You may have experienced just the edge of a trash pit. Take a piece of something firm (like rebar) and poke around the general area extending out. You may find soft areas indicating the rest of it. That's the way ours appeared also. Yours may have been filled with only tree stumps so nothing remains when it decays. Ours had a couple of tires also so it was more obvious.

That happened to me too. One leg fell in and I dropped straight down to my hip. Scary, I know.

At my previous home I discovered a tunnel of sorts that ran horizontal. I put the water hose in it and let it run most of the day and it never filled up.

I had the same thing happen to me in my backyard. I was walking across it and one leg sank in up to the knee. The hole was deeper than that, but falling on my butt kept me from going down any further. I dug around some, and it turned out the hole was from a rotting tree stump. When the house was built, the builder dozed trees off to the ground, then covered the stumps over and left them to rot. Twenty feet seems like a deep hole for a rotting tree stump. Can't even guess what caused your hole, but I'd dig around until I discovered where in your yard it is safe or dangerous to walk. Yikes. I hate it when the ground isn't solid under my feet.

Holes appear from different sources. Farther south, I'd say you had an armadillo tunnel, or a Gopher turtle hole, but they usually start out at an angle rather than straight down. Old corner fence posts made from a light pole from the power company leave a huge hole when removed, but was there ever a fence corner in this location? Lime sinks can take any configuration, but they usually start wider and shallower.

The ideas about a trash pit sound plausible to me. Areas with a lot of fill dirt added to level the yard will often sink, especially if there was a good sized tree trunk in there that rots out.

Nell

Well, after reading your answers, I'm guessing that it is probably a big pile of tree stumps that have rotted under there....So now what do I do??? This hole starts smack-dab in the middle of a flower bed. I'm getting a sinking feeling that if I don't do something soon a large part of my back yard is going to cave in...

You definitely want to put "fill" quality dirt in there for most of it. Topsoil has too much organic material and will be a bit smaller in volume eventually than fill (good ol' clay based soil).

Get a metal stick (like rebar) and a hammer and probe around the areas. If the stick sinks very easily into the ground, then you've probably found another area of decay. I would probe up to 20 feet in all directions from the original hole.

Wildflower,
do you live in a new home or in a new subdivision? If so, you might want to contact your builder or the subdivision contractor. If your home or your landscaping are relatively new and still under any kind of warranty you might be able to get someone else to fix this or at least tell you what it is.

Geez, I thought it was bad dealing with an old glass pile in the backyard of my 80-year-old house. Apparently everyone who ever lived in the house threw all their broken windows in the same place for some crazy reason. But at least I don't have a rotting trash hole like yours to contend with. Suddenly I feel lucky!

I have been home sick watching a lot of junk TV, Montel Williams had a short piece about septic holes. The holes tend to be 15" around on top, but go for 9-10 feet below the ground. They can open up on top from time to time...someone mentioned they'd found 3 in their yard in just one summer. They found the first one because their child fell in it, and it was full of water (luckily, Mom got child out).
So many reasons for holes. Our 2nd yard is riddled with them, and they are all either tree-stump holes or sink holes.
Do you have errosion control rep. for your county? They can come and test if you do.

GGG

Hi, I don't know where in GA you are, but there have been news stories the last week on about an area near a quarry where the road and ground is seperating, like you see in an earthquake...last I heard they seem to think it is due to the quarry..the road around it was called "Ronald Regan Blvd" I think...if that is anywhere near you your damage may be similiar - check out some news sites for the latest.

My leg went into a supposedly filled well as a child, and I had a black snake attached to my shoe when I pulled it out. Poor snake! The friend's parents put a little decotative well over the spot after that. Oddly, it was just off of Ronald Reagan Pkwy, but definitely a well.

This is too wierd. I had a dream last night were I was working in my back garden and accidentally push a flag stone into a hole. I didn't hear it hit bottom for at least a minute. Needless to say that woke me up!

I will feel like a true gardener when I have gardening nightmares like ilikemud!

Ilikemud, now THAT really IS too wierd! Esh, I have not pulled out any of my metal plant stakes to do as you suggested yet...I'm really afraid of what I'm going to find! I think I'll put that off until the weekend.

The house is almost 20 years old, so I know there's no way to go back on the contracter. I'm hearing that recently there are now laws in place about "trash holes" and they aren't allowed anymore.

I am in Conyers (Rockdale county), and have contacted the county before about the changing water-flow. A neighbor behind me filled up a drainage ditch then put up a fence which in turn directed all the runoff onto our property. I forget their exact answer now but something like (it's your problem, deal with it), so I don't think I'll be contacting them about this...My yard is a mud-hole most of the time and now I have an underground cave!! At this point, I'm just hoping to find buried treasure in it.

Wildflower, most communities have ordinances that protect you from run-off caused by your neighbors' construction activities. Check it out.

Well, here's an update in case anyone is interested...We contacted our insurance company a few days ago, and they do not cover bury pits, landslides, etc. They suggested we contact the county which we did yesterday morning, and (amazingly) 2 engineers from the water dept. were at our front door yesterday evening. They seemed surprised at the way the drainage system is set up to dump water directly into our back yard. I pulled our plot and on that side of the yard, 20' in from the side property line, and 20' in from the back property line is a county drainage easment.

Everyone in Rockdale co. is now paying $40.68 per year (there's a huge up-roar here about this new charge) for the county to maintain stormwater run-off issues. Well SURPRISE, SURPRISE, they aren't going to do squat, and are passing us off to the Environmental Heath Department on Tuesday.

I've found another small hole which is probably connected to the big one but is about 20' away, and right next to our deck. The big hole is bigger that what we first thought. We think there's an underground stream or river about 20-25' down. We dropped a light into it last week and it ended up hitting water and blew the bulb. Yes, we told the engineers about this yesterday, and they think the water table is very high here, but it's just easier for them to pass the buck.

Esh, or anyone else out there, I'm very interested to know what went on with your bury pit and/or water run-off issues.

I am a very un-happy camper right now and will let ya'll know before I appear on the six o'clock news.

Hey wildflower, glad to hear you got such fast response and disappointed that they were so quick to pass the buck.

We ended up filling ours with sand and dirt and converted the area to a garden (it was lawn at the time it collapsed) to prevent any lawnmowers from falling in. We have since moved from there (but were there from 1995, when it collapsed, until 2003 and it was fairly stable in those 8 years).

I have since met the new owners (who bought it from the woman we sold it to) and he said there seemed to be some low spots. I offered to come over and show him where the problems were.

The whole area was/is adjacent to a small creek so now I wonder if that might have affected it as well as it being a bury pit.

Wildflower, YOU GO GIRL!
I would totally call up the news and expose that you are all paying this extra money and that the county has done nothing but collect it, collect interest on it and is now passing the buck.

GGG

Esh, my thoughts are that the extra water probably makes things decompose quicker, or maybe could be running up underneath the trash hole and making it sink even more. I dunno, but I appreciate your response, and that's a very nice thing that you've offered to help out the newest owners....

GGG, yesterday when I posted here and was ready to just let someone at the county have it, then everything changed.

Are ya'll ready for the soap-opera to start? My MOTHER went to the water dept. yesterday and talked to the engineers that were out here Thursday. To clairfy, she doesn't live here (she's 2 miles away but seems to like getting into things like this). Anyway, they brushed her off and said it wasn't their problem, so she walked across the hall to the county commisioners office. Someone there told her that the hole would be fixed! I'm still unsure about the water run-off situation, but have a feeling that'll be taken care of also.

Today I've dug and either potted, or moved into a holding bed about 200 plants. I figure they'll show up with their bobcats and backhoes or whatever sometime next week and I'm trying to save everything I can. There are about 40 named hosta in this bed and I'm having problems finding all of those. I've dug mostly hellebores and didn't realize I had near as many as I do!

Oh, and GGG, I'll post over on your geranium thread in a few...While digging those, I actually found 2 tags out of the 3 that I have.

I apologize in advance to those of you on dial-up. I'm on it also, and I know how slow putting pics on here makes everything...

Before Pic#1:

Before Pic #2:

During Pic#2:

Of course, the "before" pictures were taken last June, so with all the dormant stuff, it would look different now anyway. BUT, in the last 2 days in this area, I've potted 78 gallon or larger pots full of hellebores only. Also, lots of astilbes, hosta (which I can't find 6 of so far), hardy geraniums, hardy orchids, columbine, bleeding hearts, ligularia, and many other plants that I can't think of right now.

The 2X4 you see in these pics is 14' long. If you push it straight down, instead of to an angle, it'll go all the way into the hole.

I'm not sure what to do with the big rhodendrons, camellais, and azaleas. Should I cut them back to a foot or two from the ground and then find a holding space for them until they can be re-planted, or will they survive all that?

I'd wait to move the shrubs until you find out what's going to be done and if the work will affect them.

Hopefully you'll find out more this week about someone that can fix it. We got a lot of rain last night; did that make it worst?