Harassed in Rochester NY

6ChicksDigMe said:

I know this thread is a few yrs old but i am living the same life as you lol! i don't know who keeps complaining but one of my neighbors are and i am also in rochester, ny. First it was a complaint that we were raising chickens. not that they were noisy or stinky or anything else. just that we were raising them. the second was to complain that we had a rooster. which we did but got rid of. the complaint was filed 4 days after we got rid of him. LOL! the third came today in the form of a complaint that we did not have proper building permits for our coop. i looked into it before i built and we did not need one for the size we were building. the letter stated that an inspection by the city took place on monday however my husband and i were home all day as well as our kids. no one came by. even if one of us left, the other was still home. no one came. this is ridiculous and I'm seriously ready to put a sign up that reads my chickens are legal GET A LIFE!

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Keep a log. Of everything.

Okay. Let me be the 5 months pregnant lady that raise a 2 year old, who also work part time say something. My husband work from 9am till 9pm at night. Seriously. My neighbor started to raise chickens recently, and it is driving me nuts, we really seriously need some sleep, and these chicken crow 4am 5am in the morning and sometimes at noon where my 2 year old naps. I am this close to complaint because I'm seriously fed up with this. Obviously you all think raising chicken is great idea never being considerate enough to think about your neighbors.

icyqrly said:

Okay. Let me be the 5 months pregnant lady that raise a 2 year old, who also work part time say something. My husband work from 9am till 9pm at night. Seriously. My neighbor started to raise chickens recently, and it is driving me nuts, we really seriously need some sleep, and these chicken crow 4am 5am in the morning and sometimes at noon where my 2 year old naps. I am this close to complaint because I'm seriously fed up with this. Obviously you all think raising chicken is great idea never being considerate enough to think about your neighbors.

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I have some suggestions. Talk to your neighbor. Get some ear plugs. Check into some white noise machines. Be grateful it is not a macaw (you just think the rooster is loud), lawn mower, leaf blower, or some idiot souping up his jalopy or motorcycle engine at five in the morning. When I lived in an apartment, I dealt with all of that. First of all, talk to your neighbor. He/she may not know the roosters are driving you nuts.

6ChicksDigMe said:

I know this thread is a few yrs old but i am living the same life as you lol! i don't know who keeps complaining but one of my neighbors are and i am also in rochester, ny. First it was a complaint that we were raising chickens. not that they were noisy or stinky or anything else. just that we were raising them. the second was to complain that we had a rooster. which we did but got rid of. the complaint was filed 4 days after we got rid of him. LOL! the third came today in the form of a complaint that we did not have proper building permits for our coop. i looked into it before i built and we did not need one for the size we were building. the letter stated that an inspection by the city took place on monday however my husband and i were home all day as well as our kids. no one came by. even if one of us left, the other was still home. no one came. this is ridiculous and I'm seriously ready to put a sign up that reads my chickens are legal GET A LIFE!

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It is possible that the inspector did a drive by/walk by rather than coming to your door and saw the coop over/through the fence (I assume there is a fence?). Or even viewed it from the complainant's yard. I don;t know the particulars, but sometimes the difference between a building that requires a building permit and one that does not is not easily identified simply by looking at the building from a distance. It is also possible that instead of actually seeing it in person, that they looked at it on Google Earth..

My husband was out in the front yard doing yard work all morning and afternoon. So it just wasn't possible based on how our yard is for someone to see the coop unless they came in our backyard. I purposely didn't want it visible from the sidewalk to avoid any issues with passerbys who may be tempted to peek. I do have an update to my situation. I called the inspector who wrote the violation and explained all my items were in order. His excuse was that he talked to someone he knew that raised chickens and they told him I needed a building permit and all this extra stuff. Instead of looking up the laws in the county I live in, he took the word of a friend who lived far away from us. So I asked him to please verify the laws in our town and then prove to me by showing me or telling me which section of the law I was violating. He called back and apologized and said I was absolutely right and all complaint and violations would be closed out as unfounded. Since then, I've had no issues other than a broody hen which I am currently rehabilitating lol!

Sonoran Silkies said:

It is possible that the inspector did a drive by/walk by rather than coming to your door and saw the coop over/through the fence (I assume there is a fence?).  Or even viewed it from the complainant's yard.  I don;t know the particulars, but sometimes the difference between a building that requires a building permit and one that does not is not easily identified simply by looking at the building from a distance.  It is also possible that instead of actually seeing it in person, that they looked at it on Google Earth..

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My husband was out in the front yard doing yard work all morning and afternoon. So it just wasn't possible based on how our yard is for someone to see the coop unless they came in our backyard. I purposely didn't want it visible from the sidewalk to avoid any issues with passerbys who may be tempted to peek. I do have an update to my situation. I called the inspector who wrote the violation and explained all my items were in order. His excuse was that he talked to someone he knew that raised chickens and they told him I needed a building permit and all this extra stuff. Instead of looking up the laws in the county I live in, he took the word of a friend who lived far away from us. So I asked him to please verify the laws in our town and then prove to me by showing me or telling me which section of the law I was violating. He called back and apologized and said I was absolutely right and all complaint and violations would be closed out as unfounded. Since then, I've had no issues other than a broody hen which I am currently rehabilitating lol!

Awesome