A man has uncovered a mysterious staircase that led to an underground tunnel labyrinth possibly originating before the middle ages while cleaning his newly-bought home in an Italian town.

Homeowner Guido, known to Reddit users as NetAtraX, decided to move to Italy and buy the amazing six-bed and two-bathroom house in the Italian town of Velletri about 18 miles outside of the city of Rome in October 2020.

However, while enjoying his Mediterranean style house with “olive trees, oranges, lemons and grapefruit trees, vines, wood and a lot of land”, Guido did not even anticipate that a bat herd had been hiding underneath him in a hidden tunnel system initially described as ‘storage’ by the previous owner.

Guido told Newsflash in an exclusive interview: “The house itself is old, however, it was never clear how old.”

The man explained that the oldest plan he ever fount of the house indicated the presence of a canteen, a barn which was originally connected to the main house and a stairway at the very end titled as ‘Dining room’.

Guido, who started to clean the house immediately once he got the keys, was amazed to discover that the alleged dining room was in fact a stairway that led to a tunnel full of bats.

However, before going in to explore the amazing tunnels, he made sure he had a friend over to accompany him.

The reddit user added: “It goes about eight metres down. Then one tunnel leads straight ahead until it ends at one point. To the right, it continues for about 100 metres and ends.

“It is about 1.6 meters high, then it goes five to six metres down, and then there comes a pond through which I had to find my way around.

“After the pond, the tunnel opens up. It’s about 2.5 metres high and three metres wide. To the left it deepens again for about eight metres after which it continues under my house.”

Guido also explained how several parts of the tunnel were impossible to get through and said: “Parts of the tunnel have collapsed, so I didn’t dare to go there. I also didn’t go down the second staircase because I was too afraid.

To be able to discover the tunnel gaps which he failed to at first, Guido bought a drone which turned out to be “way more difficult than he thought” and added that the filming operation is still a work in progress.

After talking to several of his neighbours, Guido learnt that there are more tunnels of such kind within the area, but most of the locals did not share his enthusiasm regarding their origin.

He said: “Some say that they were used during the Second World War which is possible, but they must be older. They are literally hand-carved with some simple tools out of stone, meaning they must be here for a long time.

“One guy told me that they are from the time of the Romans. But who knows!”

Guido could not tell whether the Romans used the tunnels for wine ageing or as shelters in times of war, but he fanatically said: “I found one theory from an archeologist saying that these tunnels were interconnected even before the middle age and were used for transporting water.”

Since the tunnels reach up to a humidity level of 99 percent, Guido has now started setting up condensation equipment to collect the excess water in barrels which will be discharged in an old roman fountain also located on the property he bought.

He explained: “All this is solar-powered, so I would literally use these tunnels to turn air into water for my olive trees.”

The post received over 6,000 comments after Guido shared it with his fellow Reddit users on Monday.

One of them called Solid-snake88 said: “Have you never seen any movies? Clearly those tunnels lead to the gates of hell.”

Another one going by the nickname Digifork alerted Guido: “This right here. NEVER enter a void space without testing for breathable air. It only takes moments in an oxygen devoid space for you to pass out.”