RESIDENTS of Cashew Gardens in Carlsen Field go to sleep at nights wondering if they will awaken the next morning with their houses crashed on top of them.
This is because the land on which approximately 20 houses are built, appears to be sinking.
According to residents, an incomplete drain on the Edinburgh Road which runs at the back of the houses on Soursop Avenue, is believed the cause of the problem, as for years, water has been seeping into the porous earth causing it to become unstable.
The community sprang up in 2005 – about the same time the then National Housing Authority (NHA) was repurposed into the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) which was responsible for completing the drain.
[caption id="attachment_901942" align="alignnone" width="683"] SEPARATION: The foundation of this house in Cashew Gardens, Edinburgh first cracked and then widened causing a rip in the wall. Residents say an incomplete drain is responsible for years of water seepage which in turn undermined the land on which their houses are built. PHOTO BY ANGELO MARCELLE-[/caption]
When Newsday visited the community last week, cracks were clearly visible on the walls and concrete skirting of houses on Soursop Avenue.
As some houses, the cracks which started at the base have climbed up along walls and some houses have begun to separate from the concrete walkway built around them. One resident who works in the protective services said, "When we moved in here about sixteen years ago, the HDC told us not to do any construction in the ground for five years because the land has to settle. Besides the cracks on my house, my neighbour decided to erect a wall behind the house. He had to dig six feet to start the foundation because of the water coming up from underground."
[caption id="attachment_901943" align="alignnone" width="1024"] An incompletely built drain, hidden by thick bushes, to the back of a row of houses in Cashew Gardens, is being blamed by home owners for water seeping into and undermining the foundation causing cracks to appear on the ground and walls of their homes. PHOTO BY ANGELO MARCELLE -[/caption]
The resident said that in some of the houses, whenever the rainy season comes, water seeps up from the foundation as the surrounding land becomes water-logged.
"Before we moved into the houses we brought the drain to their (the HDC) attention and they said they would come and finish it after.
"We have had many consultations with the HDC since then, telling them that the erosion from the incomplete drain is causing the land to move. They still haven't done anything. Every year the rain falls and it takes away a piece of the land behind the houses," the resident said.
He claimed that the owner of the first house to the end of the road had at least ten feet of land to spare behind his house when he first came to live in Cashew Gardens. "Every year, the water keeps taking away a piece of the land, bit by but. Now it has reached right up to the man's wall which can fall at anytime," the resident said adding that ev
