Dai, what kind of floor tiles are you using? I'm trying to figure out which are the "holey" ones. I know the plain dirt is.
BTW someone said they used a horde minion to retrieve an item, but I could not get this to work (it was some crystal shards I was decorating with). Another method involves having a friend assist you. They close all their gumps so they will not have load delay issues (all backpacks, radar, etc), then log out over where the item is. You go into deco mode and erase the floor tile over the item, then they log in and try to grab it before they get booted out of the house.
I think that's how it goes. I've never tested it. The GM method is the best but boy it can feel panicky waiting for the GM, and of course if they don't show for three hours your stuff goes poof.
Of course you can always drop the house. Not recommended but if it's 3 AM and this is a house that isn't so full of things you can shove most of the stuff on spare characters then it might be the way to go if you're desperate.