Neighbors Sue Over Kid’s Crow Fest Mess

August 18th, 2015. By LucyC

Is it Hitchcockian—or humanitarian—well not quite humanitarian—but it does involve birds. Whatever, no one seems to know—or maybe they just don’t want to commit, publicly. So, a group of residents, neighbors of a family whose 8-year old daughter is “feeding the birds,” is suing on the grounds that the feeding thing is a health hazard, has damaged their properties and is making their lives hell. Well, they aren’t called a murder of crows for nothing… read on.

The neighbors are suing a family called the Manns, who live in a posh neighborhood in Seattle. The saga begins with an innocent feeding experiment by the Mann’s daughter, Gabi, back in 2011. She started feeding crows and pigeons who, in return for food, brought her gifts—beakable bits of refuse collected from the central Seattle neighborhood, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer. And having paid their rent, so to speak, the birds took up residence on the street in September 2013, apparently.

You can check the gifts out online, because this being the age of the Internet and social media—the story went viral—even the BBC picked it up. And of course, the story’s on Facebook.

Ok, back to the lawsuit. According to the Manns’ neighbors, all this feeding attracts birds in large numbers. Given that what goes in must come out, the large number of birds are contributing a large amount of bird poop, a scene described by attorney Anna Johnsen as reminiscent of “The Birds.”

“No one wants to be trapped living inside an Alfred Hitchcock horror movie,” said Johnsen, who filed the lawsuit in King County Superior Court. “This is a residential neighborhood that was not designed to host a large-scale wildlife feeding operation.” (Seattle PI). Ok—what is considered large scale? While I don’t think there’s a bird count, evidently there are enough birds to cause over $200,000 worth of damage. According to the neighbors, the birds’ droppings have damaged their homes and properties, and the feeding draws rats. This just gets better and better.

Or not. Two neighbors, Matt Ashbach and Christine Yokan, filed the lawsuit in August. Not only are they looking for compensation, they also want a court order preventing the Manns from setting out more than a quarter pound of animal food each day.

Despite apparent efforts by the neighbors to get the Manns to either scale down or stop the feedings, Johnsen said, the feedings escalated. “Large numbers of birds swarm the feeding operation daily, leaving behind dirt, feathers, peanut particles and shells, feces, and urine on the surrounding properties,” the attorney said in court papers. And I thought the ubiquitous Canada Goose was bad.

Adding to their frustrations, the lawsuit reportedly claims that the neighbors went to animal control agencies at every level of government hoping to find someone to intervene, but to no avail. Fifty-one neighbors signed and filed a petition with the city of Seattle, which also failed to prompt action.

The Seattle PI reports that a Public Health – Seattle & King County investigator who visited the Manns’ home, did indeed find bird food that could attract rodents but never witnessed any rats. Health officials sent letters to the family asking them to reduce scattered food at their home. But it seems like that didn’t work so well either. Despite the county health code requiring residents prevent rats and mice from feeding on their properties, the Manns weren’t cited by investigators.

So, it falls to the neighbors’ attorney, who wrote the court stating the Manns “ignored all neighborly requests” to resolve the dispute. Lisa and Gary Mann, Johnsen said, “have refused to engage in any meaningful dialogue regarding the unsanitary conditions they have created in an urban residential environment.”

“My clients went to extraordinary lengths to resolve this issue amicably before filing a lawsuit,” she told the Seattle PI. “We hope for a reasonable and fair resolution for the safety and well-being of the wildlife and humans alike.” Yeah, I’ll bet. After all, selling in that environment could prove a little difficult.

While the neighbors might seem like the bad guys in all this, the facts are that birds can transfer diseases, including salmonella and E. coli. Rats drawn to the bird feed can also carry a host of other pathogens. Remember the bubonic plague? (Well, maybe not).

And there’s the noise. Overall, “The situation has become a public health issue, and constitutes a public nuisance under Washington law,” Johnsen said. “The threat of disease is of particular concern for children, pregnant women, and the elderly.”

How did Hitchcock’s “The Birds” end? I think they won, didn’t they?

This was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Crazy Sh*t Lawyers See . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.