Clifford Muñiz has a crater in the backyard of his two-family home on Fox Street. It’s a vegetation-filled hazard zone right outside his back door. The construction debris, covered with soil rather than removed when his house was built, is masked by the uneven landscape carpeted with long grasses and greenery.
The 30 foot by 55 foot backyard was level when Muñiz moved in in 1990. Now elevation varies as much as two feet from step to step.
“In the backyard, they found building walls still there. So it wasn’t done correctly,” he said, pointing into a pit where a few bricks poke through the surface.
Muñiz isn’t the only homeowner on Fox Street with a sinking backyard. Many residents of the Villa Maria Homes development are in similar straits or may be soon, according to Salvatore D’Avola, executive director of Neighborhood Restore.
