Email: Too much roostosterone ruining Bayview quiet

As an avid fan of your huckleberries column I am turning to you to save the day.  After the uproar of the Cape Horn Fire, peace was once again restored to our little town, but only briefly.  My neighbor down the street (two houses away) decided to become an urban farmer and get some chickens.  Now I don’t have any problem with that, they are kind of humorous clucking around all day.  Then they got some ducks.  Again, no problem.  Ducks sound like Lucille Ball mid-cackle, and after all, who doesn’t love Lucy, right? But then it happened. They got a rooster.  And not just any rooster mind you, but one with an overabundance of roostosterone.  It crows all day.  It crows at 4am.  It crows at 11pm.  Basically, all the time, any time.

After at least a half dozen calls to animal control, Kootenai County Zoning, Kootenai County planning, code enforcement and the sheriff (which, while polite and sympathetic, were sprinkled with plenty of chuckling at my plight) they say there’s nothing to be done.  I call upon our intrepid Kootenai County Commissioners, code enforcers and animal controllers to read the county’s own nuisance ordinance which states that anything that “offends the senses” can be considered a nuisance.  I promise getting awakened at 4am, 11pm or whenever Mr. Rooster decides to go off constitutes a nuisance in my world!  Many of my neighbors agree.

I was also informed that if I want them to amend the ordinance it will likely cost me about $1,500 to make that happen, per the community planning department.

With the predisposition of so many folks to own chickens these days,(again, not a problem in my book) in a neighborhood zoned restricted residential, shouldn’t roosters be against the rules?  Help me here, Dave. Any ideas to help my thoughtless neighbors see the light would be welcome. They don’t like to answer their phone.

Thanks,

Jeanna Hofmeister
Baggy-eyed in Bayview