A 51-year-old Sydney, N.S., man has been arrested after a front-end loader was driven into a power pole and house, and later fled to a local liquor store a few kilometres away.

Cape Breton Regional Police said officers responded to reports at around 5 a.m. Monday that a front-end loader was being used in an attempt to demolish a home on Seaview Drive in North Sydney.

While en route to the scene, officers were told the piece of heavy machinery had left and was headed down Seaview Drive, according to a news release from police.

Officers found it near the Northern Yacht Club, but police said the driver wouldn't stop. Officers continued to follow the loader to the Superstore parking lot on King Street, where it halted at the front of the NSLC.

Police then arrested the driver. No one was injured. Bits of broken wood and debris were in the bucket of the loader.

This house was damaged by a front-end loader on Seaview Drive. (Gary Mansfield/CBC)

Gary Standing, a neighbour of the home on Seaview Drive, said he was half asleep when he heard the front-end loader.

"I looked out the bedroom window and the next thing I know, he was ramming at the pole, ramming at pole. And I said, 'Oh my gosh, he's doing this on purpose.' And then he turned around and he just went right through the side of the house," Standing said.

"It was pretty scary for my wife and I because you don't know if he's going to turn around and come and do all the houses in the neighbourhood, right?"

Police said no one was in the home at the time, and the driver and the owner of the damaged home know each other.

Charges are pending.

Police found the front-end loader with debris in the bucket. (Gary Mansfield/CBC)

People driving into Sydney from North Sydney are being forced to look for an alternative route to get on Highway 125, also known as the Sydney Bypass, because police have blocked off part of Seaview Drive.

Nova Scotia Power repair crews are on site.