Man sues city over seizure of house with underground shelter

Statesman.com ^ | 5/7/12 | Patrick Beach

[Kartographer]

Two years ago today, Joe Del Rio was awakened to find city officials at the door of his lifelong home in East Austin, demanding entry. Before it was over, the Police Department's SWAT team and the Fire Department had been deployed, and Del Rio said he was detained and questioned for about 10 hours because of what officials called a multilevel bunker-like space under the house with suspicious and unusual materials.

After the city billed Del Rio in April for about $90,000 in repairs it said were critical to make the home on Canterbury Street safe, Del Rio sued the City of Austin last week for what his lawyers say was a heavy-handed and unconstitutional seizure of his property without compensation.

[maine-iac7]

It also pays to pay attention to property lines. Apparently this guy dug under his neighbour’s yard and that’s probably how the city found out.

Do you have inside information not presented in the article?

I see nothing in this schematic indicating that there was even an inch excavated that wasn't directly underneath his own house...

"two 55- gallon drums found" - geese, I have two of those that I got with intentions of converting to rain barrels. (note they didn't find anything IN THE DRUMS!) Guess I'd better get rid of mine before I make headlines.)

On what basis did they have the right to fill up that space with concrete and put him out of his home? He worked security for the town council for 22 years. Did he 'pee' someone off? sounds like a petty get-even abuse of power. Maybe he thwarted some lucrative schemes?

They totally took away his house and rendered it worthless.

[TribalPrincess2U]

LOL

[Kartographer]

Please point out where it says that he undercut his neighbor’s house.

[Carriage Hill]

Not hardly. My 40ft x 20ft SU (Safe Unit) is quite different:

http://www.atlassurvivalshelters.com/aboutus/nbc/backyard/

Scroll down to get an idea of what it can look like.

[dfwgator]

Here’s the problem with building a shelter with a bunch of neighbors around.

The Twilight Zone - The Shelter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSwrIy4IwoU

[RobinOfKingston]

Some of those photographs look to be of construction techniques very common to obamavilles all across the country. Tried and true.

[wideminded]

Looks like the design for that house that was in Silence of the Lambs - complete with the pit at the bottom.

[and so?]

LOL...

My wife gave me that exact card a few years ago.

I framed it and put it next to the shop entrance...see it every day. 8-)

[SampleMan]

OMG - He had firearms, car batteries, propane tanks, inert grenades and a hole!

What horrors lurk in the garages of Americans everywhere?

[Jack Hydrazine]

Why do they call it a complex? Why not make it sound more sinister and call it a compound?

[Little Ray]

Exactly! There is a lot more to it than the part we read shows.

[allmost]

I don't know. That's an aweful slim property line to go that deep though. What do you think?

[Kartographer]

I wouldn’t do it, but it’s not my property, but if you look at the pictures I don’t see any part of the bunk that could possible be larger than the house.

[wideminded]

BTW there was an article that came out recently about a new trend for wealthy people to build modest-looking homes with extensive underground facilities. Apparently one of the owners of such a home is Mitt Romney.

[az_gila]

Hey, two 55 gallon drums for rain water harvesting.

Lead acid batteries as part of his future solar system.

They should have given him a green house award...:^)

[allmost]

I first thought this was a nusiance neighbor issue, but there is no room to go down from the pic. If he's got land in the back maybe but that's tight. Pissed off neighbors. Guy should have been quiet about it in any case.

[BuffaloJack]

> I was going to say, “What sort of person ratted out his neighbor on this?”

You wouldn’t believe how petty some neighbors can be.
My next door neighbor neighbor filed a complaint against me, because my wife maintained a bird feeder. The complaint stated that the birds were too noisy for allow him to sleep on Sunday mornings. I had to pay a $75 dollar fine for maintaining a vermin attractor and I had to remove the bird feeder. (By the way, there are no rats in my neighborhood complements of the 13 cats on just my block alone.)

[Manic_Episode]

Loose lips sink ships.

[allmost]

You wouldn’t believe how petty some neighbors can be.

Bump.

[Little Ray]

Well, that stinks. It would take a lot more than bird song to bother me, but my mother has a similar problem. Just one bird, who chirps his song every day from dawn to dusk. Loudly. Didn’t bother me, but I was only there a few hours...

I had remove a humming bird feeder but that was because my cats learned to how to catch them. They got one, and I rescued another, so the feeder went.

Pity. I loved watching the hummingbirds.