Goats Are Nuisance Neighbors, Say Mica Residents Fence Doesn’t Contain Foul Smell And Flies
Prize-winning goats scurried from a rickety green house to a stack of hay bales in the back yard. Rabbits, chickens and cats rattled around inside the condemned dwelling.
A short wire fence and an electrical wire keep the animals in the yard, but the fence has done little to confine the flies that blacken the walls of nearby homes or the foul odor that wafts through the neighborhood, neighbors said.
“Everybody around here has complained,” said Marion Stark, who lives across the street. “Sometimes your walls are black with flies.”
Tired of looking at and smelling the mess, neighbors in the residential neighborhood have filed a zoning complaint against Caroline Rich, who owns the property at 14321 E. Robert in Mica, protesting the location of the fence.
Alan deLaubenfels, a county zoning inspector, said the fence must be at least 50 feet from neighboring houses. Currently, the fence is about 30 feet from the closest house. Rich has until Oct. 25 to move the fence.
Diane Rich, Caroline Rich’s former daughter-in-law, acknowledged the zoning violation and said she planned to move the fence this weekend. Diane Rich’s 20-year-old daughter, who asked not to be identified, uses the land, which is zoned for agricultural use, to board animals.
Once the fence is in compliance, the county will drop its case against Caroline Rich, who lives in the northern Valley, deLaubenfels said.
“That’s the only thing they can get them on,” said Doran Brown, who lives next door to Rich’s property. “They don’t have to live next to them.”
Brown is trying to sell his house and worries that he may have to settle for thousands of dollars less than it is worth because of the eyesore next door. He built a 6-foot, wooden fence to block the unsightly view.
“My Realtor said that’s the best thing I could have done,” Brown said. “I’ve never told her to get rid of the goats. I just wanted her to clean up the mess. I think if she had a few less goats and kept it clean, nobody would say anything to her.”
But Diane Stark, who planted a row of trees to separate her property from Rich’s, said, “I would just as soon see (the goats) all gone.”
Diane Rich agreed that the goats, which are registered with the American Dairy Goat Association, need to be moved, but for a different reason. She fears the goats will be injured or killed if a new home is not found for them.
“There will always be a problem,” she said. “The goats need to be moved, but there’s no place to move them to.”
Diane Rich said neighbors have tried to poison the goats, have shot one of the goats and have targeted the goats with other other acts of malicious behavior.
“The place is run down and I can see the neighbors’ point, but you don’t take it out on the goats,” Diane Rich said.
Neighbors, who said they have counted as many as 54 goats on the 100-by-150 foot lot, have called county animal control officials to voice concerns about how the animals are treated. But Nancy Sattin, director of animal control for the county, said a September inspection revealed the animals to be in good health.
Diane Rich, who makes daily trips from her Valley apartment to Mica with her daughter to feed and water the animals, pointed to the numerous ribbons and plaques the goats have won at animal shows as proof that the animals are well cared for.
“You don’t win these kinds of things if your animals aren’t taken care of,” Diane Rich said.
Regardless of the health of the goats, neighbors will remain critical of the property until it is cleaned up.
“It’s still a little community,” Brown said. “And everybody in this town is gradually trying to fix it up. And it’s like she’s slapping you in the face.”
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