Neighbors annoy farmers

Dispute over barn fans goes all the way to the Supreme Court

It was only at the Supreme Court that the noisy Mühlviertel neighbors were able to achieve a partial victory.(Bild: Wolfgang Spitzbart)

"The most pious cannot remain in peace if the evil neighbor does not like it" - in "William Tell" by Friedrich Schiller, an apple had the potential to escalate. In a community in the Upper Mühlviertel, three barn fans are causing things to go haywire.

What is it all about? The last farmer in the village has a cowshed in which he installed the first ventilation fan in 1989, the second in 1991 and the third in 2015. All three run 24 hours a day. That wasn't a problem until the couple moved across the road. At first, they lived 40 meters away, then only 20 meters because they swapped houses with their son. Before the move, the plaintiffs - who used to be dairy farmers themselves - hadn't heard the fans, but now they have.