Central Los Angeles : SURPRISE

Kay Sawyer’s wood-frame house only gave a few squeaks and rattles Wednesday evening before it shifted off its foundation with a huge “booming” sound. Sawyer and several friends visiting in the front yard ran into the street, thinking an earthquake was rattling through the area.

But when the noise stopped, Sawyer discovered that her house had dropped three feet and separated from its front steps.

City firefighters came to the house on East 48th Street in South-Central, but could only offer to help Sawyer retrieve her insurance papers. The house was then cordoned off.

City building inspectors could not be reached for comment on the cause. Sawyer joked that the wood-frame house, which she bought in 1942, just got tired.

“It’s old and tired like me,” said Sawyer, a retired store owner, who took her cat Alta and spent the night with a neighbor.