Some homeowners dream of building an in-ground pool or renovating their kitchen in the latest style — but TikTok‘s “Tunnel Girl” dreams of a storm shelter buried deep beneath her suburban Virginia home.
“Tunnel Girl,” who goes by Kala — no last name has not been disclosed — said she’s been excavating a tunnel under her home since August 2022. In videos posted to TikTok, Kala has said she’s been undertaking the project mostly on her own.
Her tunnel, which has its own ventilation system (also built by Kala), is 30 feet long (about 9.1 metres) with a main chamber that lies 22 feet (nearly 6.7 metres) below the surface of her home.
Kala even built a fully functioning mine cart to transfer heavy rock and debris out from her tunnel.
She began documenting her project in a series of TikTok videos starting in October 2022. Kala has since amassed a following of more than 547,300 accounts, and has garnered tens of millions of views on her quirky mining videos.
In September 2023, Kala shared a one-year update on her “underground tunnel system.” She detailed how she first carved a hole into the wall of her subbasement, then went on to build a functioning elevator to lift material and debris from her mine, and laid concrete blocks to establish the entrance tunnel. At one point, Kala said she had to make a sump basin to pump away groundwater from a spring she encountered.
“There is still a lot of work to do, but I am having a blast, and enjoying sharing this project with you,” Kala told her followers in the one-year update.
For anyone wondering what Kala plans to do with all the excess rock and debris she’s been mining, don’t worry, Tunnel Girl has a plan for that too. Kala has repeatedly told her audience she wants to build a “castle tower” with the material.
Despite her username being @engineer.everything, Kala is not a formal engineer. According to NBC News, Kala studied business and finance in school and has spent most of her professional life working in information technology. Though she’s been tight-lipped about her personal life, Kala has said she has a passion for civil and mechanical engineering.
She has steered her project primarily based on an understanding of FEMA 453 guidelines and a civil engineering handbook she read, called Rock Mass Classification — A Practical Approach in Civil Engineering. Occasionally, Kala has sought the help of friends for especially tricky roadblocks or taken advice from TikTok comments on how to improve her tunnel or make it safer.
Unsurprisingly, Kala’s project hasn’t been without its opponents. Though she’s consistently accepted some feedback from tradespeople on TikTok about mining or electrical systems, many people identifying themselves as geologists and civil engineers on the app have long since expressed their concerns. Some worried Kala’s tunnelling would create a possible sinkhole, or that she would be affected by veins of naturally occurring asbestos in Fairfax County, where she lives.
Others wondered if Kala wasn’t really digging a tunnel under her home at all and was just messing with her audience.
But then Kala claimed in December 2023 to have been shut down by her local authorities, who wanted to investigate her tunnel. The notice wasn’t rock-bottom for Kala, who then used news of the injunction to create a dramatized retelling about receiving the stop work order.
Kala has so far seemed unfazed by the stop work order and said it “shouldn’t be too hard to get the permits and approval.”
The shutdown of Kala’s tunnel came just days before investigative reporter Aura Bogado said she tried to dig up dirt on the social media oddball. In a TikTok video, Bogado said Kala’s neighbours were not aware of her project. She said the majority of Kala’s neighbours are “Central American migrants or first-gen immigrants” who were afraid to report Kala’s behaviour for fear of being deported by immigration authorities.
Bogado said Kala’s neighbours are “really worried” about their health and safety — and the “tremendous” noise and “random shaking” created as a result of Kala’s tunnelling.
In an update posted Wednesday, Bogado said Kala had received a stop work order in 2012 for another, unrelated project. She claimed Kala’s home has seen “numerous inspections” from local officials over the last decade.
She said local officials in their stop work order deemed Kala’s tunnel an “unsafe structure.” Bogado said Kala, and anyone else who may be living in the house, was ordered to vacate the main floor of the home because officials said it had been structurally compromised by the tunnel below.
Bogado claims, based on an alleged homeowner’s affidavit, that Kala knew it was “very plainly” against the law to start this tunnelling construction project without the help of a contractor.
As of now, the future of Kala and her at-home tunnel system remains unclear.
Kala, however, is not a stranger to ambitious home renovation projects. She told NBC News she previously constructed a four-storey addition to the back of her house. If her tunnel stays shut down, perhaps Kala will dream up something new entirely.
Until then, her curious viewers will have to wait for more updates on her tunnelling. Fortunately, there’s no lack of similarly endearing oddities on TikTok, like the famed “Eel Pit Guy,” who built an eel pit in his basement. (Yes, it’s exactly like it sounds.)
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