Stephen and Lynne Coverdale have lived in their property on the exclusive Woodlands Estate in Baildon, West Yorkshire, since it was built in 1986.
Two mansions worth £1.4million are being demolished and their elderly owners made homeless after a Victorian railway embankment suddenly collapsed beneath them.
Stephen and Lynne Coverdale have lived in their property on the exclusive Woodlands Estate in Baildon, West Yorkshire, since it was built in 1986, while David and Fiona Lerner moved in next door in 2009 after buying their home for £385,000.
But both properties, which have more than doubled in value since then, have been officially condemned after a mudslide in February led to the back gardens falling down on the railway tracks below, blocking the line.
The couples were evacuated to a hotel and moved into temporary accommodation. The four pensioners, aged in their 60s and 70s, were said to be too heartbroken to talk about the loss of their homes.
Their neighbours are now desperately waiting for news from Network Railabout whether their homes could also be risk.
Experts have installed monitoring devices all around the gardens and are checking around the clock for any danger signs.
The two houses that are being demolished were both perched directly above the Ilkley to Bradford line, which serves four local schools and is set to remain partly blocked until June.
Margaret Dugdale. 68. is a retired NHS clinical scientist who lives next to the two condemned houses.
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She hopes her home will be spared because it appears to be on more stable ground, but said: 'If I have to move out, I have to move out. I have no idea where I stand with the insurance.
'I am behind with the garden and I need a new carpet but there is no point if I am not going to be there. We first knew something was wrong when cracks were spotted in one of the gardens.
'Then the gardens went. When me and my daughter saw what had happened, we nearly had a fit.
'They tried to stop it by removing 2,500 tons of earth to reduce the pressure on the cutting. But they could not stop it and now we hear it might be too dangerous to work on.
'My house was valued at £700,000 but who knows now. I have heard there have been three other landslips in embankments in other parts of the country since this one.
'Once things as big as this start to move you cannot do anything about it. I don't blame Network Rail.
'It could be 101 things that started it off and we have had such a lot of rain. We think it has been moving for some time, although before the movement has been slight. Then the gardens went and we do not know who is going to pay for all this.'
The upmarket homes were developed on the footprint of the country seat of a former Bradford textile mogul. There are ten houses on site and the big house has been transformed into four flats.
Mrs Dugdale added: 'We have all lived here a long time and all know each other which makes it worse when something like this happens. It is worse than people forced to move for HS2.
'At least they were compensated for leaving their homes. It has had a massive effect on the couple in their 70s.
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'They lavished money on the house to get the absolute best thinking they were stopping there and wanted it to be nice.'
No one heard the gardens collapse.
Mick Spencer, who lives on the property on the other side of the two condemned houses, said: 'There was just a slight tremor. We are not affected – or so we understand. But it is devastating for the people who had been here 30 odd years.
'Network Rail have been very elusive. They are not giving out very much information at all and we are all in the dark.'
The main impact on Mr Spencer's property has been part of the sewage system being swept away, while temporary plastic pipes have been laid through his garden to carry the sewage away and a noise machine clatters way in the garden to maintain the flew.
'It is right pain,' Mr Spencer, who has lived in the house for 20 years with his wife Karen, continued.
'Obviously, we are in contact with solicitors. We are in a bit of a quandary because we do not know what we are supposed to do. It is a constant worry.'
Network Rail said wet weather in recent weeks had made the situation worse and the homes were now structurally unsafe.
Jason Hamilton, the organisation's route director, said 'every effort' had been made to save the homes, but all alternative solutions had now been ruled out.
He added: 'Regrettably, after a number of weeks of looking at an extensive number of options, due to the complex nature of the site and the critical need to reopen the railway line, we need to use our statutory powers to allow us to safely resume repairs to this site.
'That will mean safely removing the properties', he continued adding, it was 'a very unusual situation and a sensitive situation'.
'We've taken full consideration of that as we've worked through a wide range of options, which we've now unfortunately exhausted,' he added.
Network Rail 'deeply sympathised' with the homeowners affected and it would continue to make 'every effort to look after their interests', he said.
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