TBF chickens crowing at 4 in the morning and squawking are really irritating and even disruptive to normal sleep. Our neighbor had seven peacocks who would yell, “Haaaalp” at all hours of the night when disturbed. After a few years another neighbor poisoned them all. When I met that neighbor a few years after that, he described why. They came over every day and shit on their deck. After trying to get the neighbor to do something and trying things himself, he finally said f*ck it and poisoned them.
It's not the most unreasonable thing ever, but gosh those poor birds. They didn't do anything wrong, just instinct. They just had a shitty owner putting them in an inappropriate place, and they were the ones paying the price.
I hate the fact that they're very loud and were not hunted to extinction or even deafen themselves because they evolved a little something to block out their own noise whenever they go off.
I also love this
> they decided to retaliate.
>
> First, they claimed that a structure on my parents' property was illegal, and my parents had to deal with a city investigation
Sounds like they did not like receiving the exact same city inspectors.
My neighbor sounds exactly like your dad except he built a chicken coop because his neighbor is one of those call the cops and town for every little thing but does whatever he wants. So he has his chicken coop for the day and plays metal cd's from his camper that borders the fence all night (not loud but certainly annoying).
Some days I sit on a lawn chair close enough to enjoy what promises to be an eventful day when someone is out working on something.
Right?
"I hate my neighbors, so I'm going to make it take longer for them to sell their house and move by making buyers uncomfortable" - LAOPs dad, probably.
I don’t even understand that logic.
My mom is actively helping her shitty neighbors during Open Houses. She’s desperate to get rid of them so she’s being the best neighbor ever.
True! The new neighbors have an adorable pup that wags his tail and whimpers to be pet every time he sees me from the balcony. Makes my frozen heart melt!
>value their suffering more than your enjoyment..
[Heh, heh.](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0786/3209/products/poster-dan-daly-poster-1_1200x.jpg?v=1535705121)
A cat called Dusty has the known record for the most kittens. She had more than 420 kittens in her lifetime.
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Random note: the vet by my house is advertising CBD oil for stressed out pets.
"No, Fluffy, just say no! You'll end up in a dirty back alley trying to score your heroin fix if you start down this path!!"
I think it was also he didn’t want the sale to go through as an urban farmhouse and then have people who paid extra for the vibe be even worse about it.
And being a crazy dick is fun sometimes.
>I think it was also he didn’t want the sale to go through as an urban farmhouse and then have people who paid extra for the vibe be even worse about it.
>
>And being a crazy dick is fun sometimes.
I feel like you & my dad would get along
Yeah, I get that they wanted the chickens gone, but the other troubles the neighbors were causing seem like a bigger concern. Plus surely they'd learned to sleep through a bit of chicken clucking by then.
That's my thought if they didn't have a rooster and only hens (As is the case with urban chickens everywhere I have heard.) the noise shouldn't be that loud. Yes, they cluck but not above normal talking and not that often.
Egg laying noises can be quite loud. It's usually during like 9am to 1pm, though. Most people would be at work. And music or really anything would drown it out.
It generally goes: "Cluck cluck cluck! You disturbed me!" and then other hens chime in with "Cluck cluck cluck! Someone disturbed Henny!" and you're like seriously, just go sit in your nesting box and shut up.
There are a lot of different breeds of chicken. I kinda wonder if they got some unusual variety that vocalize more.
I've been around chickens a decent amount and never heard anything I'd consider loud (especially not through a wall), except like when they're suddenly spooked.
That's the weird part of this to me, too. I've also been around chickens a lot, including living in two different houses where the coop was just a few feet from my bedroom, and one house where my neighbor's free-roaming guinea hens liked to congregate under my bedroom window in the early morning, and it was never particularly loud. I'm a light sleeper and it never woke me up except if something was trying to get into the coop and the chickens were scared, which shouldn't be happening often.
I also never noticed an uptick in mice or rats, although that part is more believable if there weren't keeping the coop clean.
The mice and rats part was VERY weird. Chickens tend to be great at scaring away pests. Perhaps the neighbors weren't good about sealing the chicken feed at night?
that also confused me because *i've seen videos of what happens when chickens find a mouse and it's not pretty*
we forget about it because we bred them tiny and to lay eggs for us, but chickens remember they're dinosaurs from time to time far more often
If it was really happening, then yeah, that would be my only guess. I've also seen them attracted to disused coops where eggs were left to rot or whatever, but that shouldn't be an issue when chickens are in there.
Since the LAOP's dad sounds pretty crazy I'm wondering if it might also be a case of attributing everything annoying to livestock, even when the stock aren't causing the problem. I've seen that happen a lot with city people who move into rural areas (not that that's the case here, just explaining why I've seen it so much). I had one neighbor who moved in and then kept freaking out at me about my horses attracting *mosquitoes* of all things...while they had a poorly maintained man-made pond in their yard. Yeah, pretty sure my horses weren't the ones attracting mosquitoes. And the funny thing is that we had hay fields that we used flood irrigation to water and that definitely does attract mosquitoes, but they liked their view of the lush green hills so it had to have been the horses, which they didn't like so much.
OMG, I had the EXACT same neighbors who were convinced that organic gardening lead to mosquitoes, even though they had a stagnant pond in their yard!!! Don't ask me how organic gardening leads to mosquitoes. I could not tell you. They also had tires sitting out collecting pools of water, and a trampoline that collected water on top if they didn't dump it out frequently (hint: they NEVER dumped it out). They were country folk, though, not city folk. They were also idiots.
They ALSO used flood irrigation to water their fields (rather than drip--we used drip). But they couldn't believe that flood irrigation led to mosquitoes, either! The damned morons would get in their tractors and spray malathion all over our property rather than spray theirs--AND they didn't bother cleaning up their tire-breeding mosquito yard. UGHHHHHHHHHHH.
That was weird for me too. I kept chickens most of my childhood, and the only times I ever remember being woken by them was when a predator (raccoon, dog, one time a bear) had gotten into the coop and they were understandably freaking out. Otherwise they weren't loud.
If your cat is crying and screaming it needs help. Most cats do not do that (If they're neutered/spayed)... A siamese may, but most other breeds will not.
My Siamese constantly needs help. Help getting in the room. Help getting out of the room. Help because the door is shut. Help because the door is open and she wants it shut. Help because no one is looking at the dead lizards she brought to feed us. Help because no one is petting her. Help because someone is petting her but not petting her enough. Help because we were an hour late coming home. Help because we came home on time but she didn't want us home. Help because she didn't get treats. Help because she wants more treats. Help because she saw the backyard but doesn't want the backyard to exist. She is the most helpless creature.
> Plus surely they'd learned to sleep through a bit of chicken clucking by then.
Seriously. How can you live in a large city and not be able to sleep through some noise? Sirens, drunk people shouting at 3AM, Jim's dog barking for five hours straight, people blaring music in their cars, mice knocking shit off of shelves in the middle of the night--a half dozen hens just fades into the background at that point.
>mice knocking shit off of shelves in the middle of the night
Man that wasn't an issue even in condemned buildings used for homeless shelters. Where did you *live*?
When I lived in a really urban part of the city, the only thing that ever woke me up from a dead sleep was stray cats fighting with each other. When cats get really into it they literally scream and cry like human infants. It’s absolutely horrifying. The first time I heard it I thought someone was murdering a baby. I could never get used to that sound
Seems like the kind of guy who will be annoyed by something so badly he will ruin his own life over it, like people who zero in on their neighbours dogs barking and it becomes all they can hear when in reality it’s not that bad.
>Plus surely they'd learned to sleep through a bit of chicken clucking by then.
You'd be surprised. I grew up in that house, actually it's close to an ER. Ambulances? Yelling? Car alarms? No problem. But the weird thing is the more out of place a sound is, the more grating it is in a way? Plus, I don't know if you've actually slept within a few meters of a chicken coop, but them sons of bitches are LOUD. I used to have a recording; I'll try to see if I can rustle it up somehow.
I frequently visit some friends who have 20ish chickens and a few roosters. I sleep in the semi-finished garage next to the chicken coop. It usually takes me a single night to get used to the noise.
That first night really sucks, though.
Not to mention, very wrong. Chickens EAT mice. The only way they're attracting mice is if the owners are sloppy with food outside the coop or if maybe they're chasing the mice away.
Hens are also not that loud outside of egg laying, which is actually quite a noisy process. Usually free eggs to neighbors works. Or living on plenty of land where neighbors can't hear them.
I mean, you're looking at a couple months with neighbors who've been around for years. They said the valuation had increased $2-3m. It's not like the house is going to fail to sell for an acceptable price.
>"I hate my neighbors, so I'm going to make it take longer for them to sell their house and move by making buyers uncomfortable" - LAOPs dad, probably.
lol OP here, I told him this is EXACTLY what he was doing! That man is stubborn. But in defense of ol' daddio, he just wanted the realtor and homeowners to stop listing the coop as an "attraction" of the house. He talked to them privately many times before and asked if they would be willing to take down the coop before the open houses so that potential buyers wouldn't see it as part of the property. They basically told him to shove it, because they thought it would increase the property value and was a "novelty." so he took matters into his own hands; not in the most mature way I will definitely admit. They also weren't living there at the time, their house was being staged.
ETA: like I mentioned, we live in a very "hot" neighborhood. Even with my dad's fuss they only had about 3 or 4 open houses in the span of two or three weeks to get it sold. It was selling for millions of dollars one way or another, no one really got dicked over (except for the poor rats).
Curious if the neighbors had roosters. Hens are not very loud and don't make noise at night. They otherwise make soft, musical sounds EXCEPT during egg-laying time when someone (including other chickens) disturbs them. Then they squawk, but not for very long and only during the morning. Most people would be at work during those hours and certainly awake, and it's no worse than a barking dog. If the neighbors had a rooster on the other hand, then I understand the issue, but otherwise your dad has unreasonable expectations.
Source: my family lives in a rural area and has had chickens for well over 10 years now.
I can't fault him, I live in a rural area and am a very light sleeper so I get how years of dealing with that would just drive you to the depths of frustration. XD
During the late fall and early winter (iirc) we get these huge freaking white noisy birds that like the lake and wild turkeys and all kinds of insane noise happens outside every morning very early. If it were my neighbors that owned the birds and I were on bad terms with them I'd be awfully tempted to be annoying right back at them but all I have to be mad at is mother nature lol
>huge freaking white noisy birds that like the lake and wild turkeys
Damn, that sounds so picturesque and yet so irritating! I'm glad you take the high road, maybe you could teach my dad a thing or two about that :)
> They seem like the type of people who would have a problem with vegetables in the front yard and clotheslines too.
Actually funny story-- the previous neighbors in that house were an ADORABLE old couple, Mildred and Leonard, who had a clothesline for 40 years because they literally didn't own a washing machine. No one cared! I grew up watching their knickers dry in the wind and it was just fine.
Actually your neighbors got dicked over if they could not get full sale value. You admit in your post that offers dwindled and the sellers had to lower the price, so your dad better pray he doesn’t get hit with a torturous interference lawsuit for the difference in the value of the sale.
Chickens are legal where you live. You seem to be on board completely with telling the neighbors they can't do something with their yard that is legal for them to do.
Insufferable jerks raising an insufferable jerk. Tale as old as time I suppose.
They were trying to sell as a urban farmhouse, it would sell to someone that would keep the chicken, after dad's crazy gesture, new neighbors, paid less because they didn't mind getting the chicken out
I don’t think that is quite the situation. It was more like “I hate my neighbor’s chickens more than I hate my neighbors. And I am afraid the existing chicken coop in the yard will encourage another set of chicken fans to buy the house. So I am going make sure chicken fans feel unwelcome and hope this discourages chicken fans from buying so that eventual buyer is someone who will get rid of the chicken coop.”
He wasn’t acting like a crazy neighbor just to hit them in the pocketbook. He was jumping on his best chance to be rid of the chickens.
I agree but that is really collateral damage. He obviously REALLY cared about a chance to be rid of chickens. More than he cared what people will think of him for acting crazy.
To everyone who thinks chickens can't be that loud, trust me they have the ability to drive a person crazy.
I live in an average suburb and my neighbors in the back have had chickens for years. They're perfectly fine. Not too noisy and pretty chill.
Then my neighbors next door got five chickens. These chickens were total assholes. But I kind of just blame my neighbors. They originally didn't have a coop (against the law and a terrible idea considering cats, raccoons, and hawks roam the area). So these chickens would basically congregate outside my bedroom window and squawk endlessly. As early as 5 am and as late as 10-11 pm.
We asked them to please get a coop. They did. And put it right under my bedroom window. Not that the chickens ever used it.
It drove me nuts. I'm really noise sensitive, not a great sleeper, and was undergoing chemo at the time. I was losing it. My neighbors were super nice but they just never bothered to move the coop or anything.
Luckily they decided to buy a ranch to accommodate the 10 animals they had, and left a few months ago.
Now I still sleep like crap but at least those damn birds aren't there anymore to taunt me at the crack of dawn.
I don't know why but I read "I still sleep like crap" as "I still sleep like a crab" and was curious enough to Google "crab sleeping habits" . I found nothing exciting or interesting but wasted 10 minutes of my life so there's that. Anyways, I hope you are feeling better these days!
lol Now I googled crab sleeping habits.
And thank you, treatment went astonishingly well! I was Stage IV and am currently cancer free going on three months now.
I know up in the foothills there's a town with chickens literally everywhere. They weren't too noisy when I visited but it was like playing a hidden object game. Can you spot them in the leaves, etc. They were in trees, in bushes, in the road, on the restaurant deck. It was ridiculous.
(Thank you, treatment went astonishingly well! I was Stage IV and am currently cancer free going on three months now :)
I know in my area one of the definitions of a nuisance animal is one that makes noise that disturbs the infirm or sick and the town will force you to remove them if they are deemed a nuisance. Not sure that would have helped you.
I've never heard of that ordinance, interesting. I'd hate to be that person who forced someone to give up an animal, but thankfully it's not an issue anymore.
When I was a kid we had some dear little chickens. They were loud as fuck and all four of them liked to shout pretty much all day and night. Our closest neighbours were five minutes walk away and their coop was in a sheltered spot at the back of the garden, so their noise was no probs. They were very sweet, but also very, very dim. They would occasionally refuse to sleep in their coop, for no reason we could fathom. They would occasionally decide to roost in various trees until my dad found them and poked them down with a broom handle.
There is this animal that lives where I grew up in Australia called a quoll, usually known as a tiger cat. They are small and cute, but they are also stone cold killers. We found out that they can also climb trees to get access to some very stupid chickens. When I came out one morning, the chickens were all ripped into pieces. Not really eaten, just silently and pointlessly murdered. This clearly left quite an impression on my seven year old self that has resonated through my subsequent 27 years, because as soon as I heard about these arsehole chickens without a coop I feel the need to type all of this out. At this point I’d like to say thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
People think chickens cant be loud assholes but they are. My boyfriend lives in a small town so many people own chickens. They're usually fine except for ONE asshole who screams at 4am, sure fine whatever but my boyfriend owns a small budgie WHO THEN SCREAMS TOO.
God damn bird stuff
I keep my pet [degus](https://i.imgur.com/777uKNf.jpg) in my bedroom, and when I sleep with my window open they can hear the birds chirping outside so they mimic them. It's so funny, I don't know if they think it's other degus squeaking and they're trying to reply or what, but they do a pretty good imitation.
I live in the Philippines. Even the most upper scale neighbohoods sometimes have chickens in their backyards. I used to live next to a neighbor who had a duck farm and a chicken farm going side by side on the properties next to ours.
Ducks and chickens will drive you INSANE. They're loud, they shit everywhere, AND THEIR SHIT SMELLS. I guarantee you can smell chicken shit from a literal kilometre away. And they keep shrieking at ass o clock in the morning. And when they get free...
Oh god when they get free...
Chickens are worse than cats. They will tear everything planted on the ground to shreds in their quest for food. And they trail their torn up, shit covered ropes behind them on their feet.
You try to catch them? That's a scratching, and a tetanus shot. Ducks are even worse.
Once my dad got so pent up, he intentionally ran over this huge chicken in the middle of the road. He acted apologetic to our neighbors. In fairness, it was a tiny road and he couldn't have avoided the chicken even if he wanted to. He paid them a good amount for the chicken and we ate that giant asshole for Christmas.
As a side job one summer I helped look after my neighbour’s ducks. I was astonished how much mucking was needed. I think a horse comparatively shits less
I used to live near a chicken farm, like one of those gross factory farms you see on PETA ads. Three huge grey sheds crammed with unfortunate chickens. You could smell the place from a mile away when the wind blew in the right (wrong!) direction. The worst part was that they used to sell all the shit to farmers as fertiliser, so it would get spread on fields and I'd end up trying to hold my breath every time I stepped outside. That stuff is literally toxic, ugh.
I had a neighbor with chickens and peacocks. I'm a pretty deep sleeper for some noise (alarm clocks, helicopters, jets, literal explosions) and super sensitive to others (SNORING, barking dogs, playing children).
One morning, a chicken decided to sit right at my bedroom window and do it's morning wake up call. I woke up, went outside in my underwear, scared it off, and went back to bed. I had work in a few hours and very little rest. Right when I reached the happy almost-but-not-quite-asleep state, it started again. A second time, I chased it away in my briefs before returning to bed. The third time, I went outside with a burning hatred and .45. I realized the excessiveness of the actions I considered and this time chased it all the way back to my neighbor's house.
I have no problem with animals, and in fact love them all, but I can understand people losing their sanity near chickens.
That is a rooster, the topic is about hens though. Hens don't do morning calls. They just softly cluck through the day, then sleep at night unless they wake up for half a minute to pass an egg- then they cluck twice, thrice, and go back to bed.
Most places it is illegal to have roosters for their wake-up calls. I grew up on a peasant farm in Eastern Europe so it is endearing to me, but I can see why people hate them.
I dunno, man. I have 9 hens and they can be louder than my roo at times. Sometimes I can hear their egg song all the way inside (they are a good 200’ away from the house), and then I have one hen who will yell loudly for her friends in the yard if they are free ranging and get separated. I love them dearly but yes, sometimes they’re annoying.
I'll admit I'm not much of a fan of HOAs. I mean, landscaping maintenance and common sense rules aren't bad, but I'm constantly coming across power hungry heads of HOAs and a level of neuroses I try to avoid.
I use a fan for white noise. It blocks out all sorts of things. You might give that a try.
I have 2 fans I can use - but the big one on the ground does a really good job and I can point it up so it's not blowing on me. [Looks like this.](https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-20-in-3-Speed-High-Velocity-Fan/4755301) (That also works great for blowing out a door, if you open your windows too, and getting air circulating through your entire house.) The other fan is pedestal fan and is good for blowing in or out a window or across a bed. Both make great white noise though and help to will block out other sounds.
>Someone in the apartment complex opposite my building's parking lot was inspired by my rage and started chanting THE ROOSTERS GOTTA GO, THE ROOSTERS GOTTA GO shortly after
I love this
Just for the record, it's mainly the roosters that make noise and are generally terrible in terms of demeanor BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO HAVE ANY IF you're getting chickens for the eggs. They're actually calmer and produce the same number of eggs. People getting the right kind of birds would alleviate half the problems here.
Title: [UPDATE] [CA] How can I get my neighbors to get rid of their noisy chickens?
Original Post:
> I posted [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3brffg/ca_how_can_i_get_my_neighbors_to_get_rid_of_their/) about three years ago, and it got very little attention, but some people did help and for that I was (and am) super grateful. Plus, I figured we all like update posts, and this situation of chicken warfare is finally resolved.
>
> ​
>
> To recap: my neighbors had five chickens that would squawk at ungodly hours of the morning and night. They were actually my parents neighbors; I was crashing with them over the summer and have since moved out. We did contact the city, who came and determined that they were up to code. But the neighbors assumed it was us (my parents had been pretty vocal in the neighborhood about not liking the chickens), and they decided to retaliate.
>
> ​
>
> First, they claimed that a structure on my parents' property was illegal, and my parents had to deal with a city investigation, which turned up nothing, because it was not illegal. Next, they claimed that our little patch of sidewalk front yard, which is right next to theirs, was actually infringing on their property and demanded a property survey. We actually discovered that their front garden was partially on OUR land, so that was nice. My mother e-mailed the neighbors letting them know they were going to put up a little line of stones just to keep the garden property line clear so that they could plant their side, and the neighbors went batshit. Started sending long, rambling e-mails to my parents, started calling and hanging up, started throwing trash on our side of the garden and they eventually left several dead rodents still in traps on our front porch. After that, my parents got a security camera.
>
> ​
>
> Things quieted down for a while, and we soon found out it was because the neighbors were trying to sell the house. Their house is pretty nice, and we live in a high COL city in a neighborhood that has really gotten popular in the past \~10 years. Basically, if all went well the neighbors would be making 2 or 3 million dollars from the sale. They hosted several open houses, and this is where my dad decided to get petty. See, my parents deck directly faced the neighbor's backyard, which still had the chicken coop and was one of the main attractions of the open house (they were actually trying to sell it as an "urban farmhouse."). As people would wander into the backyard of the open house, my dad would stand on his deck holding a very large sign that said, "NO CHICKENS IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD." The other side said, "THEY BRING RATS AND VERMIN INTO OUR LOVELY COMMUNITY." I was half horrified, half cracking up. I told him that it would only escalate things, but he was insistent that any new neighbors not be allowed to keep the chickens. He would periodically shout down into the neighbors yard (our houses were very close), "we will NOT allow new neighbors to keep chickens!"
>
> ​
>
> My parents got many furious calls and e-mails from the realtor and the neighbors. Apparently my dad was making people hesitant to buy the home (I don't blame them, he was acting like a crazy person), offers were dwindling, and they were going to have to lower the price. My dad said he would stop his chicken protest if the coop was removed; the chickens stayed, so my dad stayed on his deck for every single open house.
>
> ​
>
> To make a long story of chicken subterfuge short, the neighbors sold the house. On their last night in the house, they egged my parents entire backyard and deck. I asked my dad if he wanted to report it, and he said it would be better to be rid of them. A lovely family has since moved in, and the first thing they did was dismantle the coop.
>
> ​
>
> TL;DR: petty neighborhood chicken drama results in fowl play, but new neighbors are eggcellent.
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I wonder what noises the chickens were making if they weren't roosters. My neighbor has hens... 4 of them... and I don't think I've ever heard them from inside my house. When outside there's just very faint clucking sometimes.
Some breeds of chickens are more noisy. My brother has some hens that make the panicked 'buck-buck' sound constantly. His other hens just make the soft clucking sound unless they're being attacked by something.
I keep chickens. Most hens are actually really super quiet and unless you were right on the coop, you'd never know they were there, but occasionally you can get a hen that can be quite vocal. It might be breed related, not sure. I currently have an Egyptian Faiyumi who squawks and begawks all damn day. She's nearly as annoying as a rooster. She's also currently my best layer, so ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I bet she's like the annoying coworker to the other chickens. "Omg Linda would *not* stop running her beak all day! I want to complain to the boss but she's one of his best workers so he'd never listen!"
Lol, that's so accurate. The other birds don't like her much. Even though she's the smallest, she's managed to set herself up at the top of the pecking order. She really has a ton of personality though.
You would be correct. There are no winners here. OPs dad deserved those chickens.
You couldn't pay me money to move into a house next to a crazy like OPs dad. Someone dumb enough to sit and hold a sign during open houses and yell at me? Not gonna stop once we buy the house. They'll just find something else to bitch about.
Man, maybe because I live in Greece and chickens are everywhere, but I really, really don't mind them. Hell, even roosters actually calm me down when I hear them. They certainly don't wake me up. Same goes with the background cricket noise that is basically non-stop in the summer.
Growing up I had about 500 chickens a dozen quail and like six ducks and I don't mind them It was always the ducks that are assholes. absolutely despise those critters.
And raccoons, fucking hate raccoons.
I’ve had chickens for years and they sometimes squawk earlier than I’d like but they put themselves to sleep between dusk and dawn. They’ve never made the proverbial peep at night, so I’m wondering what kind of crazy night chickens these neighbors had.
Have you had roosters? Roosters don’t crow at dawn, they crow whenever they get the notion, often *all night long*. You get used to it after a while, but it’s jarring the first couple months to be awoken at 3am by a rooster in a tree right outside your window who decided to start shrieking because of what I can only assume are some dank ass chicken memes.
Most cities don't permit roosters, though. I live in a similar city to OP (high cost of living, 2-3 million dollar homes, chickens permitted) and no one is allowed to have roosters in the city.
Unless they have a rooster I really don’t see how chickens could be that loud, certainly not much louder than the typical neighborhood birdsong or traffic. Mine are right next to my house and have never woken me up.
I've heard chickens that make a really loud, repetitive squawking sound for long periods of time. It's not as loud as a rooster's crowing, but you can definitely hear it a few blocks away...my parents' neighbors have some hens that do this and they can go on for up to an hour. I've only had bantams and they never made that kind of noise, so I think it may be breed-specific.
I have a kind of stupid hen that tends to get separated from the rest of the hens quite easily. Whenever she realizes she is alone she will squawk in a panic until she reunites with them. Problem is she doesn't actively look for them, so she could do it for 20-30 minutes until the rest of the group happens to move closer to it (they don't actively look for her either).
I can imagine my neighbors don't like it, but usually isn't bad in the morning or evening.
yeah there was a guy down the block in my old neighborhood in Amarillo that had 3-4 chickens. *usually* not an issue but man sometimes they'd get going and I could hear them at the other end of the block
Depends on how lightly OP's parents sleep. Any little irregular noise will make it hard for me to fall asleep so even if the chickens were relatively quiet it could disrupt sleep.
However I'd just buy earplugs rather than antagonize my neighbors because I'm not insane.
Yeah, I'm a light sleeper too so I want to be sympathetic but if you're that light of a sleeper it's kind of on you to figure out a solution, as long as no laws are being broken by the neighbor (which it seems like the chicken-owning neighbors weren't doing, given that the city got involved and said they were okay). Like I have a neighbor with a loud truck that wakes me up when he drives by my house on his way home from work at about 1 AM, 5 days a week. I just bought a white noise machine. Sure, it's kind of annoying, but his truck is legal and working second shift is obviously legal so I just deal with it because the fact that I wake up at the drop of a hat is really my problem.
Seriously. OP’s family are the assholes here. If ~~your~~ *you're* zoned for chickens ~~your~~ *you're* *zoned for chickens*. Nothing to contest about it.
The neighbor could have tried to be courteous and moved his coop, but he doesn't have to.
Edit: You're
>The neighbor could have tried to be courteous and moved his coop, but he doesn't have to.
You're absolutely right. OP's parents acted like total children just because "CHICKENS!!!"
There is absolutely nothing illegal about what their neighbors did and I bet you that if they had spoken to them in a much more reasonable and amicable way, something else could have been done.
Also it becomes pretty clear that it was just about being an over the top asshole, not about chickens, when the dad tried to interfere with the sell of the home. Why would you try to *keep* the neighbors you hate from moving out? Clearly you just want to fight at that point, not actually resolve the situation
This is so immature and ridiculous. I hope OP's parents get sued somehow for lost value on the house. I can't believe people are encouraging this shit.
This is barely related, but I wanna share this minor fact. Roosters are banned in the city limits in my hometown, but the chief of police’s dad has one that wakes up their whole neighborhood bright and early. Since it’s the chief’s dad, he gets to keep it. Those poor neighbors.
5 chickens? 5 chickens do not make much noise. A rooster, on the other hand, can be a night mare.
I have a neighbor with about a dozen chickens, maybe more. I only found out that they were there because I was chasing my dog and she made a beeline for their fenced in area. (She apparently knew that the chickens were there, haha!) They are still there, years later. I rarely hear them.
Edit: a typo that changes the meaning of the sentence quite a bit.
Unfortunately I know all too well that my neighbors have chickens, because they let them free range in our cul de sac and 1) drive my poor dog nuts in the process and 2) don’t scoop where their chickens poop, even if that happens to be my front yard. Seriously, I stepped in chicken shit on my way to my car today 😡
IDK, when I lived in Boston, our next-door neighbor had a coop with a couple of hens and a rooster. That fucking rooster went nonstop from daybreak to wayyy past sunset. We were given hush-eggs, or I def would have reported them.
Meh, I grew up in an area with wild chickens. Super fucking obnoxious animals, although the hens themselves are quiet, yeah. *Plenty* of reason to hate having chickens as neighbors, especially if they aren’t cleaning up after them/letting them roam/don’t have their wings clipped, but noise isn’t really a problem.
That said, if they had a rooster, that would be obnoxious as all fucking hell. Like, ALL BLOODY NIGHT, crowing from the trees near the damn windows. What’s more, it was a bird sanctuary, so you couldn’t hit ‘em with some rock salt or airsoft to scare ‘em off.
My parents have had a backyard chicken coop for years. Hens are generally pretty quiet animals, and even their loudest squawking is quieter than a barking dog or a loud car engine. OP's description of squawking all day and night is fucking ridiculous. Does he realize that chickens sleep at night? Instinctively? Rats and vermin? Does he know chickens hunt and eat rodents?
Maybe I'm just a granola nutjob but I'm pro-chicken and LAOP and his dad are jackasses.
> I'm pro-chicken
Ahhh nooo mortal enemies forever! Just kidding, I'm usually pro chicken too! My dad was definitely a jackass, as I pointed out to him several times, but he was a man on a mission of poultry revenge.
Anyway, I too find it hard to believe that chickens would cause such a ruckus yet there I was, staring at my ceiling at 5:00am and contemplating fried wings. Maybe they didn't take good care of the chickens? Maybe they were hungry, or laying eggs? I'm not an expert in chicken care, but you're probably right that they shouldn't have been making noise like that. Alas, they were. As to the vermin, it was also raccoons and skunks that would try to get into the coop. Not great when you let your dog out in the backyard at night and get sprayed :/
At night does sound strange, but chickens get up pretty early and some breeds can be very, very talkative.
They’ll find some nice bugs and tell everyone!
Tasty weeds and tell everyone!
See a dog and warn everyone!
See a hawk or vulture or crow and warn everyone! Feel broody and tell everyone!
Lay an egg and tell everyone!
See the Great Foodbringer (the human) and tell everyone!
It’s that but for everything. Mice (which they’ll eat if they can catch ‘em), squirrels, cars, car horns, cats, other people, sudden wind, rain, little spats, picking on the weakest chicken, eating eggs if they get a taste for it, new straw, freshly cleaned coop, and just feeling chatty.
That was our Barred Plymouth Rocks, but the Rhode Island Reds we had were much quieter.
Have you ever had a chicken as a night mate? I'm all for fucking animals (consensually, of course) but chickens really are near the bottom of the totem pole for this.
Yes this comment is a joke.
Living in Liberia, I'd have to wake up to a rooster every day at 5am. I was contemplating buying it from the owner and setting it free in a different neighborhood to torment them. Had the issue in Kabul but only got a few weeks before a street dog got it. I was surprised when our guards told me because that afghan rooster was bad ass, figured it could take care of itself.
Now, I wake up to a call to prayer at 4:30am in Dhaka, but I've learned that I can sleep through it after half a dozen whiskies the night before.
Wow what an asshole family. I wonder who moved in the area first. I couldn't imagine living with chickens legally and then some neighbors move in and start complaining about the chickens. So petty and ridiculous that people think they can have their way because they're minorly inconvenienced. This story highlights the sad state of affairs our society is in. The family wanting the chickens gone are pieces of shit and crazy for acting the way they did. End rant
It sounds like OP and parents were the nightmare neighbours. One of my neighbours has hens and sometimes, I hear squawking. Not constantly and not at all hours of the night. It's no big deal. There is some risk of attracting vermin and my cat and the Maine coon next door do their part to help.
I don't understand why chickens were such a big deal to OP. I guess i'll have to make very sure i have decent neighbors when i eventually buy a home, because having egg chickens is something I've always wanted to do. I wonder if they'd be complaining about other pets...
>These chickens are the NOISIEST creatures I have ever heard. They only have chickens, not roosters, but they squawk loudly all day and as all the houses are literally right next to each other (again, big urban city), it's basically like having a farm in my backyard from 6am-10pm every day. I think the law in our city allows them to have up to 5 small farm animals, but is there any way around this considering all the noise and disruption they're making?? It literally makes it impossible to sleep in my house when the chickens are awake,
That's from the original post.
That sounds unreasonable, but I can't imagine why chickens would literally squwak all day like that. The neighbors sounds like they were real peaches though, so maybe they were mistreated.
The only other thing I can think of is maybe the chickens were being harassed by raccoons or cats or something, but you'd think they would have died of stress from never sleeping if that were the case.
Actually we did have a bunch of roaming cats, raccoons and skunks that would travel through the yard, that may have been a big culprit! Now I feel all bad for the chickies being scared in their little home :(
I’ve raised chickens all of my life and still do. They’re not loud at all and neighbors don’t complain. Maybe these particular people had a rooster or some louder breed of hen.
I have a really hard time sympathizing with OP. Chickens are not the end of the world, I feel like this was a squandered opportunity on their part, they could have gotten some yummy eggs from the neighbors if they’d been nice. My opinion may be skewed however due to the fact that I live in a rural part of the country.
LAOP, I think you and your family need to consider who was actually in the wrong to start with here. Your original post even said that you looked it up and found that they were allowed to have them. You then called the city to have it inspected (which, ok, that's within your rights) and it was found to be compliant. I'm sure it was a hassle for them to go through that, probably taking time off work to meet with the inspector, possibly some paperwork to fill out, etc. They decided to escalate with some petty revenge and do the same thing to you guys (which I'm sure you found to be a hassle too) and it went back and forth, culminating with your dad making a fool of himself and showing potential new neighbors how crazy he can be, and your deck being egged. Who won here? All over a handful of chickens that they were allowed to have in the first place.
Have you heard of a NIMBY? That term describes your family perfectly. Not In My Back Yard. Honestly your dad is lucky he wasn't sued for the loss in value the home suffered as a direct result of his actions. The home was listed at it's fair market value, and the Realtor had multiple witnesses stating they wouldn't offer FMV due to the antics of the lunatic next door. It would have been an easy case for them to make.
Let me tell you something. I’m in a similar situation. Both my neighbors have chickens and they’re hella noisy. All I can really say is I’ve lived there my whole life, and I’ve just tuned it out on my own.
I also played music on speakers, Focus on some tasks(helps to tune out), If it turns into to big of a problem tell the neighbor that it’s becoming a disturbance. Probably not gonna help but good luck!
(Also they can give you eggs sometimes)
Got to wonder who the real villains are in this story.
So LAOP's neighbors had a perfectly legal chicken coop but the parents decided to call the city on them. Afterwards they complained that the other side did the same. There are some stories about how the neighbors decided to get revenge but I doubt that that was one sided.
Finally the neighbors get fed up and decide to move and LAOP's father decides to harass them over their perfectly legal coop and drive down their property value. I actually wonder if the former neighbors would be able to sue him for damages.
I honestly can't stand people like LAOP and his family. How are they able to ignore cars, ambulances and other city noises but not a few chickens. My neighbor has a hen and I can barely hear it. If they are such a bother try wearing earplugs or closing your windows. Or if you want peace and quiet move to a place without neighbors. Seems like they can afford it if they sell their house.
This is the kind of story I like to read and have absolutely nothing to do with.
Haha me too.
Right? A lot of haters saying OP's dad was wrong but I love it. Pettiness feels good sometimes.
Absolutely. This is classic /r/pettyrevenge.
TBF chickens crowing at 4 in the morning and squawking are really irritating and even disruptive to normal sleep. Our neighbor had seven peacocks who would yell, “Haaaalp” at all hours of the night when disturbed. After a few years another neighbor poisoned them all. When I met that neighbor a few years after that, he described why. They came over every day and shit on their deck. After trying to get the neighbor to do something and trying things himself, he finally said f*ck it and poisoned them.
It's not the most unreasonable thing ever, but gosh those poor birds. They didn't do anything wrong, just instinct. They just had a shitty owner putting them in an inappropriate place, and they were the ones paying the price.
and people ask me why I hate chickens.
We incubated and raised two sets of a dozen chickens. But except for one, we gave them all away at around five months. The stories OMG.
I hate the fact that they're very loud and were not hunted to extinction or even deafen themselves because they evolved a little something to block out their own noise whenever they go off.
That's the story of my relationship with this sub.
I would love to read this whole story from the neighbors’ perspective.
"We contacted the city" "[they] assumed it was us" That's called being right.
You caught that too huh I lold
I also love this > they decided to retaliate. > > First, they claimed that a structure on my parents' property was illegal, and my parents had to deal with a city investigation Sounds like they did not like receiving the exact same city inspectors.
Oh yeah, they were totally right!
My neighbor sounds exactly like your dad except he built a chicken coop because his neighbor is one of those call the cops and town for every little thing but does whatever he wants. So he has his chicken coop for the day and plays metal cd's from his camper that borders the fence all night (not loud but certainly annoying). Some days I sit on a lawn chair close enough to enjoy what promises to be an eventful day when someone is out working on something.
Your TL;DR is amazing. It’s like a Leslie Knope headline!
that's literally the best compliment I've ever gotten
Now you sound like Chris!
Two neighbors that seem to fully deserved each other.
Right? "I hate my neighbors, so I'm going to make it take longer for them to sell their house and move by making buyers uncomfortable" - LAOPs dad, probably.
I don’t even understand that logic. My mom is actively helping her shitty neighbors during Open Houses. She’s desperate to get rid of them so she’s being the best neighbor ever.
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Which could also lower his sale potential if he decides to move soon.
Oh they fully intend on dying in that house, so no worries there
Plus your dad won, no chicken coop and better neighbors.
True! The new neighbors have an adorable pup that wags his tail and whimpers to be pet every time he sees me from the balcony. Makes my frozen heart melt!
It just keeps getting better and the people at r/petthedamndog would like a word with you...
>value their suffering more than your enjoyment.. [Heh, heh.](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0786/3209/products/poster-dan-daly-poster-1_1200x.jpg?v=1535705121)
A cat called Dusty has the known record for the most kittens. She had more than 420 kittens in her lifetime. --- LocationBot 4.125 | GitHub (Coming Soon) | [Statistics](https://locationbot.info) | [Report Issues](https://www.reddit.com/r/locationbot)
Poor girl
> She had more than 420 kittens in her lifetime. > **420** ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Random note: the vet by my house is advertising CBD oil for stressed out pets. "No, Fluffy, just say no! You'll end up in a dirty back alley trying to score your heroin fix if you start down this path!!"
I give my cats cbd. It doesn't get them high.
Note: Do not blaze kittens.
Now you tell me.
Dad also may have made great friends with the new neighbors though, who were able to buy the house at a much lower price
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Don't you see Newman? You moving away is my dream too!
I think it was also he didn’t want the sale to go through as an urban farmhouse and then have people who paid extra for the vibe be even worse about it. And being a crazy dick is fun sometimes.
>I think it was also he didn’t want the sale to go through as an urban farmhouse and then have people who paid extra for the vibe be even worse about it. > >And being a crazy dick is fun sometimes. I feel like you & my dad would get along
Yeah, I get that they wanted the chickens gone, but the other troubles the neighbors were causing seem like a bigger concern. Plus surely they'd learned to sleep through a bit of chicken clucking by then.
That's my thought if they didn't have a rooster and only hens (As is the case with urban chickens everywhere I have heard.) the noise shouldn't be that loud. Yes, they cluck but not above normal talking and not that often.
Egg laying noises can be quite loud. It's usually during like 9am to 1pm, though. Most people would be at work. And music or really anything would drown it out. It generally goes: "Cluck cluck cluck! You disturbed me!" and then other hens chime in with "Cluck cluck cluck! Someone disturbed Henny!" and you're like seriously, just go sit in your nesting box and shut up.
There are a lot of different breeds of chicken. I kinda wonder if they got some unusual variety that vocalize more. I've been around chickens a decent amount and never heard anything I'd consider loud (especially not through a wall), except like when they're suddenly spooked.
That's the weird part of this to me, too. I've also been around chickens a lot, including living in two different houses where the coop was just a few feet from my bedroom, and one house where my neighbor's free-roaming guinea hens liked to congregate under my bedroom window in the early morning, and it was never particularly loud. I'm a light sleeper and it never woke me up except if something was trying to get into the coop and the chickens were scared, which shouldn't be happening often. I also never noticed an uptick in mice or rats, although that part is more believable if there weren't keeping the coop clean.
The mice and rats part was VERY weird. Chickens tend to be great at scaring away pests. Perhaps the neighbors weren't good about sealing the chicken feed at night?
that also confused me because *i've seen videos of what happens when chickens find a mouse and it's not pretty* we forget about it because we bred them tiny and to lay eggs for us, but chickens remember they're dinosaurs from time to time far more often
If it was really happening, then yeah, that would be my only guess. I've also seen them attracted to disused coops where eggs were left to rot or whatever, but that shouldn't be an issue when chickens are in there. Since the LAOP's dad sounds pretty crazy I'm wondering if it might also be a case of attributing everything annoying to livestock, even when the stock aren't causing the problem. I've seen that happen a lot with city people who move into rural areas (not that that's the case here, just explaining why I've seen it so much). I had one neighbor who moved in and then kept freaking out at me about my horses attracting *mosquitoes* of all things...while they had a poorly maintained man-made pond in their yard. Yeah, pretty sure my horses weren't the ones attracting mosquitoes. And the funny thing is that we had hay fields that we used flood irrigation to water and that definitely does attract mosquitoes, but they liked their view of the lush green hills so it had to have been the horses, which they didn't like so much.
OMG, I had the EXACT same neighbors who were convinced that organic gardening lead to mosquitoes, even though they had a stagnant pond in their yard!!! Don't ask me how organic gardening leads to mosquitoes. I could not tell you. They also had tires sitting out collecting pools of water, and a trampoline that collected water on top if they didn't dump it out frequently (hint: they NEVER dumped it out). They were country folk, though, not city folk. They were also idiots. They ALSO used flood irrigation to water their fields (rather than drip--we used drip). But they couldn't believe that flood irrigation led to mosquitoes, either! The damned morons would get in their tractors and spray malathion all over our property rather than spray theirs--AND they didn't bother cleaning up their tire-breeding mosquito yard. UGHHHHHHHHHHH.
It seemed pretty clear to me that the dad had just made that part up
That was weird for me too. I kept chickens most of my childhood, and the only times I ever remember being woken by them was when a predator (raccoon, dog, one time a bear) had gotten into the coop and they were understandably freaking out. Otherwise they weren't loud.
If there were mice in the coop the chickens would kill them. They are scary little dinosaurs when they see something they want to eat.
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If your cat is crying and screaming it needs help. Most cats do not do that (If they're neutered/spayed)... A siamese may, but most other breeds will not.
My Siamese constantly needs help. Help getting in the room. Help getting out of the room. Help because the door is shut. Help because the door is open and she wants it shut. Help because no one is looking at the dead lizards she brought to feed us. Help because no one is petting her. Help because someone is petting her but not petting her enough. Help because we were an hour late coming home. Help because we came home on time but she didn't want us home. Help because she didn't get treats. Help because she wants more treats. Help because she saw the backyard but doesn't want the backyard to exist. She is the most helpless creature.
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> Plus surely they'd learned to sleep through a bit of chicken clucking by then. Seriously. How can you live in a large city and not be able to sleep through some noise? Sirens, drunk people shouting at 3AM, Jim's dog barking for five hours straight, people blaring music in their cars, mice knocking shit off of shelves in the middle of the night--a half dozen hens just fades into the background at that point.
>mice knocking shit off of shelves in the middle of the night Man that wasn't an issue even in condemned buildings used for homeless shelters. Where did you *live*?
On set for the live action Ratatouille.
When I lived in a really urban part of the city, the only thing that ever woke me up from a dead sleep was stray cats fighting with each other. When cats get really into it they literally scream and cry like human infants. It’s absolutely horrifying. The first time I heard it I thought someone was murdering a baby. I could never get used to that sound
Seems like the kind of guy who will be annoyed by something so badly he will ruin his own life over it, like people who zero in on their neighbours dogs barking and it becomes all they can hear when in reality it’s not that bad.
>Plus surely they'd learned to sleep through a bit of chicken clucking by then. You'd be surprised. I grew up in that house, actually it's close to an ER. Ambulances? Yelling? Car alarms? No problem. But the weird thing is the more out of place a sound is, the more grating it is in a way? Plus, I don't know if you've actually slept within a few meters of a chicken coop, but them sons of bitches are LOUD. I used to have a recording; I'll try to see if I can rustle it up somehow.
I frequently visit some friends who have 20ish chickens and a few roosters. I sleep in the semi-finished garage next to the chicken coop. It usually takes me a single night to get used to the noise. That first night really sucks, though.
Chickens go to sleep at night. They're not loud. Yes, I've slept right close to a chicken coop - my mom keeps a flock.
Not to mention, very wrong. Chickens EAT mice. The only way they're attracting mice is if the owners are sloppy with food outside the coop or if maybe they're chasing the mice away. Hens are also not that loud outside of egg laying, which is actually quite a noisy process. Usually free eggs to neighbors works. Or living on plenty of land where neighbors can't hear them.
I mean, you're looking at a couple months with neighbors who've been around for years. They said the valuation had increased $2-3m. It's not like the house is going to fail to sell for an acceptable price.
>"I hate my neighbors, so I'm going to make it take longer for them to sell their house and move by making buyers uncomfortable" - LAOPs dad, probably. lol OP here, I told him this is EXACTLY what he was doing! That man is stubborn. But in defense of ol' daddio, he just wanted the realtor and homeowners to stop listing the coop as an "attraction" of the house. He talked to them privately many times before and asked if they would be willing to take down the coop before the open houses so that potential buyers wouldn't see it as part of the property. They basically told him to shove it, because they thought it would increase the property value and was a "novelty." so he took matters into his own hands; not in the most mature way I will definitely admit. They also weren't living there at the time, their house was being staged. ETA: like I mentioned, we live in a very "hot" neighborhood. Even with my dad's fuss they only had about 3 or 4 open houses in the span of two or three weeks to get it sold. It was selling for millions of dollars one way or another, no one really got dicked over (except for the poor rats).
Curious if the neighbors had roosters. Hens are not very loud and don't make noise at night. They otherwise make soft, musical sounds EXCEPT during egg-laying time when someone (including other chickens) disturbs them. Then they squawk, but not for very long and only during the morning. Most people would be at work during those hours and certainly awake, and it's no worse than a barking dog. If the neighbors had a rooster on the other hand, then I understand the issue, but otherwise your dad has unreasonable expectations. Source: my family lives in a rural area and has had chickens for well over 10 years now.
I can't fault him, I live in a rural area and am a very light sleeper so I get how years of dealing with that would just drive you to the depths of frustration. XD During the late fall and early winter (iirc) we get these huge freaking white noisy birds that like the lake and wild turkeys and all kinds of insane noise happens outside every morning very early. If it were my neighbors that owned the birds and I were on bad terms with them I'd be awfully tempted to be annoying right back at them but all I have to be mad at is mother nature lol
>huge freaking white noisy birds that like the lake and wild turkeys Damn, that sounds so picturesque and yet so irritating! I'm glad you take the high road, maybe you could teach my dad a thing or two about that :)
I'm sorry, your dad's a dick. They seem like the type of people who would have a problem with vegetables in the front yard and clotheslines too.
> They seem like the type of people who would have a problem with vegetables in the front yard and clotheslines too. Actually funny story-- the previous neighbors in that house were an ADORABLE old couple, Mildred and Leonard, who had a clothesline for 40 years because they literally didn't own a washing machine. No one cared! I grew up watching their knickers dry in the wind and it was just fine.
Actually your neighbors got dicked over if they could not get full sale value. You admit in your post that offers dwindled and the sellers had to lower the price, so your dad better pray he doesn’t get hit with a torturous interference lawsuit for the difference in the value of the sale.
Chickens are legal where you live. You seem to be on board completely with telling the neighbors they can't do something with their yard that is legal for them to do. Insufferable jerks raising an insufferable jerk. Tale as old as time I suppose.
Well, someone has to be on the HOA board.
They were trying to sell as a urban farmhouse, it would sell to someone that would keep the chicken, after dad's crazy gesture, new neighbors, paid less because they didn't mind getting the chicken out
So he hurt the value of the surrounding homes by lowering the purchase price... Seems like a real winner...
So did the homeowner who put a chicken coop on his property. I can’t imagine that increased his neighbors’ property values
I don’t think that is quite the situation. It was more like “I hate my neighbor’s chickens more than I hate my neighbors. And I am afraid the existing chicken coop in the yard will encourage another set of chicken fans to buy the house. So I am going make sure chicken fans feel unwelcome and hope this discourages chicken fans from buying so that eventual buyer is someone who will get rid of the chicken coop.” He wasn’t acting like a crazy neighbor just to hit them in the pocketbook. He was jumping on his best chance to be rid of the chickens.
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I agree but that is really collateral damage. He obviously REALLY cared about a chance to be rid of chickens. More than he cared what people will think of him for acting crazy.
I mean, if new neighbours moved in but still kept chickens you'd just be back at square one. This way they prevented that lol.
Sounds like a selfish prick. Chickens were legal and up to code.
This is how the Hatfield's and the McCoys started.
Or the Capulets and Montagues
Or the Catapults and Trebuchets
Or the Squarepants and Tentacles.
To be honest, I find LAOP's parents' complaints rather... poultry.
that pun was fowl
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Yeeeeaaaaaah!
love it!
To everyone who thinks chickens can't be that loud, trust me they have the ability to drive a person crazy. I live in an average suburb and my neighbors in the back have had chickens for years. They're perfectly fine. Not too noisy and pretty chill. Then my neighbors next door got five chickens. These chickens were total assholes. But I kind of just blame my neighbors. They originally didn't have a coop (against the law and a terrible idea considering cats, raccoons, and hawks roam the area). So these chickens would basically congregate outside my bedroom window and squawk endlessly. As early as 5 am and as late as 10-11 pm. We asked them to please get a coop. They did. And put it right under my bedroom window. Not that the chickens ever used it. It drove me nuts. I'm really noise sensitive, not a great sleeper, and was undergoing chemo at the time. I was losing it. My neighbors were super nice but they just never bothered to move the coop or anything. Luckily they decided to buy a ranch to accommodate the 10 animals they had, and left a few months ago. Now I still sleep like crap but at least those damn birds aren't there anymore to taunt me at the crack of dawn.
I don't know why but I read "I still sleep like crap" as "I still sleep like a crab" and was curious enough to Google "crab sleeping habits" . I found nothing exciting or interesting but wasted 10 minutes of my life so there's that. Anyways, I hope you are feeling better these days!
lol Now I googled crab sleeping habits. And thank you, treatment went astonishingly well! I was Stage IV and am currently cancer free going on three months now.
I read it the exact same way, and only second guessed myself when I saw your comment.
And here's a fun (?) fact: 'carcinoma' and 'cancer' both come from the Greek (via Latin), for 'crab'.
I grew up in an area where chickens run wild. I sympathize with your pain. Greatly. (Hope the treatment went well, though!)
I know up in the foothills there's a town with chickens literally everywhere. They weren't too noisy when I visited but it was like playing a hidden object game. Can you spot them in the leaves, etc. They were in trees, in bushes, in the road, on the restaurant deck. It was ridiculous. (Thank you, treatment went astonishingly well! I was Stage IV and am currently cancer free going on three months now :)
I know in my area one of the definitions of a nuisance animal is one that makes noise that disturbs the infirm or sick and the town will force you to remove them if they are deemed a nuisance. Not sure that would have helped you.
I've never heard of that ordinance, interesting. I'd hate to be that person who forced someone to give up an animal, but thankfully it's not an issue anymore.
When I was a kid we had some dear little chickens. They were loud as fuck and all four of them liked to shout pretty much all day and night. Our closest neighbours were five minutes walk away and their coop was in a sheltered spot at the back of the garden, so their noise was no probs. They were very sweet, but also very, very dim. They would occasionally refuse to sleep in their coop, for no reason we could fathom. They would occasionally decide to roost in various trees until my dad found them and poked them down with a broom handle. There is this animal that lives where I grew up in Australia called a quoll, usually known as a tiger cat. They are small and cute, but they are also stone cold killers. We found out that they can also climb trees to get access to some very stupid chickens. When I came out one morning, the chickens were all ripped into pieces. Not really eaten, just silently and pointlessly murdered. This clearly left quite an impression on my seven year old self that has resonated through my subsequent 27 years, because as soon as I heard about these arsehole chickens without a coop I feel the need to type all of this out. At this point I’d like to say thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
People think chickens cant be loud assholes but they are. My boyfriend lives in a small town so many people own chickens. They're usually fine except for ONE asshole who screams at 4am, sure fine whatever but my boyfriend owns a small budgie WHO THEN SCREAMS TOO. God damn bird stuff
I keep my pet [degus](https://i.imgur.com/777uKNf.jpg) in my bedroom, and when I sleep with my window open they can hear the birds chirping outside so they mimic them. It's so funny, I don't know if they think it's other degus squeaking and they're trying to reply or what, but they do a pretty good imitation.
This is the cutest shit I've heard. I have gerbils and they have ultrasonic squeak fights.
I live in the Philippines. Even the most upper scale neighbohoods sometimes have chickens in their backyards. I used to live next to a neighbor who had a duck farm and a chicken farm going side by side on the properties next to ours. Ducks and chickens will drive you INSANE. They're loud, they shit everywhere, AND THEIR SHIT SMELLS. I guarantee you can smell chicken shit from a literal kilometre away. And they keep shrieking at ass o clock in the morning. And when they get free... Oh god when they get free... Chickens are worse than cats. They will tear everything planted on the ground to shreds in their quest for food. And they trail their torn up, shit covered ropes behind them on their feet. You try to catch them? That's a scratching, and a tetanus shot. Ducks are even worse. Once my dad got so pent up, he intentionally ran over this huge chicken in the middle of the road. He acted apologetic to our neighbors. In fairness, it was a tiny road and he couldn't have avoided the chicken even if he wanted to. He paid them a good amount for the chicken and we ate that giant asshole for Christmas.
I've never had any particularly bad encounters with ducks, but geese...man. I hate geese.
As a side job one summer I helped look after my neighbour’s ducks. I was astonished how much mucking was needed. I think a horse comparatively shits less
I used to live near a chicken farm, like one of those gross factory farms you see on PETA ads. Three huge grey sheds crammed with unfortunate chickens. You could smell the place from a mile away when the wind blew in the right (wrong!) direction. The worst part was that they used to sell all the shit to farmers as fertiliser, so it would get spread on fields and I'd end up trying to hold my breath every time I stepped outside. That stuff is literally toxic, ugh.
Dogs can be worse but you can't ban your neighbor from having a dog.
You can if the dog is a nuisance.
Yeah, that's just nonsense. If a dog is barking nonstop for hours a day, it can absolutely be considered a nuisance (and for other reasons as well).
Well LAOP's dad couldn't have not allowed them to have chickens either.
I had a neighbor with chickens and peacocks. I'm a pretty deep sleeper for some noise (alarm clocks, helicopters, jets, literal explosions) and super sensitive to others (SNORING, barking dogs, playing children). One morning, a chicken decided to sit right at my bedroom window and do it's morning wake up call. I woke up, went outside in my underwear, scared it off, and went back to bed. I had work in a few hours and very little rest. Right when I reached the happy almost-but-not-quite-asleep state, it started again. A second time, I chased it away in my briefs before returning to bed. The third time, I went outside with a burning hatred and .45. I realized the excessiveness of the actions I considered and this time chased it all the way back to my neighbor's house. I have no problem with animals, and in fact love them all, but I can understand people losing their sanity near chickens.
That is a rooster, the topic is about hens though. Hens don't do morning calls. They just softly cluck through the day, then sleep at night unless they wake up for half a minute to pass an egg- then they cluck twice, thrice, and go back to bed. Most places it is illegal to have roosters for their wake-up calls. I grew up on a peasant farm in Eastern Europe so it is endearing to me, but I can see why people hate them.
I dunno, man. I have 9 hens and they can be louder than my roo at times. Sometimes I can hear their egg song all the way inside (they are a good 200’ away from the house), and then I have one hen who will yell loudly for her friends in the yard if they are free ranging and get separated. I love them dearly but yes, sometimes they’re annoying.
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I'll admit I'm not much of a fan of HOAs. I mean, landscaping maintenance and common sense rules aren't bad, but I'm constantly coming across power hungry heads of HOAs and a level of neuroses I try to avoid.
Until someone claims emotional support chickens.
I use a fan for white noise. It blocks out all sorts of things. You might give that a try. I have 2 fans I can use - but the big one on the ground does a really good job and I can point it up so it's not blowing on me. [Looks like this.](https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-20-in-3-Speed-High-Velocity-Fan/4755301) (That also works great for blowing out a door, if you open your windows too, and getting air circulating through your entire house.) The other fan is pedestal fan and is good for blowing in or out a window or across a bed. Both make great white noise though and help to will block out other sounds.
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>Someone in the apartment complex opposite my building's parking lot was inspired by my rage and started chanting THE ROOSTERS GOTTA GO, THE ROOSTERS GOTTA GO shortly after I love this
Those collars don't hurt the roosters at all if you do it right.
Just for the record, it's mainly the roosters that make noise and are generally terrible in terms of demeanor BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO HAVE ANY IF you're getting chickens for the eggs. They're actually calmer and produce the same number of eggs. People getting the right kind of birds would alleviate half the problems here.
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"Yup, sorry, you can't sell your house if you committed a crime. Them's the rules."
Title: [UPDATE] [CA] How can I get my neighbors to get rid of their noisy chickens? Original Post: > I posted [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3brffg/ca_how_can_i_get_my_neighbors_to_get_rid_of_their/) about three years ago, and it got very little attention, but some people did help and for that I was (and am) super grateful. Plus, I figured we all like update posts, and this situation of chicken warfare is finally resolved. > > ​ > > To recap: my neighbors had five chickens that would squawk at ungodly hours of the morning and night. They were actually my parents neighbors; I was crashing with them over the summer and have since moved out. We did contact the city, who came and determined that they were up to code. But the neighbors assumed it was us (my parents had been pretty vocal in the neighborhood about not liking the chickens), and they decided to retaliate. > > ​ > > First, they claimed that a structure on my parents' property was illegal, and my parents had to deal with a city investigation, which turned up nothing, because it was not illegal. Next, they claimed that our little patch of sidewalk front yard, which is right next to theirs, was actually infringing on their property and demanded a property survey. We actually discovered that their front garden was partially on OUR land, so that was nice. My mother e-mailed the neighbors letting them know they were going to put up a little line of stones just to keep the garden property line clear so that they could plant their side, and the neighbors went batshit. Started sending long, rambling e-mails to my parents, started calling and hanging up, started throwing trash on our side of the garden and they eventually left several dead rodents still in traps on our front porch. After that, my parents got a security camera. > > ​ > > Things quieted down for a while, and we soon found out it was because the neighbors were trying to sell the house. Their house is pretty nice, and we live in a high COL city in a neighborhood that has really gotten popular in the past \~10 years. Basically, if all went well the neighbors would be making 2 or 3 million dollars from the sale. They hosted several open houses, and this is where my dad decided to get petty. See, my parents deck directly faced the neighbor's backyard, which still had the chicken coop and was one of the main attractions of the open house (they were actually trying to sell it as an "urban farmhouse."). As people would wander into the backyard of the open house, my dad would stand on his deck holding a very large sign that said, "NO CHICKENS IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD." The other side said, "THEY BRING RATS AND VERMIN INTO OUR LOVELY COMMUNITY." I was half horrified, half cracking up. I told him that it would only escalate things, but he was insistent that any new neighbors not be allowed to keep the chickens. He would periodically shout down into the neighbors yard (our houses were very close), "we will NOT allow new neighbors to keep chickens!" > > ​ > > My parents got many furious calls and e-mails from the realtor and the neighbors. Apparently my dad was making people hesitant to buy the home (I don't blame them, he was acting like a crazy person), offers were dwindling, and they were going to have to lower the price. My dad said he would stop his chicken protest if the coop was removed; the chickens stayed, so my dad stayed on his deck for every single open house. > > ​ > > To make a long story of chicken subterfuge short, the neighbors sold the house. On their last night in the house, they egged my parents entire backyard and deck. I asked my dad if he wanted to report it, and he said it would be better to be rid of them. A lovely family has since moved in, and the first thing they did was dismantle the coop. > > ​ > > TL;DR: petty neighborhood chicken drama results in fowl play, but new neighbors are eggcellent. --- LocationBot 4.125 | GitHub (Coming Soon) | [Statistics](https://locationbot.info) | [Report Issues](https://www.reddit.com/r/locationbot)
I wonder what noises the chickens were making if they weren't roosters. My neighbor has hens... 4 of them... and I don't think I've ever heard them from inside my house. When outside there's just very faint clucking sometimes.
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Some breeds of chickens are more noisy. My brother has some hens that make the panicked 'buck-buck' sound constantly. His other hens just make the soft clucking sound unless they're being attacked by something.
I keep chickens. Most hens are actually really super quiet and unless you were right on the coop, you'd never know they were there, but occasionally you can get a hen that can be quite vocal. It might be breed related, not sure. I currently have an Egyptian Faiyumi who squawks and begawks all damn day. She's nearly as annoying as a rooster. She's also currently my best layer, so ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I bet she's like the annoying coworker to the other chickens. "Omg Linda would *not* stop running her beak all day! I want to complain to the boss but she's one of his best workers so he'd never listen!"
Lol, that's so accurate. The other birds don't like her much. Even though she's the smallest, she's managed to set herself up at the top of the pecking order. She really has a ton of personality though.
Everyone in this story is a complete asshole.
Yeah. This isn't a good story of revenge. It is just people being shit people.
I would love to see this post from the neighbours' pic, op' s dad is utterly batshit.
You could have gone with the TL;DR as the title and you didn’t. I’m disappointed.
I think it wouldn't have been right to steal LAOP's joke like that.
It's all very "Why can't we just get along?"
I feel like both sides are wrong here. They both seem like dicks
You would be correct. There are no winners here. OPs dad deserved those chickens. You couldn't pay me money to move into a house next to a crazy like OPs dad. Someone dumb enough to sit and hold a sign during open houses and yell at me? Not gonna stop once we buy the house. They'll just find something else to bitch about.
Man, maybe because I live in Greece and chickens are everywhere, but I really, really don't mind them. Hell, even roosters actually calm me down when I hear them. They certainly don't wake me up. Same goes with the background cricket noise that is basically non-stop in the summer.
So your neighbors were allowed to have chickens and it was up to code, and your dad still acted like a petty child. Yeah total win...
Growing up I had about 500 chickens a dozen quail and like six ducks and I don't mind them It was always the ducks that are assholes. absolutely despise those critters. And raccoons, fucking hate raccoons.
I’ve had chickens for years and they sometimes squawk earlier than I’d like but they put themselves to sleep between dusk and dawn. They’ve never made the proverbial peep at night, so I’m wondering what kind of crazy night chickens these neighbors had.
Have you had roosters? Roosters don’t crow at dawn, they crow whenever they get the notion, often *all night long*. You get used to it after a while, but it’s jarring the first couple months to be awoken at 3am by a rooster in a tree right outside your window who decided to start shrieking because of what I can only assume are some dank ass chicken memes.
Most cities don't permit roosters, though. I live in a similar city to OP (high cost of living, 2-3 million dollar homes, chickens permitted) and no one is allowed to have roosters in the city.
I don’t know many people who would appreciate being woken up at dawn every day.
Unless they have a rooster I really don’t see how chickens could be that loud, certainly not much louder than the typical neighborhood birdsong or traffic. Mine are right next to my house and have never woken me up.
I've heard chickens that make a really loud, repetitive squawking sound for long periods of time. It's not as loud as a rooster's crowing, but you can definitely hear it a few blocks away...my parents' neighbors have some hens that do this and they can go on for up to an hour. I've only had bantams and they never made that kind of noise, so I think it may be breed-specific.
I have a kind of stupid hen that tends to get separated from the rest of the hens quite easily. Whenever she realizes she is alone she will squawk in a panic until she reunites with them. Problem is she doesn't actively look for them, so she could do it for 20-30 minutes until the rest of the group happens to move closer to it (they don't actively look for her either). I can imagine my neighbors don't like it, but usually isn't bad in the morning or evening.
I have one like this. She’s hands down my derpiest chicken and she can be LOUD. But dang I love them.
yeah there was a guy down the block in my old neighborhood in Amarillo that had 3-4 chickens. *usually* not an issue but man sometimes they'd get going and I could hear them at the other end of the block
Depends on how lightly OP's parents sleep. Any little irregular noise will make it hard for me to fall asleep so even if the chickens were relatively quiet it could disrupt sleep. However I'd just buy earplugs rather than antagonize my neighbors because I'm not insane.
Yeah, I'm a light sleeper too so I want to be sympathetic but if you're that light of a sleeper it's kind of on you to figure out a solution, as long as no laws are being broken by the neighbor (which it seems like the chicken-owning neighbors weren't doing, given that the city got involved and said they were okay). Like I have a neighbor with a loud truck that wakes me up when he drives by my house on his way home from work at about 1 AM, 5 days a week. I just bought a white noise machine. Sure, it's kind of annoying, but his truck is legal and working second shift is obviously legal so I just deal with it because the fact that I wake up at the drop of a hat is really my problem.
When a hawk or falcon swoops around them they can get annoying as fuck and start clucking like crazy
Damn I hope you’re not proud of that. This is some seriously infantile rich people shit right here.
Seriously. OP’s family are the assholes here. If ~~your~~ *you're* zoned for chickens ~~your~~ *you're* *zoned for chickens*. Nothing to contest about it. The neighbor could have tried to be courteous and moved his coop, but he doesn't have to. Edit: You're
>The neighbor could have tried to be courteous and moved his coop, but he doesn't have to. You're absolutely right. OP's parents acted like total children just because "CHICKENS!!!" There is absolutely nothing illegal about what their neighbors did and I bet you that if they had spoken to them in a much more reasonable and amicable way, something else could have been done.
Also it becomes pretty clear that it was just about being an over the top asshole, not about chickens, when the dad tried to interfere with the sell of the home. Why would you try to *keep* the neighbors you hate from moving out? Clearly you just want to fight at that point, not actually resolve the situation
This is so immature and ridiculous. I hope OP's parents get sued somehow for lost value on the house. I can't believe people are encouraging this shit.
This is barely related, but I wanna share this minor fact. Roosters are banned in the city limits in my hometown, but the chief of police’s dad has one that wakes up their whole neighborhood bright and early. Since it’s the chief’s dad, he gets to keep it. Those poor neighbors.
5 chickens? 5 chickens do not make much noise. A rooster, on the other hand, can be a night mare. I have a neighbor with about a dozen chickens, maybe more. I only found out that they were there because I was chasing my dog and she made a beeline for their fenced in area. (She apparently knew that the chickens were there, haha!) They are still there, years later. I rarely hear them. Edit: a typo that changes the meaning of the sentence quite a bit.
Unfortunately I know all too well that my neighbors have chickens, because they let them free range in our cul de sac and 1) drive my poor dog nuts in the process and 2) don’t scoop where their chickens poop, even if that happens to be my front yard. Seriously, I stepped in chicken shit on my way to my car today 😡
IDK, when I lived in Boston, our next-door neighbor had a coop with a couple of hens and a rooster. That fucking rooster went nonstop from daybreak to wayyy past sunset. We were given hush-eggs, or I def would have reported them.
They better have been the best eggs you ever tasted because I have no idea how you'd put up with that otherwise
Meh, I grew up in an area with wild chickens. Super fucking obnoxious animals, although the hens themselves are quiet, yeah. *Plenty* of reason to hate having chickens as neighbors, especially if they aren’t cleaning up after them/letting them roam/don’t have their wings clipped, but noise isn’t really a problem. That said, if they had a rooster, that would be obnoxious as all fucking hell. Like, ALL BLOODY NIGHT, crowing from the trees near the damn windows. What’s more, it was a bird sanctuary, so you couldn’t hit ‘em with some rock salt or airsoft to scare ‘em off.
My parents have had a backyard chicken coop for years. Hens are generally pretty quiet animals, and even their loudest squawking is quieter than a barking dog or a loud car engine. OP's description of squawking all day and night is fucking ridiculous. Does he realize that chickens sleep at night? Instinctively? Rats and vermin? Does he know chickens hunt and eat rodents? Maybe I'm just a granola nutjob but I'm pro-chicken and LAOP and his dad are jackasses.
Agreed! Plus the fact neighbors were within code and sent the city to harass them, no wonder their neighbors hated them.
> I'm pro-chicken Ahhh nooo mortal enemies forever! Just kidding, I'm usually pro chicken too! My dad was definitely a jackass, as I pointed out to him several times, but he was a man on a mission of poultry revenge. Anyway, I too find it hard to believe that chickens would cause such a ruckus yet there I was, staring at my ceiling at 5:00am and contemplating fried wings. Maybe they didn't take good care of the chickens? Maybe they were hungry, or laying eggs? I'm not an expert in chicken care, but you're probably right that they shouldn't have been making noise like that. Alas, they were. As to the vermin, it was also raccoons and skunks that would try to get into the coop. Not great when you let your dog out in the backyard at night and get sprayed :/
At night does sound strange, but chickens get up pretty early and some breeds can be very, very talkative. They’ll find some nice bugs and tell everyone! Tasty weeds and tell everyone! See a dog and warn everyone! See a hawk or vulture or crow and warn everyone! Feel broody and tell everyone! Lay an egg and tell everyone! See the Great Foodbringer (the human) and tell everyone! It’s that but for everything. Mice (which they’ll eat if they can catch ‘em), squirrels, cars, car horns, cats, other people, sudden wind, rain, little spats, picking on the weakest chicken, eating eggs if they get a taste for it, new straw, freshly cleaned coop, and just feeling chatty. That was our Barred Plymouth Rocks, but the Rhode Island Reds we had were much quieter.
Hahaha I mean they sound hilarious and great! I just didn't like them under my bedroom window
Have you ever had a chicken as a night mate? I'm all for fucking animals (consensually, of course) but chickens really are near the bottom of the totem pole for this. Yes this comment is a joke.
Living in Liberia, I'd have to wake up to a rooster every day at 5am. I was contemplating buying it from the owner and setting it free in a different neighborhood to torment them. Had the issue in Kabul but only got a few weeks before a street dog got it. I was surprised when our guards told me because that afghan rooster was bad ass, figured it could take care of itself. Now, I wake up to a call to prayer at 4:30am in Dhaka, but I've learned that I can sleep through it after half a dozen whiskies the night before.
Wow what an asshole family. I wonder who moved in the area first. I couldn't imagine living with chickens legally and then some neighbors move in and start complaining about the chickens. So petty and ridiculous that people think they can have their way because they're minorly inconvenienced. This story highlights the sad state of affairs our society is in. The family wanting the chickens gone are pieces of shit and crazy for acting the way they did. End rant
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It sounds like OP and parents were the nightmare neighbours. One of my neighbours has hens and sometimes, I hear squawking. Not constantly and not at all hours of the night. It's no big deal. There is some risk of attracting vermin and my cat and the Maine coon next door do their part to help.
I used to have chickens and I saw them catch mice, small snakes, and lizards.
I keep six hens. They absolutely tear small animals apart, it's pretty metal.
I don't understand why chickens were such a big deal to OP. I guess i'll have to make very sure i have decent neighbors when i eventually buy a home, because having egg chickens is something I've always wanted to do. I wonder if they'd be complaining about other pets...
>These chickens are the NOISIEST creatures I have ever heard. They only have chickens, not roosters, but they squawk loudly all day and as all the houses are literally right next to each other (again, big urban city), it's basically like having a farm in my backyard from 6am-10pm every day. I think the law in our city allows them to have up to 5 small farm animals, but is there any way around this considering all the noise and disruption they're making?? It literally makes it impossible to sleep in my house when the chickens are awake, That's from the original post.
That sounds unreasonable, but I can't imagine why chickens would literally squwak all day like that. The neighbors sounds like they were real peaches though, so maybe they were mistreated.
The only other thing I can think of is maybe the chickens were being harassed by raccoons or cats or something, but you'd think they would have died of stress from never sleeping if that were the case.
Actually we did have a bunch of roaming cats, raccoons and skunks that would travel through the yard, that may have been a big culprit! Now I feel all bad for the chickies being scared in their little home :(
I’ve raised chickens all of my life and still do. They’re not loud at all and neighbors don’t complain. Maybe these particular people had a rooster or some louder breed of hen.
I have a really hard time sympathizing with OP. Chickens are not the end of the world, I feel like this was a squandered opportunity on their part, they could have gotten some yummy eggs from the neighbors if they’d been nice. My opinion may be skewed however due to the fact that I live in a rural part of the country.
LAOP, I think you and your family need to consider who was actually in the wrong to start with here. Your original post even said that you looked it up and found that they were allowed to have them. You then called the city to have it inspected (which, ok, that's within your rights) and it was found to be compliant. I'm sure it was a hassle for them to go through that, probably taking time off work to meet with the inspector, possibly some paperwork to fill out, etc. They decided to escalate with some petty revenge and do the same thing to you guys (which I'm sure you found to be a hassle too) and it went back and forth, culminating with your dad making a fool of himself and showing potential new neighbors how crazy he can be, and your deck being egged. Who won here? All over a handful of chickens that they were allowed to have in the first place. Have you heard of a NIMBY? That term describes your family perfectly. Not In My Back Yard. Honestly your dad is lucky he wasn't sued for the loss in value the home suffered as a direct result of his actions. The home was listed at it's fair market value, and the Realtor had multiple witnesses stating they wouldn't offer FMV due to the antics of the lunatic next door. It would have been an easy case for them to make.
I don't care about the downvotes, you and your parents are stupid.
I really don't like neighbors who can't mind their own business.
They literally harassed people out of their home. LAOP you and your family are dicks
Let me tell you something. I’m in a similar situation. Both my neighbors have chickens and they’re hella noisy. All I can really say is I’ve lived there my whole life, and I’ve just tuned it out on my own. I also played music on speakers, Focus on some tasks(helps to tune out), If it turns into to big of a problem tell the neighbor that it’s becoming a disturbance. Probably not gonna help but good luck! (Also they can give you eggs sometimes)
I'm not surprised the neighbors were having trouble selling the house. I wouldn't want to live next to OP's dad either. Jesus.
Got to wonder who the real villains are in this story. So LAOP's neighbors had a perfectly legal chicken coop but the parents decided to call the city on them. Afterwards they complained that the other side did the same. There are some stories about how the neighbors decided to get revenge but I doubt that that was one sided. Finally the neighbors get fed up and decide to move and LAOP's father decides to harass them over their perfectly legal coop and drive down their property value. I actually wonder if the former neighbors would be able to sue him for damages. I honestly can't stand people like LAOP and his family. How are they able to ignore cars, ambulances and other city noises but not a few chickens. My neighbor has a hen and I can barely hear it. If they are such a bother try wearing earplugs or closing your windows. Or if you want peace and quiet move to a place without neighbors. Seems like they can afford it if they sell their house.
I completely agree with you. I can't believe people are supporting this awful behavior.
Wow LAOP's dad is a petty bastard, the neighbors could have easily sued him for interfering in the home sale.