Ms Sawyers is renting in Omokoroa with her partner, Rhys Bradford, and her 20-year-old daughter. "We are not allowed back yet," she said.
Earthquake Commission engineers were still conducting a report to decide if the slip was fixable or not, she said. "I think it can be fixed, but it is quite a costly and lengthy exercise.
"We have come to the realisation that we are not going to get any answers overnight," she said. "Our best option is to not stress about it."
Their neighbours on Kowai Grove had also lost a chunk of their backyard.
McDonnell St resident Naomi Kingsland and her mother evacuated their home, which borders a Western Bay reserve after a 12m chunk of their backyard slipped into the harbour.
Ms Kingsland and her mother were now renting in Katikati, and she said she did not want to return to her home.
"My mother is 83, and she does not want to be sleeping in a place where every time it rains it goes a little bit more."
She said her view was now a "great big hole" in the garden. "Who wants to go to sleep at night and worry about that all night?"
Rosemary and John Roper wrote a letter of submission to Omokoroa Community Board chairman Murray Grainger in July reminding the board of the Ruamoana Walkway slips.
"We live with uncertainty and constant stress daily," the letter read. "Every time it rains we wake up and check that the view is the same as it was yesterday and hope that it has not improved."
Mrs and Mrs Roper also made a submission to the Western Bay of Plenty District Council on the Coastal Erosion Policy.
It outlined households on 23-25 Ruamoana Place were prepared to make substantial cash contributions to engineering solutions to fix the area on council reserve land outside their houses.
The residents also offered to provide access to through properties if it was fixed.
"We realise that would require engineering design and resource consents and that all these take time."
Western Bay of Plenty District Council communications team leader Alistair Gray said the council had received some submissions from residents to its draft Inner Harbour and Coastal Erosion Policy.
"The draft policy, if adopted, will determine how council responds to erosion on the district's coastlines and inner harbour margins in the next 30 years," he said.
Mr Gray said the next step was a policy committee meeting on August 16 to consider the submissions and recommendations which have been made to date.
"This, in turn, will help shape the draft policy which will go to council."
The Insurance Council of New Zealand's provisional data showed Cyclone Debbie remnants from April 3-7 cost the insurance industry $66.4m in claims. Cyclone Cook remnants from April 13-16 cost $18m in insurance claims.
