LONDON: A French court case which saw a cockerel win the right to crow despite complaints that he was a noise nuisance has highlighted battles among some property owners over sights, sounds, and smells disturbing their home life.
With authorities increasingly called to manage unusual disturbances, which are exacerbated as more of the world moves into densely-packed cities, here are 10 other odd neighbour disputes:
1. A vegan in Perth, Australia, took her neighbours to court in a failed bid to stop them holding barbecues outside, telling local media that she could no longer go into her garden due to the smell of grilling fish.
2. Cockerels are not the only animals causing friction: people living next to Cologne Zoo in Germany filed a noise complaint over the barks of its sea-lions.
3. Residents in Los Angeles were enraged after a neighbour decorated her house with emojis, saying the design was “bullying” nearby homeowners and had also attracted crowds of unwelcome, curious onlookers.
4. Neighbours on a London street in Britain rowed about flowers, after one resident asked neighbours to stop picking blooms they had planted and others hit back over an attempt to “claim ownership” of a shared space.
5. US legal experts are debating whether protesters’ light projections are a form of trespass, with some courts finding that property owners should be able to control what message their property communicates.
6. In Singapore, migrants vowed a curry-cooking protest after a Chinese family complained about spicy smells coming from a Singaporean Indian neighbour’s home.
7. Residents in the US state of North Carolina have said their lives are being disrupted by industrial pig farms, arguing the pollution and noise caused by the hogs are breaching their property rights.
8. Residents in Barcelona, Spain, are being asked to report complaints about bad smells through an app which aims to build the first global odour map.
9. Businesses are also impacted by neighbour disputes - clubs in Berlin, Germany, are being forced out by neighbours who move into party areas and then complain about late-night noise.
10. It’s not just physical neighbours that can intrude. Some people send texts to their ‘number neighbour’ - the mobile number one digit up or down from their own - to spark conversation and make friends. - Reuters