Backyard chicken coop has annoyed neighbors clucking

[Omaha Steve]

Comments at the story are pro chickens 10-1.

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/backyard-chicken-coop-has-annoyed-neighbors-clucking/article_acfa15e7-b185-5155-9450-2b92f40af484.html

POSTED: MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2015 12:30 AM | UPDATED: 9:41 AM, MON AUG 3, 2015.
By Todd Cooper / World-Herald staff writer

For Stacy Williams and her son, their chicken coop and six backyard chickens have served as both an egg factory and inexpensive therapy.

“It really is therapeutic,” Williams said of their daily routine of tending to the chickens.

But for one couple who live next to Williams, her backyard — complete with its chicken coop, compost pile, and fruit and vegetable garden — has become something else: too much country in the city. So, after a year of backyard chicken farming, Williams’ six hens have now produced something beyond their typical egg a day: a lawsuit.

Williams’ Trendwood neighbors, Bradley A. and Lynn M. Perry, have filed a lawsuit over Williams’ backyard chickens, garden and chicken coop — the yoke of which is unheard of in Douglas County District Court. In a county that now boasts a record 232 backyard chicken farmers, perhaps it was only a matter of time before a lawsuit hatched. And on the face of it, this case seems simple.

FULL story and more photos at link. Video: http://studio.omaha.com/?ndn.trackingGroup=91341&ndn.siteSection=omahawh_nws_loc_sty_pp&ndn.videoId=29475816&freewheel=91341&sitesection=omahawh_nws_loc_sty_pp&vid=29475816



BRENDAN SULLIVAN/THE WORLD-HERALD

Adrian Marquez cares for one of the six chickens. "I’ve raised them since they were chicks — it’s almost like they’re my kids. They just put you in a good mood," he said.

[MADem]

1. If I lived next to someone with chickens, I'd be friendly as hell, hoping for a few free eggs

every now and again!!!

[snooper2]

3. you know what else they are good for? Chicken Shit Bingo!

Never heard of it till a local bar did it last weekend


example

[MADem]

11. What fun!!!!!

They do this with cow shit, too--on a wider playing field!!

"We don't need no....constipation...

We don't need no...bowel control!"

[KittyWampus]

4. as long as there are no roosters, which can be annoying as heck.

[MADem]

8. Kiiiiii--kirrrri-KIIIIIII!!!!

Which is "cock-a-doodle-doo" in another part of the world!!

I did live close to a rooster years ago, but I can sleep through anything!

[RebelOne]

38. A friend of mine moved to rural Georgia where I also live.

Her next door neighbor raised fighting cocks. She said the noise at night from their roosters would keep her and her husband awake. She finally had to take him to court. Fortunately, she won the suit and the neighbor was ordered to build a sound-proof enclosure for the roosters.

[shireen]

42. but isn't cock-fighting illegal? nt

[RebelOne]

53. Yes it is.

But unless the cock fighters are caught in the act the authorities ignore it.

[cwydro]

43. They certainly are.

This is my Henry:

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Cleita]

52. My thought too. We had to find our rooster another home because the neighbors complained. eom

[Aerows]

13. You said it!

I'd be nice as pie.

[Warpy]

2. Oh FFS. This is why I want a Valium salt lick on every corner

My neighbor had chickens and they were great fun to watch. Even the clucking, mostly when one of the hens laid an egg, could be entertaining. She had one hen who'd crow back at a rooster elsewhere in the area.

The only problem was when she moved out and didn't take the mice with her. They moved in here and my geriatric cat couldn't cope. Electronic traps are the best, BTW, if you get rodents.

I wonder what this busybody would do if the neighbors had a couple of bored basset hounds instead of nice, quiet chickens.

[MADem]

9. Even a beagle will scare the crap outta you if you're not expecting that yowl!!! nt

[magical thyme]

19. agreed. not to mention demanding that they rip out their garden.

is wrong with some people.

[Warpy]

27. They most likely want to look over the fence

and see a wrought iron gazebo accessed by a moon bridge over a koi pond.

I do hope those people spend a fortune and get slapped down, hard.

Some people in this world are begging for it.

[jwirr]

33. Our community has a no bark law. That does not keep people from having barking dogs though.

They should put up a privacy fence.

[shenmue]

5. Bgawk

Flap flap flap.

[hamsterjill]

6. I wonder whether there are deed restrictions and/or city codes that prohibit chickens.

If there are, this woman and her son are screwed. If there aren't, then it will be more difficult for the neighbor to substantiate her complaint.

In this video, this looks like it is within city limits, as opposed to being rural acreage. So there are probably some codes or restrictions in place. If those prohibit raising chickens, then the woman and her son can be forced to get rid of the chickens, or move.

That said, if *I* lived next to this woman, I wouldn't have a problem with the chickens as long as they were properly taken care of and the area was maintained so as not to smell, etc. Definitely good therapy for the son!

[csziggy]

12. Probably not or the neighbor would use code enforcement

To force her to get rid of the chickens and the garden.

If the neighbor doesn't want to see her garden and chickens, they can put up a privacy fence. That garden and the coop seem to be very well maintained and clean. Those chickens aren't very noisy, not compared to the noise some dogs make. If they were guinea hens I could see a complaint, but those hens, no.

I wonder if this woman has a place where people could contribute to a defense fund.

[hamsterjill]

16. Not necessarily.

When there are deed restrictions filed without a mandatory HOA in place, it is left up to the individual land owner to enforce those restrictions (should they choose); therefore, a lawsuit. My own subdivision was platted before HOA's became the norm, and our restrictions are set up like that.

Also, there are times when city code enforcement simply doesn't happen and homeowners resort to lawsuits.

I agree. There has to be some give and take within any community, and I just cannot see how the chickens and/or the garden would be an issue, especially if the chickens never leave their own backyard. But the story doesn't give the side of the complaining neighbor either, so there may be more to the story than this report indicates.

[djean111]

7. Here in Hillsborough County, Fl, chickens are legal everywhere in Tampa, but subject to deed

restrictions and zoning in the rest of the county. I would like to have some chickens - I live in a subdivision, but have a lot that is almost half an acre - but don't think I am allowed to. Plus I am not sure about the ramifications of the summer heat. I am trying to use as little electricity as possible, and I don't use my air conditioning, and I don't want to have to cool the chickens that way.

[Go Vols]

14. Tampa heat wont bother them

as long as there is shade where they can scratch a bare spot to sit and cool.

[djean111]

15. Thanks - I think I will go to my HOA website and ask about chickens now.

[gollygee]

10. Clucking isn't anything to fuss over. It's the cock-a-doodle-doing that's a problem.

No roosters, no problem, IMO. People can't expect complete silence from their neighbors, and I promise my kids make more noise than a few chickens. If kids can live next door to them, there's no reason chickens shouldn't be able to, so long as they're just hens.

[REP]

21. A dominant hen will crow. Ask me how I know!

My hens are my hens because Buffy crows and our friends' neighbors couldn't take it. We live in the middle of nowhere where everyone has hens and roos, so a crowing hen isn't noticed.

[Drahthaardogs]

23. It's the rats I don't like.

Also there is no need for a rooster. Hens lay just fine without one.

[Arugula Latte]

17. The chickens have anteggonized the neighbors and now they're eggsasperated.

But I think they should releggs a bit ... chickens are meggnanimous creatures.

[madinmaryland]

20. Eggzactly!! But the yoke may be on you!!

[Arugula Latte]

50. We shell see!

[hifiguy]

18. The suit-filers are a couple of

dumb clucks.

[Hekate]

22. Our 4 hens (now 3) produce more than we can use, so we give away a lot of eggs.Not coincidentally...

...exactly nobody has ever complained about our hens. When we asked our next door neighbor to care for them while we were gone, he loved them so much he got a few of his own.

Just never get roosters.

I'm sorry about these folks' unsympathetic neighbors. Best of luck to them in beating the lawsuit.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

51. I think that's the way to make good neighbours.

I give extra produce to some of my neighbours, and have made some friends I otherwise wouldn't have.

[sarisataka]

24. I don't mind

My neighbor's chickens and he doesn't mind my dog chasing them.

We are just waiting for the day he catches one and finds out a chicken is three times the size of a chihuahua. Our expectation is the the dog will get his furry butt kicked back to his yard.

[Aerows]

31. These hens grow to be huge!

[LeftyMom]

25. Pass a backyard chicken ordinance and your shelter too can overflow with Hipster Chickens.

Well, the lucky ones who don't get eaten by wildlife, released in parks, etc.

My dbag neighbors don't keep their chickens in, other idiots let their cats out. I've found so many dead chickens lying around I was starting to wonder if we had a sloppy Santeria practitioner on the block.

Chicken shit reeks and draws rats. Suburban lots are too small to spare the neighbors the unpleasantness. If you want to live like a hillbilly without irritating the neighbors then buy a hobby farm on the edge of town. That's what those lots are *for*.

[Aerows]

32. Rather narrow and negative perception

Plenty of people are more than capable of raising chickens for their eggs without fouling up the neighborhood and becoming a nuisance.

If a person is raising chickens in the backyard, ideally you would never know it.

Think of the positive - you could have a neighbor with an apiary next door .

[LeftyMom]

41. Suburban lots are generally too small to contain that particular funk.

And there's a real problem with chicken dumping. A friend of mine lives on a country road at the end of town and people constantly dump chickens there. He saves as many as he can, but the local coyotes are very fat.

Hipster chickens are bullshit. At best it's a nuisance and more often than not it devolves to animal neglect or abandonment.

This nonsense was illegal for a reason.

[BlueJazz]

26. Apparently the neighbors are in an extremely fowl mood.

[Aerows]

30. And here we all are egging them on. n/t

[BlueJazz]

34. Quite true. Looks like we've only scratched the surface on this case.

[Aerows]

35. Mere chicken feed. n/t

[BlueJazz]

36. I'll investagate this coup. I'll let you know on fryday.

[Aerows]

37. I'll just wing it :). n/t

[iemitsu]

28. The headline suggests the neighbors began

to cluck like chickens themselves.
I did not know that clucking was contagious.

[Retrograde]

29. My affluent Silicon Valley city allows hens but not roosters

There are a few people in the immediate neighborhood who have chickens - occasionally I hear them clucking when I walk by. I personally think they're too much work in an urban setting, but as long as they're kept clean they're not a problem. Now, a friend in the next town down has a next-door neighbor who lets his hens wander all over the block - and yes, the local dogs sometimes catch them. That I would complain about.

[ladyVet]

39. No rats around my coop. I think the rooster would eat them. The black snakes do, anyway.

George can be noisy, and so can the hens when they sing the egg song, but my neighbors can't complain. They have a dog pen about twenty feet from the coop, and the dogs are a lot louder than the rooster or the hens (we have five).

We didn't want a rooster, but we ended up with one and I want to try to brood some of my own eggs to add a few hens to the group. He may end up in the stew pot, but I doubt it. I love him, and he thinks I'm his mama.

[Lancero]

40. Back when I was younger, me and my dad farmed and raised various fowl...

And we lived right by a highway.

Though on the flipside, no one really gave a shit about it since there was also a lumber yard. So noise and the like never really was a problem.

We had a dozen chickens in a caged off coop, a couple smaller cages on the other side of the property with quail. For a while we also had a couple of geese out free on the property.

We did a yearly garden as well, right by the highway. No issues with that either, except for one year when a driver fell asleep and ended up driving through the neighbors fence, straight through the garden, taking out the tiller, before running into a small brick shed.
(And thank god he hit that shed instead of continuing on - He'd have crashed into the kitchen if that happened.)

[cwydro]

44. Chickens are wonderful.

Much smarter than folks think.

My ladies:

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[taught_me_patience]

45. This shit doesn't belong in urban settings

If this hipster toolbag wants chickens, then he should go live out in the country.

[Omaha Steve]

48. 5 years ago it was out in the country

The flip side is the city allows it!

[Adrahil]

46. The Rooster would meet with an unfortunate accident! nt

[garywilsonjr]

47. Help Stacey hire a lawyer!

A few Omaha citizens are helping Stacey fight her neighbors fair and square. We have set up a go fund me account for her to help with the legal costs of hiring a lawyer to help her defend the right to healthy and cheap food. Please help us help her. Thanks.

http://www.gofundme.com/3k4vxt9sgs

[Liberal_in_LA]

49. clucking doesn't bother me. rooster crowing does

[cwydro]

54. My rooster (pictured upthread) never shuts up.

He was not supposed to be a rooster lol, but he turned into one.

We're out in the country, so no one cares. I can actually hear another rooster just over the state line answer him back in the mornings.

[mopinko]

55. the neighbor is an ass. the problem is not the hens or the garden, it is

the neighbor's completely entitled judgements.
property values my shiny metal ass.

i have a couple of folks who hate my farm, especially my roos. i also have about 5 times as many neighbors who love the whole thing, and especially the roosters. my boys dont crow all day, just for a while in the morning, and an occasional outburst during the day when something upsets them. they are better that my dogs at raising the alarm when a stranger comes along. it isnt the decibel level that is the problem, it is their obsession that is the problem. they have yet to wake me up and they are in my back yard.
there is a train at the end of the block that goes by 40 times a day. there is a fire station around the corner. car alarms. people walking by screaming into their cellphones. it's a city. it's noisy. bfd.

my boys take care of the girls. i have seen them stand between the hens, who are hiding like he told them to, and hawks. i would not let them free range in my yard without any protection.
it also allows me to keep a closed flock, raise my own babies, without worrying about salmonella or avian flu coming in.

i have zero rats. some of the haters take the interwebs word for it that chickens=rats. done right, they are the anti-rats.
we are practically zero food waste, as any scraps go to the girls, not the garbage cans. anything in the yard that a rat might like is eaten by the girls before they have a chance.
my feed is stored in steel cans, and the feeders are all inaccessible to critters. everything is eaten before nightfall. there is no reason for a rat to enter my property.

for someone to give 2 shits about what someone has IN.THEIR.OWN.BACKYARD is beyond my comprehension. living next door, i presume they know about the son, and the healing that he finds in these critters. i feel that way about mine.
what kind of an asshole do you have to be to want to take that away from someone?

i hope she not only kicks their ass, but countersues.

eta- just about everyone who is taking the very smart step to grow their own food and make a wild place in the city gets the same shit from someone. it comes w the territory.
it is bullshit.

[cwydro]

56. There have never been rats around my chickens either.

Of course, the farm is home to quite a few rat snakes.

And the cats.

[mopinko]

57. yeah, i have a couple cats, too.

not a cat person but adopted some ferrels through a county rodent control program.
also have 2 rat terriers, so....

[LeftyMom]

58. The city inspectors keep citing you for rats.

You can't blame that on haters on the internet.

[AngryAmish]

59. I had a girlfriend that lived in Humboldt Park 20 or so years ago.

She was a Michigan girl with hippie parents, MWMF, the whole nine yards. Some mornings we would be lying there trying to catch our breath and we would hear all the roosters crowing across the balconies. She thought it was very cool that her Puerto Rican neighbors kept chicken on their roof for eggs. Until I pointed out we never heard clucking, only crowing.

She did not support cockfighting.

[Omaha Steve]

60. Neighbor suing over chickens and garden says she’s trying to maintain the integrity of the neighborh

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027044429

[mopinko]

66. update-

i gave to this kickstarter, and got the news that the hoa polled it's members and it was unanimous in favor of the chickens.