Is this your neighbor??????

From the outside, the house looks like a beautiful vacation home, but investigators say it was just a prop and what it concealed is right out the movies. More than 1,000 marijuana plants were grown deep underground... The house was built on top of the natural cave, but investigators say no one lived there.


It wasn't even furnished. But inside the house there is a secret passageway into the cave. The interior of the house is just on the other side of the door. A corridor leads from the hidden doorway into the cave. The corridor has cinderblock walls and a concrete ceiling and floor. The 40 foot long sloping corridor leads into the cave that stretches 250 feet. There are offices, living quarters, and a growing area.

The office space comes first, then a living area furnished with three or four colorful bunk beds for camping out in the cave, and a restroom with a shower and plenty of toiletries. Behind the restroom is a kitchen with a fully stocked pantry, air conditioning and microwave. All the comforts of home, only this cave was all business. A starter room houses 500 to 600 small marijuana plants. Each just about six to 12 inches tall.


The next area has plants nearly ready to harvest. 500 to 600 plants as tall as six feet. Each had its own irrigation system. The lights and climate control kept the air at the perfect temperature: 87 degrees.


Just behind the growing area is the work space with all the equipment to keep the operation running. And in case the growers had to make a run for it, they built an escape route. It’s 150 yards from the cave to the surface.


A hydraulic jack lifts a trap door, which is hidden with a boulder. The escape hatch lets out just a few steps away from the home where anyone driving by would have no idea what lies beneath. Three men are charged with growing marijuana in that cave. None of them actually lives in Middle Tennessee, and investigators don't think the drugs were sold in Trousdale County. Investigators say the men were growing enough marijuana to make $6 million to $8 million a year.

http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051218/NEWS01/512180362/1297/MTCN02