No, not the 2004 election: we're talking about slow-moving landslides, a commonplace in the East Bay hills. The Chronicle reports the slow slides are wreaking havoc with residential property owners. There seems to be a bit of an epistemic problem: does your property right occupy a fixed coordinate in space, or does it encompass a particular patch of specific rocks and dirt? From the article:
[Robert] Mathews learned recently of two bitter property-line disputes just blocks away that city records show are in a landslide hazard area. In one case, an arbitrator ruled that although the land had moved, a survey determined ownership -- and thus a couple of feet of disputed earth belonged to the downhill neighbor."Now I'm worried,'' said Mathews. "What is that going to do to my (home's) resale value?''
Scientists have mapped and studied slow-moving slides in California for decades, and there are thousands in the Bay Area, said Richard Pike of the U.S. Geological Survey. Most move only as a result of moisture or disturbance.
Living as he does in the Hayward Fault Zone, Mathews might do well to wonder what a slippage on that fault is going to do to his property values.