The Case Against Chickens In Darien Neighborhood

DARIEN, IL — Melissa Goodridge and James Harvatt are fighting for their family's right to keep egg-laying chickens at their house on Seminole Drive in Darien. But some neighbors have complained about the chickens. Among them are Jim and Marie Freidag, who live on Ironwood Avenue.

Goodridge and Harvatt's chicken coop is in their side yard, clearly visible from the neighboring Freidags' front yard. Goodridge and Harvatt had a rooster, but neighbors complained about the noise, so the couple had it go to a farm. The couple said they are open to regulations, such as limiting each house to eight to 10 chickens. They have six.

In an interview Sunday, the Freidags said they do not oppose chickens, but they have concerns about the birds being in a residential neighborhood. They blame the neighbors' coop for an odor and a big increase in flies. And they consider the chicken coop unsightly.

"We get comments when friends come to our house and see the coop. They say, 'What the hell is that?'" Jim Freidag said. "We have this eyesore that you can see from our front yard. You pull in our driveway, and that's what you see. It's kind of offensive. That's why we are bothered and we are upset."

He also described what he said was a "foul" odor from the coop.

"It's not all the time," he said. "We eat on our back deck as much as we can. We've had to move inside because of the odor from the coop."

And then there are the flies.

"In 37 years, we've never had an issue with flies. You'll get the occasional flies when you eat outside," Jim Freidag said. "Right now, we've had cases where we have had 15 to 25 flies in the house. We've had the fly swatter out all the time. We have fly paper hanging in the house. We have the big jars that are fly traps. We've replaced them twice. There were hundreds of flies in each one."

Marie Freidag said the smell and the flies have something to do with how the coop is maintained. To eliminate smell and pests, she said she hoped a new village ordinance would address the need to keep cages cleaned daily and regulate the disposal of waste.

"There's no fence between the chicken coop and our house. A privacy fence is really needed," she said. "It's not the country."

They planned to attend Monday's Darien City Council meeting to tell their side of the story.

"The value of our house is taking a nosedive because of that chicken coop. If we were to sell our house, people would come up in the driveway and turn around," Jim Freidag said. "It impacts our life."

Patch visited Goodridge and Harvatt's house Friday. They said they bought the egg-laying chickens to help with the family food budget after the pandemic began in March. They said the chickens make little noise.

Earlier this month, Goodridge started an online Change.org petition to rally support for the rights of chicken owners. She did this after Darien Patch wrote a story about a City Council discussion on regulation for ownership of chickens. As of Monday, nearly 600 had signed the petition. The signers do not necessarily have to live in Darien, and many don't.

Goodridge also plans to attend Monday's meeting of the City Council, which starts at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall.