TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — Gantley and Becky Wilson's home is not supposed to be under construction. Just one month after they moved in to a turnkey, new construction house, it has been ripped apart.
"It's like I just lost everything," Becky Wilson said.
The flooring has been ripped up, and sheet rock has been cut from the walls. They cannot live in their new home because 20 days after they closed and moved in, the structure flooded. And they say days after that, it flooded again.
"[The water] gets almost level with the road and then it just pours downhill into our home," Gantley Wilson said. "[The builder] shouldn't have sold the house with this kind of risk."
The Wilsons just moved to Texas from Kansas, bringing their children and their pets. They have new jobs and had found what they thought was an ideal home in southwest Tarrant County. When they first saw the house, it was completely finished, ready to to move in.
But the Wilsons' neighbors on Stroup Drive say they knew that the new construction was destined for problems. Multiple neighbors told WFAA that they warned the builders during the construction that the lot had a major flooding problem.
Satellite images of the property from more than a decade ago appear to show a drainage creek that passes right through the lot where the home is now built.
When neighbors realized the Wilsons were considering buying the property, they even shared photographs of the construction site that show the lot flooded and the house surrounded by water.
The Wilsons say the builder, Fort Worth-based Cheldan Homes, never disclosed the flooding problem until they asked about it following the neighbors' warning. They said Cheldan Homes told them that the county had addressed the flooding problem with new drainage measures.
"We asked multiple times, and every time it was, 'They just put these new culverts in. They're going to reroute the water. There shouldn't be an issue,'" Becky recalled.
Reached by phone while he was traveling abroad, Cheldan Homes owner Joey Goss told WFAA that his company never misled the Wilsons and that they did everything by the book. He said they never promised that the property wouldn't flood, and suggested that it is up to the county to fix the drainage issue. He also said that the flooding incident in October was a result of a 100-year storm and that he believed the problem would be addressed by the county.
"The house changed hands. It's the homeowners' responsibility to have insurance. It's a terrible situation," Goss said. "I'm doing everything I know how to do to find a solution, to understand the cause, and move as swiftly as humanly possible to get that executed."
The Wilsons said they have flood insurance but the policy won't cover the damage to their home because of the nature of the flooding. Cheldan is temporarily paying for them to stay in a hotel, but they want the company to fix the drainage problem or give them a new house in a different location.
"If nothing else is done, I don't want to live here," Becky said.
Today, a Tarrant County official told WFAA that they are working on a drainage project along Pyramid Boulevard, which borders the Wilsons' property. They said that it is to address drainage for the right of way, not to improve private property, but that there may be some coincidental improvements. The timeline for the project is not clear.