If it gives you a recession-era headache to see the value of your house drop faster than the Miami Herald's staff, try living in Miami's Grosse Pointe Highlands. Homeowners here -- between Northwest 27th and 37th Avenues and Flagler Street - were horrified to learn their modest, middle class houses were built over a smelly, soggy landfill. One neighbor found a car buried in his back yard. Another watched her two-year old fall through a hole in the lawn. And at least twenty homes are sinking, as if they'd been built on top of Jell-o.
"You have to see it to believe it," says home association president Dennis Rod. "It's a bunch of towers of Piza." Rod's been working with commissioners for years. He believes the city should buy the houses -- and that the city shouldn't have let the developer build in the first place. "After the Marlin's Stadium," he says. "This should be a first priority."
