Here’s a picture of her driveway. Tree roots you say?  Nope.  Not this time.  It’s not something pushing up the ground and breaking the concrete – turn that around in your head.  Look at the picture.  See that crack – the difference in levels? That’s about 2 inches in difference – 2 inches that the ground has shifted DOWN.

That's not roots pushing UP - it's the ground moving DOWN.

I’m going to knock on the door of that house soon. My neighbor doesn’t live there.  She’s renting to a nice young couple with a baby.  The new dad, who does construction, is supposed to be working on fixing the “problems” in the house.  He had told me this on the day they moved in.  I want to tell her, the owner, that I officially have a sinkhole.  She inherited the house from her mom.  I wonder if she has insurance.  What would happen if I didn’t?  Why hasn’t my insurance company been talking to me?

That’s another story I’ll tell you about soon.

The Insurance Man said he has only had houses fall into a hole after bits of them, like say, the corner of the house,  had fallen first. I told him I was waiting to come home and find my cats at the bottom of a hole.  He said, “It probably, well, probably…” wouldn’t be something I needed to worry about.  Hesitating as he reassured me, he said,  regarding the ones he has reported personally on, “It doesn’t happen that often.”

That was, um, sooo reassuring.

These are pictures of a sinkhole that opened up in Guatemala on May 18, 2008.  Reports are they know for sure it killed two teenagers.  The reports don’t mention cats.

This sinkhole is 330 feet deep. Anyone wanna do the math? Can you figure out how many building stories that would be?

330 feet deep. May 18th 2008. At least two people died.

Sooooo glad this hasn’t happened to my house.

Yet.

Hopefully not ever.

Kids wanna know…

I do know my mom was using a wheel chair at my house 2 years ago, and there is no way she and I could have ignored the slopes, rises, dips, and cracks that are now in my driveway and front door walkway.  It was pretty unremarkable then, but today when I look down, I’m drawn in by the amount of variation in levels there is within a few feet.

So, are you reading this because something is whispering the word “sinkhole” in your ears as you move through your house? Are you wondering what to look for?  Are you thinking, “Okay, there is no gaping hole in my driveway, so why do I feel like I need to read about sinkholes?”

Here are some of the signs of sinkhole activity I have found through research (and a few of my own observations):

Look at your walls:

At the base of your walls, along the floor, to do you see cracks?  They don’t have to be major, maybe there are  just cracks in what you think is the paint?

At the top of your walls where they connect with your ceiling, do you see any cracks?

At the corners of your windows and doors, do you see lines running up the wall?  (I seem to have quite a few.)

Maybe you have cracks you think are old “settling” cracks – maybe they are – but do you suddenly see more then you remember?

Look at your ceilings:

Any new cracks?  Is someone telling you, “that crack was always there,” but you don’t remember it being that long or that obvious?  You might need some perspective.  Take a picture of it, print it out, and look at it twice a month, then see what you think about those cracks.  You might also leave a small pencil mark were it stops if you suspect it’s getting longer.

Your foundation:

This only works if you can see your foundation. (I can’t.)   Are there cracks showing up that you don’t remember? Is there anything that seems like it could be called crumbling? Chances are good your house isn’t as old as the pyramids - crumbling shouldn’t be happening.

Your floors:

Take a look at your tiles.  Are they uneven?  They shouldn’t be; a good tile layer makes them all lay evenly, one edge of a tile shouldn’t be higher or lower than the next.  Do the tiles have fine long lines? Do these lines or tile levels all run in the same direction in a given location?

Do you have wood floors? Are the joints still as smooth as a wood floor should be?

Walking across the floor do you feel something isn’t going right?  I would have a feeling in my home of going up or down hill (though no one else did.)  One spot in my house would make me feel “woozy” in the back of my head – more so when I was sick or had a headache, I guess my natural “level adjusters” don’t work as well then.

Do your pet’s toys always keep winding up in the same places along the walls?  That might not be Kitty’s doing, they might get there through a slight tilt going on.   Remember balls and things shouldn’t just want to roll on forever across the room or down the hallway; they also shouldn’t veer off too much – all the time – the same direction every time they get rolled in a certain place.

Hearing things?

Do you hear noises now and again, but what you’ve been told is “your house settling?”  Maybe it’s doing more than that. Keep listening.  Keep track of how much you hear and where you hear it.  (I’ve read that “many people have reported loud pops and cracking sounds often.”)

What’s going on with your doors?

Are they shutting tight, maybe too tight?  Are they “sticking?”  Don’t just jot it down to humidity.  Are they hanging crooked?  Can you see light at the top or bottom where you couldn’t before?  I have started to have a heck of a time getting a few of mine shut completely.

Water pooling in your tub?

Is your tub taking longer to drain?  Finding that you get water pooling away from the drain?

This should help.

Here’s what’s important:

I’ve learned not to think it’s just coincidence or a couple of odd things going on.  These are legitimate reasons to have your house checked by your insurance company.

Call soon, it only gets worse.

So far, I can say that calling the insurance company thing isn’t a scary thing either.  If you’re hearing a voice whispering “sinkhole” – take a look around and go call. (If you are wrong – there should be no penalty for crying wolf and either way that voice should stop its pestering.)

I’ll be try to get some photos of those holes opening under major highways….

Check back in a few days — I’ll be info gathering in the meantime.

Anyone, including geologists, lawyers, homeowners, the guy down the road, want to contribute or send me info – just leave a comment.

The facing wall is the exterior supporting cinderblock wall; the door opens to a bathroom.

Here is your first glimpse.

I’ve mentioned the walls separating from the ceiling, actually it’s more like the ceiling is lifting away from the walls.  What do I mean?  Take a good look at that picture above.

In this photograph the exterior wall faces west – towards the neighbor’s house that the Insurance Man didn’t like the looks of. (The door you see opens to a bathroom.)  Just outside this wall, about 4 feet away, is a large tree trunk.  I have a live oak that rises about 3 stories above the house.  It is easy to “forget” as you never really see the tree – it’s canopy is over head, and it’s trunk only glimpsed from my bedroom window.

A few people supposed that it was the tree causing the house to tilt. I pointed out that objects usually rise up away from the tree base –  not towards it.  The Insurance Man said that indeed the tree was innocent.

When I suggested that it was the tree’s root system that was stopping the house from falling more westward, he laughed and said, “It’s possible.”

Yes, Virginia, there are lawyers out there who specialize in making sure you can recover from the event that your house is collapsing through no fault of your own.

There are parts of Florida, were this problem has become such an issue for home owners, that you’ll see maybe 10 billboards (etc*) for lawyers in a 10 minute drive.

I’m glad I have someone to go to – otherwise – house gets unlivable and then what?

*They even put those little cardboard kind of printed signs that you stick in the ground on the side of the road.  At a busy corner in Pasco county I saw these kinds of signs all askew on each side of the intersection – for four different lawyers.

I wasn’t home when the inspector came. Soule gave him the tour for me.  She said he walked around the house and took a look at every detail.  He even pointed out things we hadn’t particularly associated with what we now thought of as “the sinkhole.”  I really had thought the cracks in my tile were due to the previous owner’s selection.  I hate those tiles, white with black grout – I live on the grid for sure.

The leak that had just started in “The Redlands” room was defiantly sinkhole damage he said. (All the rooms in my house are named after parts of Florida which somehow seems even more suitable since it is suffering from this very Florida event)  He pointed out how the walls were separating from the ceiling. (Yes, I did say that.  The walls are separating from the ceiling.)  That crack we just noticed on the outside of the garage wall – not good the inspector said.

While taking pictures of the driveway, the cracks and change in level – another sure sign of a sinkhole according to the inspector – he was pointing out that my neighbor’s drive way was worse. Looking in that direction caused him to see beyond my privacy fence at the wall of my neighbor’s house.  This would be the wall full of crazy cracks and missing a chunk about 2 feet by 10 inches and 3 inches deep.  (No you can’t see in the house yet, but I’ve told Soule when I touch that wall I feel like a good shove from little ‘ole me would take it down.) (The neighbor who lives like I do, in a concrete house, had told me it was termite damage when I noticed it. Huh?) Standing there on my drive way looking at the home next door the Insurance Man said to Soule, “Well I usually don’t go looking for work but that’s pretty obvious.”  He took some shots from my yard over to the neighbors.  My western wall is about 14 feet from her easternmost wall, the wall that stopped the inspector dead in his tracks.

He left giving the verdict that he was reporting it to the insurance company as a for sure sinkhole.

FYI       I do live a block away from a reservoir pond where little gators have been known to come and go – kinda passing through.  (The pond, or Lake Euclid, as it’s called on the map, connects to several large water pipes going off in different directions. The neighbors to the back of my house face it.)  I’ve had a few turtles stop in my koi pool for a month or so before moving on to wherever wandering turtles go.  Are they journeying to the reservoir or away from the reservoir?  They say turtles can smell water.

With so much Florida karma happening maybe I should be watching the koi pool for alligators?

One of my favorite “sinkings” is jumping from the side of a pool into the deep end, and slipping down – the water rushing past – my hair furled out above me.  But then the sensation that immediately follows is sweet.  Try it.  You suddenly switch from downward flight to hovering for a second in the water.  Then comes the “incredible feeling of lightness” as you softly lift up, your hair now floating around you like a gentle cloud.

I am trying to have a perky “chin-up” approach to this sinking.  I don’t know if it will have a turnaround or be anywhere as gentle coming up from.

I came across that sentence today while learning about sinkholes.

It is from http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/guide/sinkholes.html

Ironically, I know that it’s true, as ever since I took a class in Florida ecosystems in the tenth grade, I’ve known that sinkholes, like alligators, had their essential places in Florida. (By the way – I have strong feelings about the need to protect alligators and how people should just leave them alone, even if it did eat your poodle. Which, also by the way, makes me think that you may have not been respecting the danger that alligators can be in any body of water in Florida. It’s how I feel – they were here first)

That science class created a long time fascination for the aquifer below this state and the sink holes that spring from them.  I’ve known that they have been “naturally” occurring here for a long time, but I also have known that how we treat the aquifer, build canals, and just suck out tons of water for golf courses and the like, has an effect on what seems like just a random freak of nature – sinkholes.

Just this past September I had wanted to attend a lecture on sinkholes they were offering in St Petersburg. (I had to work that night.)

And of course, I am “Ms. Conservation of the Ecosystem Minded”.

So I had to smile when I read that fact.

The comment was shortly followed by the statement:

“Unfortunately, their bad reputation for property destruction frequently over shadows the vital role sinkholes play in Florida’s natural environment.”

Hmmm… property destruction…?