Developer Takes A Hike, Leaving Behind Handful Of Homeowners Living In Ghost Town

In Lancaster, California, the Contra Costa Times reports:

• The families who moved into Westview Estates were expecting to live in a lovely gated neighborhood of new homes, built on former farmland in this desert city. But shortly after the first families - some paying up to $400,000 for a new home - moved in around spring 2007, they started noticing problems with the water systems.(1)

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• Residents say problems with the water - not just the economy - have turned what was planned as a 425-home development into a ghost town where homes sit vacant amid graded dirt lots choked with weeds. Only 23 homes were sold before the developer walked away, according to residents. Angry and feeling betrayed, the few residents left feel imprisoned in their problem-plagued homes that they cannot sell.

For more, see Antelope Valley homeowners left hanging by developer.

(1) Reportedly, water stopped flowing in midshower, washing machines halted midcycle, or no water came out at all. Residents could not shower and water lawns at the same time, and fire alarms went off in the middle of the night.