Legacy

The title as you can see somewhat poses a question.  This story will at least partially answer that question.

John Roberts was 53 years old when he was laid off from a relatively good paying job.  At that age finding employment of any kind is difficult.  However John was able to secure a job as night watchman; but it only paid a fifth of what he had been earning.  John’s house had to be sold on a short sale just to get him out from under it.  His nice new car he had to sell even though it was paid for.  He traded down in order to get a wee bit more cash.

John and his wife Merriam still had to have some kind of a roof over their head; so they purchased a small two bedroom one bath with no garage.  It was located out in the boonies, in poor condition; but it was cheap.

John knew it would require a lot of work; but most of it was cosmetic as in sheet rock, plaster, and paint.  John felt he could handle that and the materials were not all that costly.

Of course a preliminary inspection would reveal how much material would be needed.

Let me also now tell you a little more about the houses location.  It sat in a corner lot sort of at a dead end.  I say corner because the corner was created by 8 foot high chain link fences.  One ran behind the house at about 75 feet back, and the other along the right side about 50 feet from the house, where it then took a right turn and kept going as far as the eye could see.

The property behind the fence was according to a sign a former rock quarry area and was now government property.  John could see through the fence to the rear and noted that the ground dropped off about another 100 feet farther back.

Now having observed the lay of the land John went into the house to see what was needed.  It was a mess; sheet rock had been damaged and chunks pulled off here and there including pieces from the ceiling.  The wiring however seemed Okay as was the plumbing.  That was peculiar as so much of the sheet rock was damage.

The place did have a bit of a basement however, and it appeared dry.  It was usable space to say the least.  In looking around the basement John notice a heavy planked door in the wall near one corner.  John thought that strange, but figured behind it might be the furnace and hot water heater.  John opened the door and sure enough there was the furnace and hot water heater.  There appeared to be about six feet more space behind furnace and hot water heater.  That stuck John as odd.  John threw a beam from his flashlight back that way and illuminated more foundation; and something else that seemed out of place.

That something was like ladder rungs imbedded in the wall but only ran above the floor level about 3 feet.  John side stepped and squeezed between the wall and furnace to get a closer look.  What John found was an opening in the floor about 24” deep and 30” wide.  The ladder rungs appeared to descend downward through that opening.  This piqued John’s curiosity and her decided to go down for a look see.

John knew something was abnormal and that maybe someone had been looking for something when they tore up some many places in the sheetrock.  Maybe, without even knowing for what.  But this was definitely something.

John descended for what he perceived to be about thirty feet where he stopped on a concrete floor.  Light was very dim and appeared to be coming through a small window about 100 feet away. That window turned out to be in a triple wide overhead door.

Using his flashlight to help guide him along the wall towards that small glimmer of natural light; John came to a wall switch just a few feet from it.  John flipped the switch and the place lit up like a Christmas tree.

What greeted John stunned him so much all he could do was stand there slack jawed for five minutes.  He then gathered his wits and started taking inventory of what he was seeing.  He realized he was apparently in a man made limestone cave being used for deep storage of many things.  How much was government things and how much were private was hard to ascertain.  Among the many varied items there in great quantity I might add; were many power tools of all size and kind; dozens of each.  Those type items alone would have a retail value of several hundred thousand dollars.  Of course one could not get most type of things up the ladder because of size.  However some things like hand tools one could and John took a few back up the ladder to help with fixing the place up.

As John worked on getting the place more habitable; it occurred to him that much of that stuff was under his house and that in effect he had property rights; and that assuming such rights were vertical as well as horizontal, then the cave was his property.  He farther concluded no one was paying him to use it and he had a right to confiscate the stuff as a long overdue rent payment.

John contacted an attorney reputed to be an expert in property rights and proceeded from there.  Research disclosed that the house had been the facilities caretakers cottage. That explained the pretty well hidden ladder, as the caretaker had no wings to fly down with.  Trucks would come and go bringing and taking from other directions down into what had been an old limestone quarry in order to utilize the cave storage.  Somewhere along the line, the government had failed to maintain lease payments on the property and it was then sold off, including the above ground house.  The house was later then sold to John without it dawning on the seller that the caves ran under the house.  However, wittingly or not, property rights run deep and John now had title to the cave and all that was in it.

That was tested in court and held up in Johns favor.  There was a fly in the soup however.  John had no way of getting the stuff out as the access to the big overhead door would involve crossing property John did not own.  However the owners of that access couldn’t get at the stuff in the cave either.

It seemed like a lose, lose situation for all.  Fortunately someone suggested and all interested parties agreed.  The simple solution was that the entire property including the house would be leased from John on a 99 year lease.  All agreed to an amount and all were happy.

John of course had to move again, but he didn’t mind too much as the monthly lease payment was three time the salary he was getting from the good job before he lost it.

True, its an ill wind that don’t blow some good, and John liked this breeze.