Cilla Carden, a vegan woman from Perth, in Australia, took her neighbors to court for “deliberately” allowing the smell of barbecued meat and fish to cross onto her property.
The frustrated vegan has been in a dispute with both her neighbors since 2017, and has taken one of them court several times, unsuccessfully. After having her case thrown out by a tribunal earlier this year, Carden recently applied to the Supreme Court of Western Australia for right of appeal, which was also rejected back in June. It doesn’t take a legal expert to figure out why, though, as the woman basically argued that one of her neighbors deliberately barbecued meat and fish in their backyard, because they knew she couldn’t stand it.
“They’ve put it there so I smell fish, all I can smell is fish … I
can’t go out there,” Ms. Carden said, adding that the noise made by the
family’s children while playing basketball has left her unable to rest
properly.
Carden, a massage therapist who lives in the Girrawheen suburb of
Perth, claims that all she wants to do is live in peace and not be
robbed of quality of life. Apart from the barbecue smell that’s keeping
he from enjoying her own backyard, the woman also complained about
cigarette smoke, the sound of furniture scraping concrete, reflective
lights and the sounds made by pet birds.
“It’s been devastating, it’s been turmoil, it’s been unrest, I
haven’t been able to sleep,” Carden said. “I’m a good person. I just
want peace and quiet.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice Peter Quinlan, who threw out the vegan’s case in July, told the West Australian
that she had filed almost 600 pages of documents in her appeal, “well
in excess of anything that might be thought to be proportionate to the
issues”. He encouraged the parties “to direct their considerable
energies towards the resolution of their differences as best they can”.
“Ms Carden’s demands were proven to be not reasonable and indeed were
to the detriment of the other owners’ ability to enjoy their lots in a
reasonable and acceptable manner,” one of the woman’s neighbors, who
preferred to remain anonymous, said.
Despite her recent failures in court, Cilla Carden told Nine News that she plans to continue her legal battle against her neighbors.
