Here's the deal:
My mother in law lives in an HOA-ruled CCR community in Las Vegas. She has a new hobby -- keeping freakin' chickens in her back yard for the eggs. She's had four birds since April. She recently scored four more birds from friends who were ordered to cease and desist from their HOAs.
She is 100% in violation of the CCRs. But I have made the hens a habitat that is unobtrusive. They're out of sight, out of mind, and there really isn't any smell because any droppings dessicate immediately. They make that "awww awww awww" hen sound, but it's hard to hear unless right next to their habitat.
Of the 30 families in the HOA, 29 are OK with her chickens and one is not. There are a couple dog owners in the neighborhood that have miserable curs that bark continuously for 15 hours a day. That's OK, but eight hens are not.
They're having a meeting this week to discuss the chicken "issue."
My job is to argue on behalf of my mother in law. (Perry Mason, I am not.)
My plan of attack is to argue that while she is certainly violating the letter of the CCRs, she's not really violating the spirit -- her birds are less annoying than the neighborhood dogs.
I could come up with all manner of pets that are FAR WORSE than chickens -- beagles, cockatoos, howler monkeys, you name it.
Worst case scenario, I plan to use the "nuclear option." That is, "Deal with the birds, or I'm going to have to kill them. And if I'm forced to play Henry VIII, I'm going to buy my mother in law two beagles and a Moluccan cockatoo. And then you can all invest in earplugs and wish nostalgically for the days when my mother in law only had eight quiet chickens."
BTW -- Did you know that a Moluccan cockatoo scream is only five decibels less than a jet engine at takeoff? At 135 decibels, it's one of the noisiest things on earth, and perfectly acceptable according to the CCRs.
(Comparatively, The Who only managed 126 decibels to make the Guinness Book for "world's loudest rock band.")
PS -- Personally, I think it's ridiculous to keep chickens when eggs are a buck a dozen. But it makes her happy, and I've got to come up with a strategy.