Neighbors Sue for Horse Manure Pile Smell

[Sigarms]

No. Not for this guy. My best "revenge" on him has been to live well, in our new house, that he had nothing to do with. Sometimes it still galls me, especially if I have to drive passed his place of business, but I remind myself that Mrs Slim and I are doing just fine, in spite of him.

I've only had two issues I could think of doing business where I sincerely thought I was screwed.

Back in the late 80's an auto mechanic. He lied, I paid him what he originally quoted me, and long story, he threatened to take me to court and I told him I would happlily meet him there to explain my side of the story and I'd pay whatever the judge told me to. He declined that offer.

The other was an auto mechanic as well. I was out $500 due to ineptness on his guys end (he had just bought out my local guy). I was going to go to court with him, but in todays electronic age, after finally sending off a letter to the state attorney's office, he asked me to take down my negative reviews and cease my pursuit of the state getting involved and he gave me my money back.

If you have the documentation, with todays internet, you can really hurt a business if you just give the facts and the story IMO.

When you have an issue, there is nothing better than the written word as it's documented and can be used for future reference

The problem the last auto mechanic had was his lack of response to the better business bureau which they were even shaking their heads over.

People today generally use their cell phones to check a business out. Well documented "kept to the facts" issues with businesses can really be affected by negative online reviews, particularly when they are kept on file with the BBB and a 3rd party documenting them.

 

[LouNY]

Dang I just saw this thread this morning amazing the amount of comments and discussion about the issue.
Personally I hope the OP fights this all the way.
Manure piles are a fact of life in many farming/ag related environments. In some locations manure can't be spread on frozen ground and therefor must be stock piles in some way. Fields in growing stages often can't have manure spread on them. Many crops can't be spread on till after harvest. When ground is soft it can't be spread on.
Then there is the issue of spreading raw manure as compared to spreading composted manure and the benifits of composted manure compared to raw manure.
The original poster could definitely begin composting his manure pile, this does entail stirring or aerating the pile during the composting process.
I would certainly never stop piling the manure to stop the issue, that would imply the Op was in the wrong and the whinney crybaby neighbor was in the right.
Stand tall and proud and fight the SOB as it is an ag issue.

 

[IndyJay]

Dang I just saw this thread this morning amazing the amount of comments and discussion about the issue.
Personally I hope the OP fights this all the way.
Manure piles are a fact of life in many farming/ag related environments. In some locations manure can't be spread on frozen ground and therefor must be stock piles in some way. Fields in growing stages often can't have manure spread on them. Many crops can't be spread on till after harvest. When ground is soft it can't be spread on.
Then there is the issue of spreading raw manure as compared to spreading composted manure and the benifits of composted manure compared to raw manure.
The original poster could definitely begin composting his manure pile, this does entail stirring or aerating the pile during the composting process.
I would certainly never stop piling the manure to stop the issue, that would imply the Op was in the wrong and the whinney crybaby neighbor was in the right.
Stand tall and proud and fight the SOB as it is an ag issue.

 

[Sigarms]

and sometimes find myself disciplining other people's dogs when they try to jump up on me.
That's one habit I DID break her of.

Jumping on people is a bad habit.

However, being a "dog person" myself, when a dog jumps on you, you pretty much know right away if it's good or bad.

Never had a "bad dog" jump on me. End of the day, when someone elses dog jumps on me trying to lick me to death with it's tail wagging, I'm good with it

We have one older puppy like that with strangers and an old small guy who always gets jealous of the older puppy LOL

 

[tallyho8]

I don't know why I don't have the problems with horse manure piles that some of you have. I dump my wheelbarrows of manure in a pile where it starts to compost, (heating up at high temperatures) and we can not smell anything disagreeable from the pile and no flies are attracted to it. We had a person down the road complain about the pile attracting flies to the neighborhood and we invited him over to see our pile first hand and up close. No flies were visible and he agreed that there were no smells like he was complaining about. Our piles get so hot that if you turn them over with a shovel you will see a large amount of smoke and if you feel the pile it will almost burn the hair off your hand.

We have lots of rain in our area and always high humidity and I don't know if this is what keeps our piles in such good shape that they don't smell or attract flies or if it is the high manure content in the piles. We do know that if we don't clean the stalls for a few days that the stalls will attract many flies because the manure is so spread out that it doesn't heat up and compost like when it is in a pile.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I'd like to know how it works out.
I posted about how great horse manure is. This is the first year I put ours on flowers, vegetables and trees and it was magic.
Today I raked the paddock. The only smell is fresh poop, but it lasts a day at most. The pile does get really hot.
One thought is why not start a composted horse manure business? Put a sign out, $40 a bucket scoop (some $ amount).
Curious from the manure pile to idiot neighbors...how far away is it?
Our pile, never saw flies...plenty of large fat earthworms though in the "cooler" section.
Composted horse/cow manure is gold, and there is no smell. That manure was there years before they moved in.
There's been a dairy & cows across from me and it's fantastic compared with what could be there. I bought the place 43 years ago fully aware it was there. The sue happy neighbors knew it as well. If we didn't have horses and I was your neighbor I'd pay for manure or be grateful if given to me.

 

[oosik]

I'm surrounded on all sides by open range cattle ranching. It's barely noticeable in the spring when everything is wet/damp. Like everybody says around here - that smell is $$$$$.

For a couple years I worked for the adjoining county - Environmental Health. Adams county is big on growing onions. Commercially. You think cow/horse manure stinks - you have never smelled an 80 acre field of rotting onions. It's worse than being downwind of the Omaha stock yards. And I've been there too.

And then the farmer gets around to disking the onions under. It's like turning off the light switch.

Some local developer got a zoning change and backed a residential subdivision right up next to a commercial onion operation. That was one reason I was glad to retire. NO WAY to resolve that conflict.

The residential subdivision and all it's homes was worth more than the onion operation. However - the onion operation was in place LONG before the residential subdivision.

I still chuckle when I think about that situation.

 

[LouNY]

I'm surrounded on all sides by open range cattle ranching. It's barely noticeable in the spring when everything is wet/damp. Like everybody says around here - that smell is $$$$$.

For a couple years I worked for the adjoining county - Environmental Health. Adams county is big on growing onions. Commercially. You think cow/horse manure stinks - you have never smelled an 80 acre field of rotting onions. It's worse than being downwind of the Omaha stock yards. And I've been there too.

And then the farmer gets around to disking the onions under. It's like turning off the light switch.

Some local developer got a zoning change and backed a residential subdivision right up next to a commercial onion operation. That was one reason I was glad to retire. NO WAY to resolve that conflict.

The residential subdivision and all it's homes was worth more than the onion operation. However - the onion operation was in place LONG before the residential subdivision.

I still chuckle when I think about that situation.

They get even ranker when fed to feedlot steers.

 

[goddom]

I'll reserve my comments and only say that I'm sincerely curious as to how this plays out, and hope that the OP will keep everyone updated on this situation.

I plan to!


For everyone else, when the lawsuit is settled I can divulge more details, but as someone cautioned, if I talk to much here it could get requested by the neighbors lawyers and it might give away a few things.

I am finding, for good and bad, that the law works slowly and so I won't have many updates every week, but I am hoping that in a couple weeks I will have a bit more to share.

I can tell you, one interesting aspect of my neighbors is they are way more sensitive to what I do to my property than they do to theirs. So if I keep my grass a little long in some spots, or if I listen to music at a reasonable level while I work on my property it really bugs them to no end. In short, we can live our life and we know it just rankles the guy.

Not sure I shared this before, but my property used to be part of a larger farm and when the farmer and his wife retired, they parceled it off and sold a number of lots including the lot and house that I currently live in. They kept a plot across the road and when I moved in the farmer had passed, but his widow still lived there. Great lady. She was sweet but she HATED my neighbor with a passion. So do her kids. This guy has unfortunately been causing trouble for people in the area for a years. It unfortunate that people are so concerned with what other people are doing.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

About how far is manure pile to the homes?
Our horse manure pile there is no odor, and I mean 3 feet away.
Maybe they need education of horse manure magic. I wished I had before pictures but two experiment examples I tried: squash in a large pot the plants barely alive with consistent watering. Then added horse manure. Within days they looked better. A few weeks later now look!
Same with Lemon Thunbergia. I made a trellis then horse manure on it. This is a few weeks later. Today's 2" rain washed blooms off but more to come.