MONTGOMERY, Texas — Neighbors in a Montgomery County subdivision are worried their homes may have been built on top of a natural spring.
People in the Fairwater community in the town of Montgomery say water has been coming up from under the ground and flowing in the storm sewers even though it hasn't rained there in weeks.
Kenneth and Katherine Ridlehuber moved into their dream house two years ago. Then something strange started happening. The couple's backyard started to disappear.
"We were sitting in the backyard, what a year and a half ago? And the next thing you know, the fence slowly collapsed, and you don't have a yard anymore," Katherine said.
"This was our backyard. It was level all the way out, had that wrought iron fence," Kenneth said. "What you see now is a hideous cliff."
It got so bad, the Ridlehubers had to move out.
"The house is not ok," Kenneth told us. "We got a letter from the district saying we should seek temporary shelter because of the erosion."
So they moved in with family members nearby.
But neighbors say the Ridlehubers' home is just the start of what is a bigger problem.
"There are signs of it all over," Kenneth said.
He showed us a manhole where you can see what appears to be water flowing into the storm drain from beneath the concrete.
"Same flow coming from here," another neighbor said.
There was water in every manhole we checked this week.
It's water that seems to come from nowhere and it never goes away.
The state's water development board says it doesn't have any record of a natural spring within three miles of this subdivision. However, they say that doesn't mean there isn't one.
Last weekend, neighbors say the local mud district sent a crew to test the water in the storm drain to make sure there wasn't a leak from someone's home somewhere. They said chlorine in the water would indicate it must be coming from a pipe. The test found no chlorine. The water was untreated.
Municipal Utility District 166 sent us a statement Friday detailing the efforts they say they've taken since February to address the Ridlehuber's eroding backyard.
They say engineering crews have been enlisted to build a reinforced retaining wall but were set back due to heavy rains over the summer. The mud district said a new firm has signed on to begin work at the end of October and the job should take about three months to finish.
For the Ridlehubers, it's been a nightmare that turned their lives upside down.
"It's almost like the erosion is spreading like a virus," Katherine said. "We just want our home back."
