LA VERKIN, Utah — When Denise and Reese Poulsen moved into their home in the 560 West subdivision, they thought it would be their forever home.
"Ever since it's our to-die house, we were here to die in it," Denise Poulsen said.
Their next-door neighbor, Joslyn Smith, also thought her home in the 560 West Overlook community would be where she, her husband, and seven kids would live forever.
"This was our first house, our first house, I'd rented all my life and we finally had bought a house, and we were going to stay here forever," Smith said.
Four weeks ago, both the Poulsen's and Smith, started noticing cracks in their homes and backyards. Each day the cracks started getting bigger and bigger.
"We started noticing separations and my very helpful husband would go in the daytime and patch holes in the walls and then paint them and then about two or three days later he'd have to go do it again," Denise said.
Walking through their home you can see signs of obvious separation between the foundation and the wall. When you walk from east to west in parts of the home it feels like walking on a slight incline. They believe groundwater seeping throughout the neighborhood has caused the ground above to shift.
On the outside of both homes, there are also visible signs of movement. The wall of the home is disconnected from the foundation in many places and a crack visible from the outside of Smith's house goes all the way through her home. Smith says she first noticed the separation near the entrance of her home.
"We tried to fill it in because we weren't sure what was going on at first," Smith said.
This La Verkin neighborhood has lost homes because of a landslide before. In 2021 two homes to the left of the Poulsen's were demolished after they became unsafe to live in.
In a 2021 Slope Stability Evaluation prepared for the city, Sunrise Engineering found groundwater seeping in several locations near the demolished homes. They determined a potential cause for the landslide could be groundwater without an adequate drainage system noting "an adequate drain system did not appear to have been installed in the foundation soils during the construction of the houses." They also recommended the groundwater flowing near the area be properly drained.
In drone footage captured by FOX 13 News water is also visible coming down the ground on the backside of the Poulsen's home.
"The drainage problem should've been addressed before any homes were built here or should have been addressed two years ago and that would've stopped the water coming through," Denise said.
FOX 13 News reached out to La Verkin City and the city said they can't identify the source of the water but continue to monitor the situation. They also hope for the safety of the residents.
The Poulsen's say their home is set to have a soft demolishment on November 20 and Joslyn and her family have since moved in with her mom. Both families say they've been left without the help of insurance.
"The insurance put a block on this neighborhood that you can't insure for specific damage to the house from land movement caused by water under the house," Denise said.
"My children joke they wish an earthquake would happen because if it happened, they would cover it," Smith said.
Both families wish these overlook homes would've never been built.
"We wish we could've built it anywhere else without the gorgeous view safely, in the middle of a field someplace so that the house would've stayed, and we could've enjoyed it," Denise said.
Two GoFundMe's have been set up for the Poulsen's and Joslyn's family.
