An angry teenager spent 6 years digging a hole after getting into a fight with his mom. Videos show how he transformed the dusty pit into an underground home.
- Andres Canto fought with his mom in 2015. To channel his anger, he started digging a hole.
- Over six years, he transformed the hole into an underground cave with a bedroom and living room.
- Canto has plans to further improve the cave by adding a jacuzzi, he told Insider.
Six years ago, Andres Canto got into a fight with his mother. "My mom wanted me to change my clothes before I went out with my friends," he told Insider. "But I refused and had to stay at home."
Instead of sulking in his bedroom, as most 14-year-olds might be expected to do, Canto decided to release his anger from his "prepubescent tantrum" in a more productive way.
The Spanish actor, who is now 20 years old, began digging a hole in the backyard of his family home in Alicante, Spain. "I was an angry teenager with a pick axe," he said. "After I started digging, I came back every afternoon for three years to continue digging that hole."
Six years on, Canto's continuous digging has resulted in a dusty pit being transformed into a fully-fledged "man cave." The underground bunker is complete with stairs, a stereo system, heating, an oven, and a single bed.
He spoke to Insider from inside the cave, where he spends up to five hours a day relaxing, using the WiFi system he installed himself.
Canto said that while the argument motivated him to start digging in March 2015, he'd long considered embarking on such a project. "I was bored and alone in my neighborhood and I wanted to do something athletic," he said.
His initial plans were just to dig a bottomless pit. "For the first three years, I just wanted to see how deep a hole I could dig," Canto added.
But, in 2017, he began realizing that he could transform the hole into a liveable space. He called on his best friend, Andrieu, to help out. Andrieu lent him a pneumatic drill to speed the process up and came every afternoon to assist in the digging.
Within a year, the pair had more than doubled the cave's depth from five feet to 11 feet deep.
Canto has worked tirelessly over the past few years to build a functional underground space, spending around three hours every day on the construction.
A video tour, shared on his social media, shows that the cave now has many of the features of a standard home.
"When you enter the cave down the stairs, the first room has heating pipes and a coat rack," he told Insider. "That's the hallway."
The second room, Canto continued, has a seating area and a stereo system. "In the center of that room, there's an oven," the 20-year-old added.
The underground cave even has a bedroom with a single bed, shelving, and seating for four friends.
His friends think the underground cave is "awesome," he said. "They come every week to see any improvements or to simply enjoy a beer down there."
Canto's parents, on the other hand, are less thrilled by the construction. "Whenever I finish a room, they ask if I'm done already," he said
The underground bunker is far from finished, Canto told Insider. "What hooked me on the project was that it is never-ending. I think I'll probably add a jacuzzi next," he said.
The 20-year-old has no regrets about the six-year project. "It's been a long and rough adventure but, in the end, I love what I've achieved," he said. "All of the bad memories have disappeared."