Sinkhole's aftermath puts strain on neighborhood

A Rosetree Estates couple's ordeal has driven a wedge between them and their neighbors.

SEMINOLE - Along 133rd Street in Rosetree Estates, lawns are neat, flower beds tended, dogs leashed and sidewalks free of litter. Several houses have outdoor autumn vignettes: scarecrows, pumpkins and some contrived gravestones that herald Halloween.

American flags fly from many of the houses. Yellow ribbons decorate mailboxes. Some residents have erected signs that read, "Support Our Troops."

Sherri and Craig Pratt have a sign in their yard, too. "Caution," it says. "Sinkhole home. Posted. No Trespassing. Keep out."

Now, other residents fear the sign at 10079 133rd St. will turn away potential buyers and lower their property values. They want the sign down.

Sherri Pratt said she feels personally attacked by Halloween displays next door and across the street.

At Robert and Joanne Lord's, a tombstone says, "RIP (an abbreviation for rest in peace). Losers still sinking." Another sign says: "Caution: Bat Home. No Hunting."

At Jim and Gina Hoffman's, a sign reads: "Caution: Ghost Home." A witch figure that appeared to be partially buried had an accompanying sign that said, "The Witch is Sinking."

"The signs were an attempt to make fun of (the Pratts) putting up the (sinkhole) sign," Gina Hoffman said Tuesday. "We were trying to make light of it." On Wednesday, she said she removed the witch figure.

"We're not after them, for heaven's sake," Hoffman said. "We all are trying to be neighbors."

The Pratts paid $199,000 for the house in October 2001.

In January 2002, they said, they began to experience structural problems. The doors didn't close properly. Drawers in new furniture they purchased for a daughter's room wouldn't stay shut.

"The sidewalk felt as though it was a trampoline," Craig Pratt said, and the concrete cracked. He said he sank a rebar 8 feet deep into the ground.

They filed a claim with State Farm Insurance, and workers from Certified Foundations Inc. pumped more than 431 cubic yards of grout into 31 holes in the property. The family moved out for about six weeks.

They never have been especially close to other residents of the area, "but I had met everybody," Sherri Pratt said last week. Their daughters went to sleepovers in other neighbors' homes.

Once the family moved back in, their relationships with other neighbors became strained. Sheriff's deputies answered several calls to the development, which is just outside the Seminole city limits. Some complaints came from the Pratts; others were about them. No charges were filed in any of the disputes.

Last week, the Pratts said they sold the house on Oct. 2 to Geo Resolutions, a Tampa sinkhole reclamation company, for $148,575. No new deed has been registered in Pinellas County, but county officials said it can take four to six weeks for such a transaction to be recorded.

The Pratts said they are now tenants in the residence and hope to stay in Rosetree Estates until the end of the school year. The new owner asked that they put up the sign to warn others and to avoid liability, they said.

"We have lost our home, and I didn't want to see anyone else lose theirs," Sherri Pratt said.

Other residents express doubt about the very existence of a sinkhole, and they don't want their property values to tumble.

One, Kaye Coddington, said seeing the sign made her so angry that she went onto the property and removed it. A new one went up right away, she said.

At a Rosetree Estates neighborhood gathering Wednesday evening, people agreed to send a letter to the Pratts, asking them to remove the sinkhole sign. One neighbor suggested that the Pratts surround the property with yellow tape and use "caution" or "no trespassing" signs.

"This is a great neighborhood," Gina Hoffman said Wednesday. "All we want is for them to move the sign."

Craig Pratt said Thursday that he and Sherri Pratt didn't join the other neighbors. "We got the information about this meeting in the afternoon," he said. "That's the way it usually happens."

Nearby residents say the Pratts keep to themselves.

"All at once, they became reclusive," said Richard Alred, who lives in another block in Rosetree Estates.

"Craig (Pratt) even told me, "We want to be loners,' " Gina Hoffman said. "Every day their blinds are closed."

Interviewed in their home last week, Sherri Pratt said she was weary of the conflict.

"We just want to be left alone," she said. "I tell (Craig) all the time I'm hibernating in a cave."

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