CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It’s a beautiful old house with a stunning view of uptown, but the family who owns the home in west Charlotte is afraid to stay there after they found a large sinkhole in the crawl space.
Ashley Weidner told Action 9 investigator Jason Stoogenke that she and her husband bought the house in 2015.
Three years later, Weidner was in the crawl space of the house when she discovered the large hole.
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“We started calling around to different engineers and different companies, trying to figure out what it could potentially be. And that’s when we were told that it was probably a gold mine shaft that had collapsed,” she said. “I assumed it would be covered by insurance … and that we’d just kind of move on and have a pretty cool story to tell, but not so much.”
The sinkhole created by the old mine shaft destroyed one of the structural piers holding up the center of the house. Weidner said their insurer, Allstate, denied their claim in 2018, stating only “abrupt” collapses are covered -- not ones that are “in danger” of falling down.
“If homeowners’ insurance doesn’t cover something like this, then what do they cover?” Weidner asked.
To be safe, the family moved out of the house. Weidner said they’ll have to pay to have the house razed and rebuilt.
Action 9 contacted Allstate three times in December but never received a response. Weidner said the company contacted her a few days after Stoogenke’s last call.
An Allstate representative recently inspected the sinkhole, and Weidner is waiting for a response from the company.
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