Polite email to my next-door neighbour. What I wanted to write was ‘Please get rid of the [insert expletive] Rooster!’
Dear X,
Thank you so much for letting us come around last weekend to meet your hens and sample some of your scrumptious eggs. The girls were captivated by the whole experience and had their first taster of the eggs tonight for supper. They taste sublime.
One thing I feel a bit awkward about asking you about, but I’m going to ‘bite the bullet’ so as to speak, is the rooster.. he’s a bit loud sometimes in the night! He was very noisy last Sunday for example and woke us all up just before 6am. I’d thought about saying something, but then he hadn’t been too noisy after that…. until this morning when he started crowing loudly at 4.05am and woke us up again! Once awake, the girls struggle to go back to sleep, and as a result, so do we. What puzzles me is why he’s crowing so early – I thought it was at sunrise they were meant to crow?
I hesitated to mention anything, because I assumed nothing could be done, bar the obvious, BUT then I spoke to a lady who lives about 7 doors down the road from us. When we first moved here the noise from her roosters woke us up every morning, but then one morning it all went very quiet. So, I plucked up the courage to talk to her about it and it turns out she still has 18 roosters (!) and a neighbour apparently reported the noise to the council, who visited her home to solve the issue. She says there is a way of sound-proofing their coop so they don’t disturb anyone…. and when I told her about our situation she said she’d be happy to chat to you to explore what can be done.
Obviously your chickens are lovely and I know it’s been your childhood dream to have them so I would be reluctant to mention it if I didn’t think there was any other option, but when I heard it’s relatively simple to soundproof them I felt encouraged to broach this with you!
Would you be interested in me putting you in touch with her…? I really struggle when I’ve not slept and then have to look after the girls the next morning or work.
Let’s hope there’s an easy solution so we’re all happy! Don’t mind contributing to the cost of any soundproofing if it comes to it…
Thanks for your understanding
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Calamitous Mummy 