People say where we live is rural Maine as well. All lots around here are 8-10 acres. I had a rooster with the habit of crowing at 3am everyday. For the sake of my neighbors, I found the guy a new home north of Bangor where I think rural still might exist. We live in an area that use to be a farm of 100+ acres, 1 house, 3-4 dogs providing security for the chickens, cattle and anything else that went with the farm. Nobody could hear the roosters or dogs ever.
We moved here about 12 yrs ago, it was a quiet neighborhood, everyone has a big lot but still respected their neighbors. Then the A&&^%($^ moved in. He came from Augusta, thinks he lives in the middle of nowhere. He built a house on his 10 acres that is 250' from our house. He bought a monster tractor so he could push down 95% of the trees on his property, chasing the varmints and critters to the neighbors looking for shelter. He got a beautiful purebred german shepard that he lets out at 4am, and it runs around barking angrily, mostly at the deer taking shelter in our yard. He didn't like water flowing from my yard to his so he brought in 100's of loads of fill to change the direction of water flow by building a huge **** down our property line, my yard got flooded but he is ok with that.
So what's happened to people? Well last time I wasted my time talking to this fella, and I'm not kidding here, he stomped his feet like a little kid and said "but I wanna". Flooding us out is ok apparently as long as he can do what he wants. Waking up the neighbor at 4am is just fine too, and don't get me started on varmints and critters from his property.
Law's and ordinances are what we need because of people like this. Unfortunately for us, there are no laws that protect us from the flooding. But the dog noise is controlled by the local dog officer, luckily there are law's ordinances to deal with that, the sad part is the penalties are not great enough to stop our problem. I don't consider the dog to be the problem at all, it is 100% the owner, he sees no reason to work with his dogs behavior. Again, a barking dark is something he believes he can have because he wants it. As I recall 10-20 yrs ago someone would have shot his dog by now. It's not just us around here with this complaint, the dog is very loud, but I think it needs a more responsible owner before the situation gets uglier. Unfortunately for the dog he is stuck with an irresponsible owner.
We deal with this by sleeping with the windows closed, and the ac on. We do plan to move to our other property, but it's in one of those silly communities that doesn't allow chickens. I do miss rural living.
I certainly see your point, and at risk of playing Devil's advocate--I'd just say that the other side of the coin exists. If we play the "10-20 years ago" game, and someone shot the guys dog, I think we'd be finding dead chickens in our own coop the next morning as well.
There's a certain level of civilization we've all become accustomed to. Not saying you're wrong--cause I'd probably have had stronger words (or worse) with the guy you've been cursed with. Just saying that it's not always good to revert to the ways (and often times mistakes) of the past!
Cheers
