JOHNSTOWN, Colo. — The trailers parked in the front lawns of several houses in Johnstown don’t look like your typical moving vans. Then again, the belongings they hold aren't part of a typical move.
"People walking down through this neighborhood have got to look at this and just say, what in the world?" Holly Sturgon, who's lived in her home in the northern Colorado town for almost 11 years, asked.
Sturgon knows she has less than a month left in what was supposed to be her forever home. After living here for 10 years, the basement flooded, and her family learned something they had never even thought about.
"This was originally a retention pond, and in a flood last year, it came to light that it needs to be a retention pond," Sturgon said.
The builder filled in the pond and built homes on it without telling the buyers. After the flood, the town of Johnstown decided they had no other choice but to buy four homes back, bulldoze the land and rebuild the retention pond.
"Up until a month ago I probably cried almost every single day. You can hear me choking up about it now," Sturgon said, as she looked at her house beginning to be dismantled. "Going through this part of it, it tears at my heartstrings every day."
The family has come to terms with the reality now. So, she’s parting ways with everything before the dozers move in.
Literally everything.
"I’ve sold toilets. I’ve sold lighting fixtures. I’ve sold air conditioning units. I’ve sold garage doors. Siding. Gutters. Everything is for sale," said Sturgon. "Make me a moderately small, reasonable offer, and it is absolutely yours to take and go home with."
The living room furniture has already sold so the patio chairs moved inside. The pergola has been dismantled and sold to a new home. Everything must go, but it is hard to part with all the memories here.
"I’m going to miss it," Sturgon said. "I look out here. I look at our neighbors. That’s the hard part."
The price the town of Johnstown paid for the home was not enough to allow the family to stay in Colorado. Rebuying the exact same house somewhere else now costs way too much. They’ve decided to move to Georgia to be closer to family.
They wanted to fight back and say, "Let us keep our house." But of all of the lawyers that they went to for advice, everyone advised them that they would lose.
Moving is never easy. It is even harder when there is no choice.
"When you sell a house, you clean it really good for the next person, and I’m purposely destroying the house. It’s pretty different," Sturgon said. "I hope nobody has to go through this because it’s not a comfortable feeling at all."