PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — Michelle Dutton's walls crumbled, sinkholes opened up in her yard and her driveway cracked. Evette Simmons came home to discover a wall of her brownstone had been painted black. Elgin Elias' house is shifting on its foundations.

The three women say developers started doing construction next door, and they watched conditions in their homes deteriorate. Despite reporting the damage to the city, hiring lawyers and pleading with developers to stop, Dutton, Simmons and Elgin are all still waiting for their property to be repaired. Dutton, 59, who has owned her red brick house on East 31st Street near Church Avenue, in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, for 31 years, said cracks first appeared in her driveway in 2016 as construction workers tore down the two-family house next door.

"The damage is extensive, I think my yard could collapse," Dutton said. "That's why I'm upset." Developer Joseph Roubeni had planned to build a four-story apartment building on the lot, but stopped construction when Dutton reported an estimated $50,000 in damages to the Department of Buildings, city records show.

Roubeni, of the firm Astral Weeks, did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment. Dutton spent the following year going back and forth between lawyers and the developer and finally, in 2018, Roubeni produced an agreement to repair her home, she said.

But the Brooklyn homeowner is hesitant to sign because the developers wants to do the repairs themselves and Dutton said doesn't trust them.

"They don't want to give me money, they want to do the work," said Dutton. "But seeing how it's being done, I'm not in favor of signing this agreement."

"I really don't know what action I can take," Dutton added, saying she cannot afford to repair the building that has been her home for the past three decades. "They really make me want to leave." Leaving isn't a possibility for Evette Simmons, 59, who owns a red brick building on Hancock Street, in Bed-Stuy, a wall of which a developer neighbor painted black.