We first thought they were sinkholes, threatening to take in a family's home.

In an unexpected twist, it turns out the pits weren't sinkholes at all.

"And I was just surprised at this day and time with as new as this subdivision is, that we'd find something like this," says contractor, Mike Murphy.

Mike Murphy is talking about his reaction when he found out the pits weren't sinkholes, but the result of using the cheaper, easier option of using trees instead of soil to fill the backyard.

"I can't second guess the reasoning why it was done but it is not standard construction procedure," says Murphy.

Murphy says as the tree wood rotted and gave way, so did the yard.

It's costing him between twenty and thirty grand to dig the trees out, burn them and bring in truckloads of red clay, which is what the yard should have been filled with in the first place.

"We don't have the money to repair this, we feel like it's a liability for us," says Diane Kolb, who owns a house down the street with problems.

That's a lot of money, especially in a neighborhood where many houses run for ninety to ninety-five thousand dollars.

And the house Murphy worked on is one among several in the neighborhood with problems.

"We have four very distinct holes, there's debris under there, there's cinder block, there's wood," says Kolb.

Homeowner Diane Kolb who lives down the street, says she fears the holes in her backyard have been caused by the same thing.

"If no one is going to take responsibility, than why should we sit here, continue to make payments, continue to take care of our home, because obviously no one else cares about it?," says Kolb.

The city and county says while they regret the situation, they can't do anything about the holes.

That's because they're on private property and they're not aware of any illegal activity.

"There's probably no way it could have been caught along the way, and that's just one of the things that happens in life," says Mac Yowell, of Warren County Public Works.

And for Kolb, that is heartbreaking news..

"For us the American dream is the American nightmare, there is no other way to put it," says Kolb.

Warren County says they will be looking into the matter, and will try to prevent the situation from happening again.