'I was told everything was all right': Next-door neighbour to home on edge of huge sinkhole reveals housing association assured her the property was fine when her front porch sank six weeks ago

• Carla Rance, 35, said she was ringing housing association daily in tears
  
• Gigantic crater in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, appeared at 7.30am
  
• 17 homeowners have been evacuated and one house is on its brink
• Neighbours and councillor claim two houses will have to be demolished
  
• Police: We are working with council, engineers and utilities companies
• There have been several sinkholes thanks to heavy rain battering UK
• Craters are caused when water ebbs away at soil creating unstable caverns
• Hertfordshire has a long history of chalk mining which could be a factor
  

By Dan Bloom

Published: 07:30 EST, 15 February 2014 | Updated: 14:18 EST, 15 February 2014

A woman living next-door to a gigantic sinkhole said she complained her house was sinking dangerously six weeks ago - but her housing association landlords told her 'everything was all right'.

Call centre worker Carla Rance, 35, had her entire porch demolished after it sank 'five or six inches' - but claimed her landlords only sent round specialist insurance assessors after she phoned her MP.

The 35ft wide sinkhole opened up in a suburban cul-de-sac in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, at 7.30am today, forcing 17 houses to be evacuated and leaving one teetering over a 20ft drop.

Two of the houses could have to be demolished.

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Teetering: The corner of a house has been left dangling perilously over a 20ft sinkhole in Hemel Hempstead

Carla Rance (left) said she warned her housing association about the sink hole, saying: 'I was ringing them on a daily basis in tears'

Mother-of-three Ms Rance told MailOnline: 'They came and chucked me out in my pyjamas - I just had time to shove on a pair of jeans and a jumper. I was shaking.

'My children had their onesies on and my daughter has a kidney problem - I had to persuade the police to get her medicine from the fridge. My purse is sitting on my kitchen table with all my money in it.'

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Ms Rance, who lives in the house next-door to the one over the sinkhole with her sons Connor, 14, and Taylor, 11, daughter Lexi, seven, and boyfriend Ross Miller, 30, will be in a hotel until at least Monday.

She said she first rang her housing association's out-of-hours hotline on January 4 when her house 'sank overnight' but a full day later they had sent no one.

Furious, she contacted the local council, which immediately cordoned off her porch and had it demolished after telling her it collapse at any moment, she said.

Dramatic: 17 houses have been evacuated in from the quiet suburban cul-de-sac in Hertfordshire

'It's over there': Police and structural and gas engineers point to the massive sinkhole outside the home

'I was furious,' she said. 'They told me they thought there might be some sort of water leak that had softened the foundations of the house. It's in a shocking state but they were telling me it was normal.

'I was ringing them on a daily basis in tears because last week I couldn't even open my front door. The man from the housing association told me to wiggle the handle.

'They told me repeatedly everything was all right... They've not been interested in me at all.'

Ms Rance said she then involved Hemel Hempstead MP Mike Penning - and only after that her landlords sent round insurance assessors, 10 days ago, who spent two and a half hours examining her house.

Two days ago they told her they would be coming round to dig an exploratory trench - but the sinkhole opened up before they had the chance.

Ms Rance said: 'The MP rang me this afternoon from Venice, bless him. He said he was furious.'

MailOnline contacted the housing association, Hightown Homes, for comment and had not yet received a reply.

My porch! Carla Rance, 35, had her sinking porch demolished six weeks ago

Authorities are looking into it: The sinkhole is the latest in a string of landslips caused by extreme weather

Lucky chance: Andrew Abbott, pictured, moved out of the house over the sinkhole last night after his tenancy ended. It's thought three people were still living there but did not even wake up when it appeared

The house over the sinkhole is believed to have been occupied by three people, including lodgers. One lodger, Andrew Abbott, had moved out by coincidence only last night after his tenancy ended.

Neighbours on the estate - built just six years ago - said they have been told two houses will have to be demolished.

Dacorum Borough Councillor Graham Adshead inspected the hole this morning and said: 'If the house is not pulled down, it will fall down. There is nothing underneath it. The entire corner of the house is unsupported. The road is basically a bridge and the house has nothing supporting it.

'The rumour is that there were lime kilns here in the past, before my time. There were holes underground and they have got bigger with all the heavy rain.

'The rain is the hair that broke the camel's back, and that the hole has got bigger and bigger with the heavy rain.

Taxi driver Jeff Bray, 58, whose flat overlooks the hole, said: 'The police knocked on my door at 7.45 this morning to say the houses were being evacuated. It was quite a shock, but this isn't the first sink hole in the area. They have been trying to fill one in down the road for years.

One of the residents evacuated was a heavily-pregnant woman. Her partner was briefly allowed back into their semi-detached home to collected items needed for the birth.

A Hertfordshire police spokesman said: 'The hole, which is in a residential cul de sac, has mainly affected the road.

'However, 17 properties have been evacuated for the safety of residents in the area.

'The hole is approximately 35ft wide and 20ft deep.

'Police are working with partner agencies, including Dacorum Borough Council, specialist structural engineers and utilities companies to assess the situation.

'The road, and surrounding roads, have been closed for the safety of residents and whilst agencies work at the scene.'

The house could be seen being held up by triangular struts as dozens of police officers and utility workers gathered around it.

Police officers secured the scene while gas and electric engineers acted to cut off local supply.

The alarm was raised around 7am when a builder who was driving down the road stopped and noticed the huge crater at the side of the house.

He knocked on neighbours' doors before calling the police.

Evacuated: The crater opened up in a quiet suburb of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire

Destroyed: The hole was littered with what looked like pipework and fencing. Police are investigating

Investigation: Police have been at the scene since the sinkhole suddenly opened up at 7.30am today

Police: A spokesman said the force was working with 'Dacorum Borough Council, specialist structural engineers and utilities companies to assess the situation'

Hole: At first glance the sinkhole appears like an ordinary flower bed - but it is some 20ft deep, said police

An Affinity Water spokesman said: 'Affinity Water was called by the Police at 8.20am and a team arrived on site shortly after.

'Water was leaking outside one home due to a dislodged supply pipe, so the supply to that property was turned off at the boundary supply stop tap.

'The road has been closed and we are awaiting further instructions from the structural engineers in attendance on when we can return to site.'

It comes after a 15ft-deep hole appeared on the central reservation of the M2 near Sittingbourne, Kent, on Tuesday.

Initially thought by the authorities to be a sinkhole, it was revealed to be a chalk well called a Dene hole, a structure made up of several underground caves accessed by a vertical shaft.

Hertfordshire, the site of today's hole, has a history of chalk mining dating back to Roman times. Chalk was used since the Medieval period as a building material.

Hemel Hempstead was largely built in a chalk stone valley where the River Gade meets the River Bulbourne.

The modern housing estate was built in 2008. It was believed the homes were constructed on former industrial estate land, or what is known as a brownfield site.

There are more than 100 historic mines known throughout the county but when the mining stopped, the entrances to their vertical shafts were not recorded properly and can cause nasty surprises for homeowners later on.

About 100 years ago 'chalk-drawers' worked throughout the Chiltern Hills, mining chalk from shafts up to 30ft deep which have since caused countless small collapses in fields, according to the Hertfordshire Geological Society.

Good as new: Zoe Smith, 19, with her new car after her local council filled in a 30ft hole with concrete

Dude, where's my car? Zoe's Volkswagen Lupo vanished into this hole on her parents' drive

Huge: This 15ft-deep hole on the central reservation of the M2 in Kent was discovered to be a chalk well

Earlier this month, a sinkhole measuring 30ft deep swallowed up a car after opening up on the driveway of Phil and Liz Conran's home in High Wycombe.

Nobody was inside the Volkswagen Lupo - owned by their devastated daughter Zoe, 19 - when the ground gave way underneath it.

The family said there was no indication that the sinkhole would appear on February 2.

Mrs Conran, a 51-year-old school bursar, said at the time: 'The actual size of it is what I think has taken us most by surprise - it's just swallowed the car whole.'

Zoe expressed her delight after motoring website Auto Trader bought her a new car this week after the council plugged the hole with concrete.

She had gone into hysterics after discovering her prized car had disappeared into the 30ft crater and was barely visible beneath mounds of earth.

But bosses at digital retailer Auto Trader read news reports of the incident and invited Zoe to choose a replacement vehicle, meeting the £2,200 cost as a publicity stunt.

In December last year, torrential rain caused a 130-ft deep sinkhole to form in the Peak District, after part of the old Mill Dam Lead Mine near Buxton, Derbyshire, caved in.