Pictures here. This started a few days ago, with the swirly depression in front of the hole. Then a couple days ago the hole appeared, seemingly overnight. What the hell is it? A sinkhole? A lair for a huge slithery snake?
I’ve called my landlord and he, so far, hasn’t been concerned enough to send someone out to look at it. I’m envisioning it getting way bigger and swallowing my house while I’m at work or asleep any day now. It’s definitely not someone digging in the yard, of that I am sure. This is right beside my house, about 3 feet from the wall.
What is this?! Just kidding about the “need answers fast”- but I would like to know if anyone has any ideas.
ETA: It has rained here a lot lately, as we’re smack in the middle of our summer monsoon season. If that matters.
Looks to me like a hole to a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.
Is there a drain line or water pipe running underneath the axis of the hole? If there’s water running along the outside of a line, it can undermine the soil. How big is it? Can you take a picture with a ruler next to it? And maybe a wider image, that shows it in context?
Here is a photo with a DVD case next to it for perspective.
There don’t appear to be any pipes in there that I can see, but there does seem to be pieces of wood and different dirts in there, as though this has happened before and someone filled it with whatever detritus available. Weird.
Was any work done nearby, like with a big truck? Some electric company bucket trucks. heavy machinery and other vehicles have stabilizing arms that deploy when they are working… this looks like it could be a “foot print” for one of those… Was thinking something like this .
Nope, no machinery. This in my “sideyard”- between the patio and fence- a small area.
I hope my landlord sends maintenance out Monday. There doesn’t seem to be a decrease in my water pressure. How would I know if a pipe was leaking underground?
I’ll stick with my guess of flowing water underground, undermining the surface, just based on the size, the fairly even sides and the fact that you’ve had a lot of rain lately. But even surface drainage can do some wild stuff in heavy rains; I often have to repair parts of my gravel driveway after a deluge. The usual way I’ve found out about a pipe leaking underground is that the surface subsides as water washes away material around the pipe. I’d expect your landlord knows where the pipes and drains run.
Either that, or that interdimensional gateway thingie…watch out for signs of Cthulhu.
Cthulu would be a gift compared to a sinkhole, IMO. I’ve seen them here in Tucson- scary stuff. Can you put my overactive imagination to rest and tell me this is NOT a sinkhole? Please?
Do you have irrigation lines in your yard? I’ve had something similar looking appear in my yard before and it turned out to be a blowout in the irrigation pipe. Depending upon the volume/rate of water escaping the pipe, it could just be enough to wash out the subsurface soil for a while until finally there’s enough of a void that the surface soil collapses into it and a hole suddenly appears. There doesn’t need to be a large volume of water to do something like this over time. Of course the easy way to test this is to turn on your irrigation for a few minutes to see if the soil wettens or the hole fills with water.
Does the hole keep going, or is it only as big as what’s visible? If you poke at it with a stick, will it get bigger? An alternative WAG to the water leak: Some animal lived there, maybe a few years ago, and it finally collapsed.
No irrigation lines- I’m only growing gravel over here and it doesn’t need watering.
Fissures- yikes! Is that the same as a sinkhole? Tarantulas- yikes! They do tend to come out during the monsoons but I haven’t seen any. Prairie dogs- probably not.
The hole is only as big as the pictures show- it doesn’t go in any further than what you can see. The good news is it’s not getting any bigger now for the past couple of days, but the possibly bad news is the swirly depression in front of it is sinking in further.
I will call the landlord again tomorrow and insist that they come out ASAP, and when I get the answer as to what it is, I’ll post it.
As for the movie, I have two teenaged boys with questionable tastes- so sue me!
Assuming I’m judging the size of the hole correctly, if it is a tarantula, I suggest giving it what it wants and not turning your back. Also, now would be a good time to give your landlord notice. Maybe contact your local “rebel but strangly good looking” scientist since based on movies I’ve seen they usually know what to do in such situations despite the fact that local authorities are always trying to get him shut down.
Don’t you think I should send my black friend first, to see what it is, and let them get brutally murdered, before proceeding on to the hot rebel scientist?
