‘When life gives you lemons…’ Detroit sinkhole transformed into fishing hole

Faced with a gaping sinkhole in their street, residents in one Detroit neighborhood decided that they had waited long enough for a response from the city. Now, they fish in it.

As part of an effort to bring attention to the issue, residents near the Interstate-75 freeway and McNichol’s road in Detroit decided to toss some fish into the sinkhole and take their kids to fish in it. Since then, the fish population has grown to include blue gill, goldfish, and carp, local WXYZ reported. A broken water main, meanwhile, continues to feed water into the area.

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The story may seem charming, but residents say they only resorted to the unique step because city officials seemed completely uninterested in doing anything about the pit, which measures 6 x 30 feet.

“It’s been here for almost four years, and inside of that four years the city has known about it,” resident Sonja Brown told WDIV News. “The city works who’ve gone through here have known about it. We just decided to turn this into something beautiful in the community.”

Since the sinkhole was filled with fish, it’s become something of an attraction in the neighborhood.

“We come out and feed them. We have a lawn chair, and we enjoy seeing the fish float around,” resident Pete Bolden told WXYZ News.

“This is our pond now,” added resident Yvette Pugh.

The origin of the sinkhole, however, remains unclear. Residents say the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is to blame because it started work there that was never finished. They even say they called the city last winter but were ignored, even though the sinkhole had frozen and become more of a risk.

The city told WXYZ, however, that there is no record of their employees doing any work in the area. Detroit officials told WDIV that the sinkhole was the result of work done in the area by a gas company, though the water main break is likely a job for water and sewage workers.

Meanwhile, the local utility company said it would send a crew over to check the situation out. Despite the fun some of the children are having fishing, many residents just want to see the sinkhole gone.

“We like our fish,” Bolden said, "but honestly we’d like the road fixed.”