“Good morning, ma’am. I am here to investigate a complaint filed against you by your neighbor.”
That’s not what you want to hear out of the mouth of someone standing at your door wearing a sheriff’s office uniform. It’s not what you want to hear from someone who pulled into your driveway in a county health department vehicle. It’s not what you want to hear from someone coming onto your property from the Department of Ecology. It’s not what you want to read in a letter from the county’s community development department.
The list goes on.
The visits and calls became, “sorry, we are here again.” Or, “sorry to bother you again, but your neighbor has filed another complaint. The harassment went on and on, and it still continues today.
Welcome to the last two years of hell for Connie Riker and her daughter, Cassie.
In 2002, Connie bought about 5 acres zoned long term agriculture, where she raised her daughter and devoted much of both of their lives to Pony Club and the quality education and experiences the program provides to youth (and for the last few years, adults).
Today, Connie and Cassie work to support their dream of educating young riders.
They have built Belmore Equestrian through sheer perseverance and determination. It is a phenomenal program that provides an unparalleled experience for youth — most of whom are considered “underprivileged.”
Many of these youths are in foster care. Belmore Equestrian students study and work to earn the privilege of riding horses. Youths come to the program through referrals and applications and pay a reduced price, through the benefit of the Time With Tails nonprofit, for the experience they gain and the transformation it brings about in their lives.
So, what is the issue?
In 2019, a neighboring piece of property (also zoned long term agriculture) was sold. The purchasers are the issue. A partial list of the new neighbors’ complaints:
There were flies around his house. He could see manure from his windows. There must be rats in the barns. Does she have a business license? Does she pay her taxes? What does the Department of Agriculture say about her operation? When lessons are going on, the horses cause dust, which has exasperated his medical condition. The neighbors can’t exit their house because there are noxious fumes from horse manure along the property line. Horses walk next to the fence and have caused damage to their house’s foundation. People are riding horses from 7 a.m. until 8:30 p.m., which disrupts their lives. Because they are riding horses, there is no grass — it is just dirt. The horses being ridden along the fence have created a path.
I mean, give me a break!
Connie and Cassie had been continually operating their facility for years before the couple bought the house next door and moved into it. They knew there was an arena on the other side of the fence from their home. They knew there were horses on the property. They knew lessons were being taught there. These people knew before they purchased their house what they would be living next to. They wanted to “live in the country.” Well, guess what? When you live in the country, you are going to have animals near you and you are going to see, hear and smell country things!
These people chose to buy, move in and then become total (I could easily put an inappropriate word here) not nice neighbors. They chose to be a nuisance and do everything they could to destroy all the work and good that Connie and Cassie were doing. They chose to try to ruin a program that does so much good.
Connie and Cassie endured more than two years of pain, emotional duress and distress and literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra and unnecessary costs. Connie had a covered arena partially built when the stuff hit the fan. Her contractor fled. He did not want to be involved in the mess and he did not want to have a project sitting partially done that he was responsible for. The harassment continued. Every time one issue was handled, another complaint and another setback, another delay. Connie finally got a protection order. But the complaints continued. Law enforcement would show up and say they really could not do anything — even though the neighbor was violating the protection order.
The neighbor would send his dogs to run along the fence and bark at the horses when youth were having lessons. He would throw rocks against the fence trying to spook the horses. What if a child had been thrown and hurt? He did not care. He just wanted his way. He did not care who he hurt. He would take pictures of the rider. Isn’t there some sort of law about taking pictures of minor children without parent or guardian permission? I know when I taught school, we could not put pictures of students in the school newsletter without the parents’ permission.
Fast forward to the end (not really — still ongoing harassment) and Connie working with lawyers for two years. The neighbor filed a nuisance lawsuit. He said Connie interfered with his enjoyment of his property. He requested injunctive relief. He wanted Connie to stop operating her facility (which was operating prior to him buying his property) and stop giving riding lessons (which she was doing prior to his buying the neighboring property). He requested damages for the injury he had sustained.
I am not going to belabor the two years of lawyer involvement and the hearing process. The final result — Connie won her motion for summary judgement. What does that mean? It means there were no facts in question. It was “only a matter of law.”
Washington has a right to farm law, and that means you cannot file a nuisance case against a farmer. And that is “all” this has been: a neighbor who is a nuisance and who spends his life trying to destroy other people for whatever “kicks” he gets out of doing that.
The judge who heard the case found it to be particularly egregious, initiated without probable cause and only for the purpose of doing harm to a farmer. So, Connie and Cassie won. Sort of. Cassie has PTSD. Connie and Cassie lost a lot of money that could have been put to good use helping the underprivileged youth they work with.
And the neighbor is still being who he is. Connie and Cassie have erected a solid fence just shy of 8 feet tall so the neighbor cannot stand at the fence or in his house and take pictures of their students. It is an attempt to protect their students, and it has cost them additional time and money. They have to keep a tarp over their manure pile (a pain when you haul a wheelbarrow of manure from the barn, have to stop and lift the tarp, dump the manure, and then replace the tarp before going back to the barn for another load and repeating the whole process). They cannot leave the tarp pulled back for five minutes while they go get another load or the neighbor is taking pictures and turning them in for a violation for having uncovered manure. And then they must load the manure into garbage dumpsters and pay to have it hauled off. That manure should be getting placed in someone’s garden as fertilizer instead of being dumped into the landfill.
Stay tuned. I plan to write more about Belmore Equestrian. I hope to let you see what a wonderful program it is and how very successful it has been.
Thank you to Connie and Cassie for their perseverance and concern for others — at their own, personal expense.
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Maureen Harkcom grew up on a Lewis County dairy and operated a beef and native hay operation and developed an equine competition facility. She is a past president of Lewis County Farm Bureau and a current member of Washington Farm Bureau Board of Directors. She can be reached by email at maureen.harkcom@gmail.com.
