Henhouse in Reseda Ruffles Neighbors’ Feathers

Linda Acuna’s henhouse has put her in the doghouse with Los Angeles city officials.

Animal-control officers say the 25-year-old Reseda housewife has run a-fowl of an ordinance that requires backyard chicken coops to be at least 35 feet from next-door neighbors’ homes.

Feathers flew last year when Acuna placed her coop about 20 feet from a neighbor’s bedroom window. Officers cited Acuna after the neighbors complained that the noise kept them awake.

But Acuna claims she is the one who now has the right to squawk. She said she obediently moved the henhouse 100 feet--but can’t find anyone in city hall to come out and see where she flew the coop to.

Acuna has scrambled to Van Nuys Municipal Court seven times in an unsuccessful attempt to crack the case open and get the misdemeanor municipal code violation dismissed.

“Every time I go, I sit there from 8:30 in the morning until noon before they call my name and tell me the case has been continued,” she said. The most recent postponement came last week, when the case was delayed until next Tuesday.

Since the case landed in court, dogs have eaten all but one of the Rhode Island Red hens cited in the complaint--although more meat was added to the stew last week when a neighbor across the street gave her three new hens.

Why did the chickens cross the road? “The man got rid of them because he’s cutting back on his cholesterol and isn’t eating as many eggs,” Acuna said.

Acuna said she and her husband, Richard, hatched the idea of moving from a Northridge apartment to the residential-agriculture zoned neighborhood last year. She said they wanted their three children to get a taste of nature--not to mention fresh eggs and the backyard vegetables they grow.

But Crebs Avenue resident Laura Low said Thursday that even the Acunas’ new henhouse is nothing to crow about.

“It still keeps me and my husband awake every night. We have to turn on air conditioning to drown it out,” she said of the noise.

Deputy Public Defender Nelda K. Barrett, who is representing Acuna, said she will ask that the chicken charges be dismissed if the city is not able to bring the case to trial Tuesday.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine--not exactly chicken feed to Acuna.

Is dismissal a likelihood if Acuna can convince officials that her coop is in compliance?

“ Eggs actly,” Barrett said.