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Are utility crews allowed to dig in your yard without permission?

A Little Rock resident said crews hit a gas line in front of her home, leaving her with questions about what rights she had as a homeowner.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Little Rock homeowner Ginger Rush isn't mincing words – construction on her street is leaving her not a very happy homeowner.

"It's very frustrating and also very terrifying when you think you're gonna be one of the statistics on TV with your home all blown to pieces," Rush said.

Rush said utility crews showed up at her home in West Little Rock earlier this week to lay high-speed fiber cable.

"Well the main concern was nobody was notified," she said. "I mean, I wasn't notified that anybody was coming and then they just show up and they want to start digging."

While workers did work on laying down and installing those fiber cables, Rush said they also put her and her neighbors in danger.

"My house was full of gas, my neighbor's house was full of gas," she said.

Rush said crews hit a gas line in front of her home, leaving her with questions about what rights she had as a homeowner – mainly, do utility crews have to notify homeowners that they'll be working on the property?

THV11 went to the City of Little Rock for answers.

They weren't the ones digging at Rush's home, but they were able to give insight into what this process looks like.

"There's a strip of property, it's usually grassy in the residential area, that's actually public right of way," Michael Hood, Civil Engineering Manager at the Little Rock Public Works Department, said.

Hood said situations like this are common, and as long as companies don't cross that line onto the personal property – usually a couple of feet from the street – they don't have to notify you they're coming.

"There could be different circumstances, there actually could be an easement there associated with the property," he said. "But you know, they should confine their work to the right of way where they're allowed to work."

So if you're a homeowner out there, keep this in mind – you may own your property, but crews are still allowed to be there.

Rush said she gets it, but a heads-up is always nice. She said she still doesn't know when those crews will be back to fix the holes left in her front yard.

"You don't even know what your rights are but I really do think there should be some rights that homeowners do have," she said. "A right to know if A, who's coming to your house and what they're going to be doing, and B, what's going on."

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