ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Wild hogs are running amok in a part of the Cascades neighborhood in World Golf Village.
Maria Mroz showed First Coast News her ripped up backyard.
“Our landscaper said it looks like aardvarks are making their home," Mroz said.
She said the feral pigs come out shortly after midnight from a preserve located behind her house.
“They were doing their thing, ripping up the lawns, throwing it up in the air," Mroz said.
Mroz moved into her home a few years ago and said her yard looked normal.
“It started over on this end to the right of me. And it's gotten farther and farther back that this is the farthest it's ever gone," Mroz said.
Months ago, Mroz said neighbors hired a boar hunter.
“We had 45 captured in three months. Fourty-five," Carol Bozak said.
Bozak lives down the street from Mroz and has had damage from the hogs.
She said she didn’t hire the trapper, but said he was threatened with a trespassing fine by the organization that manages the preserve for going onto the land to hunt the boars.
Art Carlo is the president of the St. Johns Northwest Master Association. He said he did not tell the hunter to leave but told First Coast News people cannot go into the preserve.
With no hunter, it's open season for the hogs.
“To get all this [her yard] fixed up $600. And there was no guarantee with that $600," Mroz said.
Wild hogs are invasive species and can be hunted or trapped in Florida.
Cascades HOA president Ricke Ricciardelli said neighbors can fence in their property. She said the HOA recently approved a new "puppy fence" to keep wild piglets out.
She said they are waiving the fence fee for neighbors. Ricciardelli added a more permanent solution, a fence around the preserve, is too expensive.
“We are overrun with wildlife in here due to the overdevelopment of the surrounding areas," Ricciardelli said.
Ricciardelli said neighbors' only solution is a fence.
With more homes being built in St. Johns County the hogs are more often going to be banging into the fence, or in Mroz's case making themselves at home.
“They just come back and do it again.”