TOWN OF SPRING GREEN -- Let 's not sugarcoat this. On Gene Dischler 's dirty, stinking, fetid, scum-covered front lawn Tuesday, the water that has been there since June 8 would make you puke if you were so foolish as to come anywhere near it.

It would create giant, cloudy, mold circles on your house 's walls. It would kill your best-tended landscaping and it would put the scent of rot and purgatory on any of your belongings, including your hat.

Dischler is not looking forward to moving back.

He is just looking to move out, permanently -- along, he suspects, with most of the other residents of some 40 houses along Highway 23 stuck and stinking in a cesspool of stagnant, non-receding, contaminated floodwater so dirty that if you walk through it, you leave a trail.

"It 's just not going away," he said, Tuesday. "There 's no place for it to go. "

"There are families here whose lives have been destroyed, " he said. Foundations and walls have caved in. Dischler, a retired carpenter, has moved to his daughter 's residence.

"I am waiting for an answer, I am waiting for a buyout, " he said.

He has heard that federal disaster officials believe the waters will recede by July 18, but residents think that 's unlikely.

The difference between the flood in the Prairie Subdivision outside of Spring Green, and most other flood-damaged places is that the water came and just stayed. No one can return, no one can clean or dry out their homes, or even pump water from the basement because the water is still there.

As a subdivision resident, Spring Green Police Chief Kevin Wilkins noted that if you pump water from the basement, the walls will fall in because there is still a flood outside the home.

Greg Dilley and his wife, Jennifer, and son Gaige, 5, don 't expect to return to their home, either. It is built on a slab and there is at least two feet of fetid water in the home so dirty it almost has a crust.

The longer it sits, the greater the mold contamination grows.

"I was in there with a full respirator and canister last Friday and I couldn 't last a half hour, " he said of the home where the family lived for seven years.

Still making a house payment, the family has moved in with relatives in nearby Arena.

"No way could we go back. There is no way to rebuild it, " he said.

Julie Neuheisel, who with her husband, Darrel, and their son, Alex, moved to a rental unit outside of Spring Green, said after being evacuated that June weekend, it was pretty clear that coming back would be difficult, if not impossible.

"We are trying to retrieve items, but we need waders and gloves and respiratory masks and the mold is so bad you can 't breathe " she said.

"I think of it as a cross between the Titanic -- it looks like stuff hanging on everything -- and the Amityville Horror, with the stink and now the flies and ants taking over. It 's just awful, " she said.

"We are hoping (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) will buy it. How could you ever put that house back together? In our hearts, we would not want to live there again, (but) we would always have questions about whether it is safe, where the black mold is lurking. And fixing it? Put all that money in there? It could happen again. As it is, this water could be here till Christmas. "

She believes the houses should be taken down and removed and the area turned into something other a housing subdivision.

"It would make a great marsh, " she said.

FEMA has supplied emergency rent payments and grants to many of the residents already, Wilkins noted.

State Emergency Management spokeswoman Lori Getter said Tuesday that officials are keeping a close eye on the conditions in the Prairie Subdivision.

"It all depends on when the waters recede, and the weather, " she said.

The Corps of Engineers has examined the area, and buyouts are a possibility, she said. A hazard mitigation process would have local authorities apply through state channels to get FEMA money for buyouts, she said. Such a process is already ongoing in Gays Mills from last summer 's floods.

"We have definitely not forgotten about the people suffering in Spring Green, " Getter said.

FEMA spokesman Ed Edahl noted that officials scheduled a tour of the Spring Green flooding for Tuesday, but bad weather kept a helicopter full of officials from landing. The meeting was rescheduled for Friday, he said.