Woman Convicted Because of Pet Pigs' Odor

HOBART, Ind. (AP) - The owner of pet pigs has been convicted of violating the city’s nuisance ordinance following complaints from neighbors about the obnoxious odor of the animals.

Debra Fields kept two 300-pound hogs - Bacon and Molly - as family pets in her home in the northwestern Indiana city. Earlier this month, during a court trial on the nuisance charge, she argued that under city code she is allowed to keep pigs in a residential area.

“The issue before the court is not whether the defendant may keep her pigs, but whether the odors generated are something her neighbor must accept,” City Judge William Longer wrote in a ruling last week. “They are not.”

The two pigs, according to evidence submitted during the trial, could generate as much as 35 pounds of solid waste and several gallons of liquid waste every day.

Fields testified there is no odor because she did not smell it, and that the odor detected by a Hobart code enforcement officer was attributable to swine flatulence.

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