A chicken coop from hell, which saw hens and cockerels emit “strident noise” every morning between 3am and 5am, has seen judges fine its owners, ordering them to pay their exhausted neighbours 1000 euros in compensation.
More importantly however was the order that the offending birds have to be moved to a location where they can cause no further spoilt nights sleeps.
In a case that gives hope to so many people kept awake at night by neighbours’ noisy animals (more often than not dogs), judges were told how the noise from the coop prevented neighbours from sleeping in a “regenerative, adequate and reasonable” way for six years – leaving them suffering “symptoms of lack of rest”.
The situation followed the siting of the coop “a little more than 4 metres” from a neighbour’s window in the parish of Arcos, in the Braga district, in 2012.
The neighbours informed the couple that they couldn’t sleep, but clearly to no avail.
They took the case to court, also citing noxious smells emanating from the coop where not only hens and cockerels lived, but rabbits also.
A ‘court of the first instance’ dismissed the case, which the neighbours went on to challenge in a higher court that found in their favour.
The coop couple then appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and have now heard that they must indeed remove their offending animals and compensate their neighbours for six years of torment.
Said the Supreme court’s ruling: “While it is true that living in rural areas can involve a certain amount of noise caused by domestic animals, the extent of that noise must be appropriate and proportionate to the satisfaction of interests protected by law so that everyone can continue to live in the environment they have chosen”.
The court considered that the right of the neighbours “to rest, sleep and tranquility” prevailed over the defendants’ rights to raise domestic fowl and rabbits.
Judges accepted that sleep deprivation “causes psychological changes” beyond tiredness and fatigue, and could have “very harmful repercussions on personal, professional and social levels”.
