Mysterious Land Shift Damages Houses : Three Costa Mesa Homeowners Face ‘Scary’ Situation

Perhaps if Linwood (Skip) and Mary Chapman had not re-stuccoed and painted their fashionable north Costa Mesa home, they would not have noticed how much their house had cracked and shifted during the past few months.

But Chapman, a contractor and engineer, set a level line in his patio six months ago. As of Tuesday, the Chapman home at 1070 Redding Ave. had shifted 1 5/8 inches toward the west. And the new paint is only making the cracks inside and outside the house more noticeable.

“You sit here at night and you can actually hear your house moving,” Chapman said as he pointed to a big crack on the northwest corner of his den.

Across the street at 1071 Redding Ave. in the Mesa Woods tract, Diane Gross was maintaining a sense of humor. Still, she is very concerned about the cracks and a general shift of her house that have occurred in the past three months.

‘It’s Depressing’

“My home is going to be in my neighbor’s yard. It’s really depressing,” Gross said.

The land shifts that are causing the two homes to crack in the neighborhood just north of the San Diego Freeway are worrying city officials.

On Monday night, the City Council placed a two-week ban on new construction in the area and ordered a geological study. A special meeting is scheduled for Oct. 1 to study the underground movement that is cracking walls and making backyard patios look like jigsaw puzzles.

Chapman suspects that the shifting of his home is the result of a water table in the neighborhood that’s too high. He said his next-door neighbor’s swimming pool has a big crack. Another theory is that the nearby South Coast Plaza extension on the west side of Bear Street and the Arnel Development Co. apartment project next to the freeway may be contributing to the problem.

No Official Word

But until about 1,500 area residents are surveyed and a geological study is completed, there will be no official word on how many homes are affected or what is causing the problem at the Chapman and Gross households.

Doug Clark, Costa Mesa’s director of Development Services, said “it’s too early to tell” what is causing the problems at those two homes and another at 1079 Redding Ave., which were inspected by city officials last weekend. He also said that a geologist would be hired by the end of the week to study the problem.

Clark added that the two-week ban on building permits would not affect city revenues, because developers would be willing to wait until the ban is lifted. The ban, however, will not affect electrical and plumbing work permits, or building permits already approved.

Keep an Eye on Damage

Meanwhile, the Chapmans and Gross keep an eye on the cracks in their homes.

Gross, who has lived in the home since it was built 12 years ago, said that three major cracks, including one in her dining room and another on a concrete walkway in the backyard, have appeared recently. The doorway leading from her living room to the kitchen has shifted noticeably and the sliding door stops an inch before shutting tightly.

“I can’t even put up wallpaper to hide the cracks because the walls are protruding,” she said. “Maybe they’ll bulldoze it down and I’ll live in a tent right here in the backyard.”

Chapman said his house has been shifting in two directions, west and south. There is a big crack in the corner of the kitchen that continues, in a zig-zag pattern, all the way to the ceiling of his living room about 18 feet away. A kitchen counter also has cracked and has shifted about one-half inch.

“This is what is happening to our home, and it’s scary,” said Chapman, who has lived there for 10 years.

He also said the home can be raised and moved to its original foundation, but that would cost between $10,000 and $12,000.

“But the problem is that they would not guarantee me that it wouldn’t happen again,” Chapman said.