BATON ROUGE - Next door neighbors Jane Broussard and Larry Reeves tell me it's the creek behind their homes that's causing their property to form several sinkholes.

"At one time, trying to sell, the excuse I received was 'We don't like what's happening in your backyard.' I said, Well, okay, I don't either," Reeves said.

Larry Reeves moved to his home on Crescent Drive 10 years ago. He says when he first moved in, it was just a small hole in his backyard.

"It just seems like it has grown, and it may be 10 or 12 feet one way, 10 or 12 feet the other way, and six or eight feet deep," Reeves said.

The same hole now has spread into the backyard of his next-door neighbor, Jane Broussard. She says in 2019, she noticed the hole growing bigger.

"And whenever my grandchildren come over, I don't let them go in the back yard," Broussard said.

On the other side of Broussard, another neighbor has the same sinkhole forming.

Both Reeves and Broussard say they have reached out to the city-parish multiple times over the years, trying to get answers on what can be done.

They say maintenance workers investigated the issue, performing dye tests.

"We've had the sewage department come out, and they say 'Oh, that's a drainage issue.' So, then we have drainage come out, and they say it's sewage."

Reeves says he is really concerned about how the erosion affects the foundation of his home.

"In the house, I can tell there are some settlement issues with it. I can see some broken tiles in the bathroom, and I think it's all because my yard is leaving, it's going away," Reeves said.

We did reach out to the city-parish's department of maintenance, which says they've confirmed that the issue on Reeves' property was not caused by underlying utility or drainage factors, but it's the stability of the creek embankment itself, which sits behind the homes.

"I don't know what the answer is other than somebody needs to come out here and fix it," Reeves said.

The city-parish could not provide a specific date as to when repairs will be completed, but they say services will be scheduled as crews become available.