in the subterranean world in this particular issue," said Frank Braconi, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a policy research group in Manhattan. "So little of it is aboveboard and legal and monitored, nobody's counting anything. You're inevitably going to be in the realm of anecdote rather than data."

He added, "Anecdotally, it's overwhelmingly the case that it is going on more and more."

Caroline Adalian, a 33-year-old "child life specialist" in a Queens hospital who figures she has lived in 10 different places since college, recalls being required in one New York apartment to say she was a friend of the family and never mention rent. Another woman was told to say she was the cleaning lady.

A few years ago, Karen Falcon, whose family owns a brownstone on Broadway at 152nd Street, tried to find a family to rent the three-bedroom upstairs apartment. When her ad went unanswered, she tried advertising the rooms separately instead.

They went almost instantly, she said; so she turned herself into an informal rental agent for a friend with a 60-unit building full of large apartments nearby.

"We were inundated," said Ms. Falcon, who said tenants in the building now affectionately call it a dorm for adults. "Because young people are pouring into New York City. It's like we are such a magnet. I really feel I'm on the front lines of this."

The mattress episode began sometime before dawn on Jan. 16. John Ivanoff, a 22-year-old architecture student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, who shares the 1,500-square-foot apartment on Taaffe Place with five others — the person with the only room with a real window pays an extra $50 in rent — said he and his roommates and Mr. Freeman, a friend, had stayed up drinking and suddenly decided to stuff a spare mattress into the rectangular hole cut into the wall above one bedroom door.

"There were three of us up there at one time," Mr. Freeman recalled. "All three of us hung out there. After the night was done, I said it would be funny if I put this on a room-share thing on Craigslist and see if anyone responds."

One who did was Adam Kriney, a 29-year-old experimental jazz drummer "looking for living spaces for under $200, if possible," as he put it later. He had given up his share in an apartment in Williamsburg and had been staying on various couches of friends.

"Look, I'm looking to live in a crawl space," said Mr. Kriney, who said he spent his money on rehearsal space. "What do I really need besides my laptop, a sleeping bag and a suitcase?"

The mattress ad caught his eye.

"I kind of thought it was like a cubby cubbyhole where I could hang out," Mr. Kriney said in an interview. "I didn't realize it was suspended. Which isn't a problem. That wouldn't be a strange thing. It's just where I lay my head. I'm only here to do my music."

Tywan Williams, a 27-year-old "celebrity hairstylist" at a beauty salon in Queens who had found an apartment but could not move in until Feb. 1, answered the ad after sleeping on the A train the previous night.

Another response came from Melissa Sanfiorenzo, a 25-year-old photographer just back from Spain and trolling Craigslist for a room for $400 to $500 a month.

"When I saw the ad, it's like, 'This is really nuts,' " Ms. Sanfiorenzo said. "I figured being there, with time maybe something would open up. Maybe someone will move out — of, like, the room. I mean the bed is on top but maybe there's a table or a big space."

Mr. Hart, a 19-year-old student from Manasquan, N.J., returning to New York after a semester of travel, fired off an e-mail message to Mr. Freeman: "well O.K. I already know I'm crazy, but . . . if that bed's really for rent and you're all really as crazy as you seem as well (and those strings are strong) I'm there."

He added, "Will also sleep in corner, in tent, etc. etc."

An open house for the mattress was scheduled for that Saturday, Jan. 21, between 6 and 9 p.m. Mr. Hart arrived, checked out the real estate and was willing to give it a shot. But, according to Mr. Freeman, the existing inhabitant of the bedroom in question was unenthusiastic. "Pretty much that was the point where it fizzled out," Mr. Freeman said.

Mr. Hart ended up finding a berth in a small bedroom in Woodside, Queens. He said he was sharing a room with another man in a four-bedroom apartment — "kind of like a dorm situation." The rent is $250 a month.

As for the mattress, Mr. Hart has only one regret. "I think I would have done it," he said. "Because it's, like, a good story to tell your kids."
Click to expand...

Source
 
I can't help but wonder if this idea came from the short-lived, Southern California-situated American television comedy series POLICE SQUAD/ NAKED GUN.

"If you really loved me you'd move me out of this sewer" sez moll to her criminal boyfriend in what is apparently a very small, cramped apartment.

The next camera edit shows Mrs. Moll lifting a sewer lid and climbing out onto the street pavement.
 
700-year-old cave home in Iran.

iesBOOF_d.jpg


Located in northeast Iran at the foot of Mount Sahand, the mound-like homes are carved from volcanic rock, meaning that most of the materials needed to construct them were already located on site. Technically, the dwellings aren’t true underground homes since a portion of them sits above ground, but since much of the living space is buried, inhabitants can expect cooler temperatures during the day without having to jack up the air conditioning (and saving a lot of energy).

As you can see, the style of the homes isn’t as primitive as you might think since a lot of additions have been made in the last 700 years. There are modern doors and windows mixed in with more ancient looking carved out rooms and openings. While the area might look like its from prehistoric times, it’s actually a hoppin’ resort locale with hotels, restaurants and a special mineral water famed for its healing properties.

Interior images here:
https://inhabitat.com/700-year-old-underground-cave-homes-for-rent-in-iran/
 
The company H2OME can build you an underwater James Bond baddie home for between four and 12 million pounds .. they don't construct deeper than 800 metres so there's no need for pressurisation, you can also get your own private pier to gain access from (and fish off) :cool: .. sharks with frikkin laser beams cost extra.


ahome.jpg


ahome3.jpg


ahome2.jpg


If you wish to place an order ....

http://www.ussubstructures.com/h2o.html

Check out the bedroom ! (click on the pic to view larger) .. other than it being hanky panky heaven, it's surely also the ultimate place to watch JAWS.
 
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Perpetual man child Adam the Woo visits a man who's recreated a small part of Disneyland in his basement .. don't be so quick to laugh! .. and his daughter sleeps down there :cool: .. join him, shall you?

 
Swifty said:
The company H2OME can build you an underwater James Bond baddie home for between four and 12 million pounds .. they don't construct deeper than 800 metres so there's no need for pressurisation, you can also get your own private pier to gain access from (and fish off) :cool: .. sharks with frikkin laser beams cost extra.


View attachment 11086

View attachment 11087

If you wish to place an order ....

http://www.ussubstructures.com/h2o.html

Check out the bedroom ! (click on the pic to view larger) .. other than it being hanky panky heaven, it's surely also the ultimate place to watch JAWS.
Click to expand...

A touch too claustrophobia inducing for my demented brain, so there would no hanky panky out of me thank you very much.
 
Swifty said:
The company H2OME can build you an underwater James Bond baddie home for between four and 12 million pounds .. they don't construct deeper than 800 metres so there's no need for pressurisation, you can also get your own private pier to gain access from (and fish off) :cool: .. sharks with frikkin laser beams cost extra.


View attachment 11086

View attachment 11087

If you wish to place an order ....

http://www.ussubstructures.com/h2o.html

Check out the bedroom ! (click on the pic to view larger) .. other than it being hanky panky heaven, it's surely also the ultimate place to watch JAWS.
Click to expand...

Great off the coast of America. Going to look just a touch daft off Dawlish.
 
I'm pleasantly surprised by how homely the places look--see video at link.

Flavour:

Screenshot 2019-11-23 at 17.49.26.png


Australia’s subterranean oasis

Coober Pedy is at the centre of Australia’s opal mining industry. Now, 60% of its residents live underground, and the town is becoming a leader in sustainable living.

By Clare Richardson & Henning Goll
22 November 2019

Nothing about the Australian town of Coober Pedy is for the faint of heart – it’s blisteringly hot, located in the country’s remote Outback interior and is usually covered in a thin veil of red dust from local opal mines. But rather than move to a cooler, more hospitable climate, residents have gotten creative, building a subterranean community in old mines and creating everything from dug-out homes to churches. Today, around 60% of Coober Pedy’s 3,500 locals live underground.

Coober Pedy’s origins lie underground, too. About 100 years ago, a teenager discovered a piece of opal in the area. From there, miners flocked to the region, and soon enough, the town of Coober Pedy – the world’s largest source for opals – was born. In its heyday in the 1970s and 80s, the town was home to more than 1,000 miners. Today, there are only about 100.

Lately, though, the underground town has been attracting attention for a new reason: its hybrid energy project. Harnessing the area’s sunny, windy weather, Coober Pedy’s renewable energy plant generates 70% of the energy needed to power the town.

In a place where temperatures are known to climb to 53°C in the summer, cleaner sources of energy provide welcome relief from the smoke and heat of the diesel fuel formerly used to power the town. At the centre of the opal mining industry for decades, Coober Pedy is now drawing new residents for its ability to self-sustain, too.

YOU REALLY NEED TO WATCH THE VIDEO:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20191121-australias-subterranean-oasis
 
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