Without planning permission or proper safety equipment, Gary Bartlett excavated a 7ft-deep crater underneath his property in Lucy Street, Blaydon, Gateshead.
He took out the floor of the garage and started digging in a bid to create a basement. The hole went so far below ground that it exposed a sewage pipe serving nearby properties.
Structural engineers went to inspect the work, but they were so worried it might cave in that they refused to go in. Now, Bartlett, a landscape gardener, has been ordered to fill in the hole with concrete.
At Gateshead Magistrates Court, council building surveyor Paul Anderson said: "The props supporting the foundations of the garage are in wet clay. We refused to go into the hole because of the condition of it."
The council won a court order instructing Mr Bartlett to make it safe in 14 days, or it would take steps to fill it in itself. Magistrates found him guilty of failing to comply with a notice of a dangerous building. He was ordered to pay £600 costs.
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