| As of this morning, I still did not have Cecilia's name or number. This afternoon, I spoke to Sarah (Cecilia's tenant, my neighbor). Apparently, rats have made a nest in the walls of her home and chewed up the electrical wires. She doesn't have electricity in part of the house and the landlord needs to fix it but hasn't yet. The landlord sounds like an evil bitch, to be honest, and when Sarah asked for the electricity to be fixed, the landlord has been yelling at her and blaming her for the problem. Sarah threatened to move out (my god, wouldn't you if that was your landlord?) and the landlord got freaked out about that.
At some point, the landlord started blaming my family and my garden, specifically the chickens and the compost. We've had compost since my second date with my ex-boyfriend, current-roommate Patrick (yes, that's what a romantic I am... I start compost piles on dates) in the summer of 2009 and we got our chickens in early December. The city told us we had to get rid of the chickens by May 4 and I have no comment about their whereabouts after that date.
Well, Sarah (my neighbor, the tenant) likes the garden. We give her eggs and veggies, and we check in with her and her family every now and again to make sure that we aren't doing anything that bothers them. I've been very clear that if they want me to make a change, I'm glad to do so. For example, she could ask me to make the compost pile more secure to keep rodents out. It's a good idea really, just not something I've done yet because I don't ever see rodents. I've got a pretty good idea of what sorts of critters live in our yard since I'm always in the garden and my cat likes to go outside and hunt anything she can catch. So far I've seen her with a baby snake and two lizards; no rodents. Furthermore, rats eat chickens, and chickens eat mice and lizards. None of our chickens were killed or eaten, and I've seen our hens chase a lizard, but never a mouse. Rodents also eat chicken food. I'm told that chickens are messy eaters and don't clean their plates, so if you see that the poultry feeder is 100% empty, you've likely got rodents. That hasn't happened.
Sarah told Cecilia that the rats are NOT due to our compost or chickens because her rat problem pre-dates our compost and chickens. There's a grocery store across the street that tosses all kind of stuff into dumpsters behind it, and she and my roommate both think the rats are coming from there. Cecilia wanted to use rat poison on her own property, and Sarah told her not to because she was afraid it would poison her dogs. Sarah told her to use a trap.
Cecilia never told Sarah she was going to put rat poison in our compost, nor that she was going to call the city and complain about our compost and chicken coop. She told my roommate Patrick that she called the city to complain about us though.
Today when I spoke to Sarah, she re-stated her support for our garden, compost, and chickens. She was trying to work out a way for us to keep our chickens even though we are not allowed to have them. She was horrified that the city would make us get rid of them.
I called Cecilia and the conversation began as follows:
Me: Hello, is Cecilia there?
Cecilia: This is she.
Me: Hi, I live next door to your property and I heard there was some trouble. I am calling to see if I can do anything to help.
(Note: By "help" I mean "make my compost rat-proof" not "get rid of my compost")
At that point, she told me to get rid of the compost and chickens, saying they were violations of city code. If the compost is not allowed, that's news to me. Cecilia told me that it was her tenants, not her, who complained to the city about our chickens. I said she was lying. She replied that she has a written statement that proves it. I asked to see it. At that point, she told me not to get hostile. I replied that I was not getting hostile, but since she was making statements that contradict the evidence I've seen to date, I'd like to see the written proof.
She kept saying that she hadn't done anything - not complained about us to the city, not put rat poison in our compost, not anything. She kept saying "There are social workers involved" as if that meant something. She added that she took "50 pictures" of our compost yesterday, which makes me feel even more violated. (My roommate is talking about making our fence taller so she can't peek in.) And she kept insisting that it was her tenants who had a problem with the chickens and the compost. I am absolutely 100% positive that she was lying about that, given the long history of our neighbors supporting our garden and chickens.
The phone call ended when she had told so many lies that I decided it wasn't worthwhile to continue talking to her. I informed her that the police would likely contact her soon, after I reporter her to them. She followed up by calling the neighbors back and reaming them out for giving me her phone number. The neighbor replied that I probably got her number off the "For Rent" sign, where it was clearly posted.
I feel absolutely violated. I've been lied to, my compost - my food supply - has been poisoned, my pets have been endangered, and we're losing our chickens at least temporarily. We gave one - the Wyandotte - away for good to a local nursery, because he or she really does not like people, which is inconvenient when we need to catch the chickens for whatever reason.
The other six will go to my friend Heather, who has two small pigeon coops that aren't ideal but they'll do the trick for now. I'm heartbroken of course. These are my babies. Diana's just started laying and we get about 18 eggs a week. The kids fight over who gets to collect the eggs, so we've got them taking turns now, and they are always aware of whose "day" it is to collect the eggs.
The eggs are of a quality I've just never encountered before. It's incredible. My favorite way to eat eggs is over easy, but I could never cook them that way. All was well until I tried to flip them and, inevitably, I broke the yolk and made a mess of the whole thing while flipping it. With our chickens' eggs, I can't screw up! Every time, perfect. Same thing when I make an omelette. I can flip it no problem, every single time. Perfectly.
The other amazing attribute of our eggs is the strength of the membrane. When you crack our eggs, a good whack on a hard surface can crack the shell but you practically need a knife to get through the membrane. Yesterday I was trying to get our preschooler into the house without letting the cat out, and I slammed the door right on the eggs I was carrying in my pocket. I broke the shell of one... but not the membrane. With any other egg, I would have had raw egg dripping from my pocket, but not with our egg.
Stay tuned for the rest of this story. My hope is that we build a higher fence to keep that bitch from peeking over and taking pictures. It's sad because I'll no longer be able to see and say hi to the neighbors like I used to. But I absolutely feel violated. I called the police today but they said no crime has been committed. She said I'd have to take the woman to civil court. I've now written the entire city council and then some to find out if my compost is legal or not and to request that compost is made legal in all residential zones ASAP if it isn't already! |
