While digging for a swimming pool, man finds a landfill in his back yard

LAKELAND, Fla. - A Lakeland man finally convinced his wife to let him build a swimming pool in their backyard, but now they are stuck with a landfill instead.

The contractors who dug the hole for the pool got about two feet down when they hit nothing but trash.

"We looked into the hole and saw the trash and the rubble and just began to shake our heads," said Brian Dyer, who was hoping to install the pool for his family.

Instead of bringing up dirt, the backhoes kept bringing more and more garbage, from household waste like egg cartons and margarine containers, to larger objects like tires and even entire appliances.

"In the deep hole we found a lawn mower," he said.

It turns out the Dyer family's backyard -- and possibly beyond -- sits on a landfill that no one around the neighborhood ever knew about. Now the man who found it is being told he has to clean it all up.

"It puts us in a difficult position, because we certainly don't have the resources to do that from the extent that we've been told it's going to take to clean it up," said Dyer.

He found out that cleaning up the waste dump could cost thousands of dollars.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection told ABC Action News that it is helping Dyer with any questions and concerns.

In a statement, Spokeswoman Ana Gibbs said, "DEP will provide guidance in accordance with state statues and rules, however, ultimately it is up to the homeowner to decide on what actions to take as long as it meets the state's regulatory requirements."

The DEP has taken samples of the trash to try to identify it and determine if it's harmful to the ground water.

Dyer says he's waiting for those results to come back before he decides what to do next.

"At this point, our hopes are definitely shot for a pool," he said.

The president of the company that built Dyer's home and other homes in the subdivision said his organization had no idea the property was a dump site.

Meanwhile, Dyer and his neighbors are worried about how far the trash goes.