Family to sell cave home on eBay

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FESTUS, Mo., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A Missouri family says the credit crunch has forced them to put up for sale the 17,000-square-foot home they created in a cave.

Curt Sleeper told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he and his family, like so many others, are victims of the credit crunch. He has been unable to obtain mortgage refinancing for the cave.

"We don't want to move," he said. "But we need to protect our equity. We put everything we had into this home."

So the Sleepers have listed the cave on eBay.

The couple, who have two children and are expecting a third, bought the cave, a former mine, five years ago. In the late 1950s, it had been converted to a roller rink and night club called Caveland, where Tina Turner and other major stars played, the newspaper said.

The Sleepers lived in tents for several years while they worked on the cave, calling their temporary quarters Tentworld.

The family told the Post-Dispatch the cave in Festus, Mo., about 30 miles south of St. Louis, is peaceful, considering that it is only a few hundred feet from major highways and below a subdivision. It is located in a small box canyon with a bog and an assortment of wildlife.