We have the coop and run right up against the fence with one of our neighbors and asked them before we got the chickens. They said they were fine with it as long as we didn't get a rooster! We promised no rooster and they are 100% fine with it! We've asked them more recently if the chickens were bugging them at all and they said they couldn't even tell we had them (their daughter named one of our chickens Turkey LOL)! I know the other neighbors have seen them but we haven't had a single complaint. I figure if they don't bother the neighbor they are closest to, they shouldn't bother anyone else either! We have one neighbor who complains very quickly about any noise (we were dog sitting once and the dog barked twice during the night, like 2 barks before I could get downstairs and let her in, and he was at my door my next morning!) and we haven't heard from him either!
The law here says that you can have as many chickens as you can care for so I take that to mean that as long as you are caring for them, the neighbor's can't complain (or at least they can't force you to get rid of them). Roosters are a different story because they are considered a noise problem. I think in the city you aren't supposed to have roosters. Of course, if you have an HOA they may have their own rules that you have to abide by. We do not have an HOA (it dissolved a few years ago) so we had nothing holding us back! Generally our chickens are nearly completely silent. They rarely even give out an egg song. And at night they don't even make a peep!
