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A family who spent nine years on a farm "waiting for the end of time"
have been discovered by police in the Netherlands after one of them
turned up at a local pub, reports say.
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A man of 58 and six young adults aged 18 to 25 were living at a farm in
the province of Drenthe.
The family were found after the eldest of the children ordered beer at a
bar in the nearby village of Ruinerwold.
He then told staff he needed help, broadcaster RTV Drenthe reported.
"We found six people living in a small space in the house which could be
locked but wasn't a basement," police said in a statement late on
Tuesday.
The older man has been arrested. According to the family, he is the
father of the six children, say police. It was not clear whether they
had been there voluntarily, police added. The eldest son was not there
at the time, police told the BBC.
Local reports described the man as a handyman called Josef B, who was
originally from Austria.
"I've never seen anything like it," local mayor Roger de Groot told
reporters. He revealed that some of the family had not been registered
locally and also indicated that the 58 year old was not the father.
The public broadcaster said that the family had been living in isolation
waiting for the end of time.
Bar owner Chris Westerbeek described how a man had come in, ordered five
beers and drunk them.
"Then I had a chat with him and he revealed he had run away and needed
help... then we called the police," he said.
He added: "He had long hair, a dirty beard, wore old clothes and looked
confused. He said he'd never been to school and hadn't been to the
barber for nine years."
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"He said he had brothers and sisters who lived at the farm. He said he
was the oldest and wanted to end the way they were living."
Officers visited the remote farmhouse and carried out a search. They
discovered a hidden staircase behind a cupboard in the living room that
led down to a secret room where the family were housed.
Ruinerwold is a village with a population of less than 3,000. The farm
is outside the village and is accessible by a bridge over a canal.
The farm, which is part-hidden behind a row of trees, also has a large
vegetable plot and a goat.
A neighbour told Dutch media that he had only ever seen one man on the
farm, no children, and that there had been animals on the grounds, such
as geese and a dog.
The local postman said he had never delivered a letter there. "It's
actually pretty strange, now I come to think about it," he told Algemeen
Dagblad news website.
People in the area tweeted the news and one reporter posted images of
the farmhouse, saying he had been asked to keep at a distance.
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Police in Drenthe confirmed that a 58-year-old man had been arrested and
was under investigation after refusing to co-operate.
"Yesterday someone reported to us [that they were] worried about the
living conditions of people in a house in Buitenhuizerweg in #Ruinerwold,"
they wrote in a tweet. "We went there."
"We still have many unanswered questions," they said, adding that all
scenarios were open and their investigation was fully under way.
The farmhouse and the surrounding grounds were cordoned off.
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Some reports suggested the 58-year-old had suffered a stroke and had
been confined to his bed.
It was unclear what had happened to the children's mother, although the
mayor said she had died some time ago.
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