SOUTHGATE, Ky. — For weeks, condo owner Trey Evans could feel the ground below his carpet wasn’t level.
A few days after his entire building was told there was an active landslide beneath his building, he decided to cut the carpet up.
The concrete floor had multiple cracks running through it, from the laundry room to the bedroom.
“Honestly, I did not know it was this bad,” said Brittany Evans, Trey's wife. “We were thinking there was just one crack going all the way through. Now we’re seeing multiple cracks. The floor is not even level. It’s now going downhill at this point.”
“It’s actually even more scarier now that we’ve been living here all this time,” she said.
The Evans have filed a class-action lawsuit against Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky, claiming SD1 did not conduct “earth moving activities and excavation in a reasonably safe manner.”
SD1 has been working on a sewer upsizing project nearby.
On July 26, dozens of residents of the Woodland Hills Condominiums told us they received a letter on their doorstep Friday night from an attorney representing their Homeowners Association.
“The excavation and construction work potentially caused a shifting in the hillside which has caused the recent cracks and other issues in the building,” reads the letter, signed by Tyler C. Arnzen. “The Association has been working with SD1 to monitor these ongoing changes with the ultimate goal of repairing any damage that has occurred to Building 30.”
Units have ground that has shifted several inches away from the building, walls that are bulging, corners no longer connected and cracks through the floor.
“For us, we were getting ready to put our condo on the market,” Brittany Evans said.
The couple was actively looking to purchase a house, but “now [their] condo is worth $0.”
The lawsuit asks for relocation expenses, financial assistance, mortgage and homeowner’s association fees, and “any other temporary relief.” It also asks for damages for the loss of the fair market value of the real estate, among other fees.
The lawsuit demands a trial by a jury.
In a statement, Chris Cole, the director of enterprise communications for SD1, wrote the following:
Sanitation District No. 1 has been actively working to establish a relocation program for some of the residents of Woodland Hills Condominiums. SD1 began this process not as an acknowledgment of liability, but because we felt that we were in the best position to help with relocation.
On July 30, a class-action lawsuit was filed against SD1 by residents. Despite the lawsuit, SD1 continued with its attempts to assist residents with relocation.
However, on July 31, at the direction of attorneys for the plaintiffs, SD1 suspended relocation communications.
Once SD1 has been notified by the plaintiff's counsel as to preferred next steps, we will determine how best to proceed.
In the meantime, SD1 will continue to lead the hillside stabilization process in hopes of getting the residents back into their homes as quickly as possible.
As more residents sign onto the lawsuit, many are wondering what the timeline for help might look like.
Ashley Caudill has remained in her condo, even as her picture frames fall off the walls and she notices cracks in her walls.
“We’re in the process of getting everything together to move, but right now, we don’t have the funds to go nowhere,” she said.
Caudill said that she has yet to receive any financial assistance for relocation and plans to sign on to the lawsuit.
In addition to the stress of relocation, Caudill said she is looking for a location that can accommodate a small child and multiple pets.
“It’s just a hot mess,” she said.
It’s been an emotional week for residents, and part of the frustration, Brittany Evans said, is not knowing when it will end.
“Not only are we suffering, but our child is suffering,” she said. “He cries himself to sleep every night because he just wants to come home.”
“Unfortunately, we’re never coming back home,” Evans said.
