you can't Evict Polly

HOW THE FAIR HOUSING ACT ENABLED THE RISE OF EMOTIONAL SUPPORT PARROTS, FROGS, AND EMUS

- CHRISTIAN BRITSCHGI

THE FIRST TWO parrots merely annoyed the neighbors. But after the third arrived, the U.S. Department of Justice got involved on the side of the parrots.

In 2024, a New York woman teamed up with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to squeeze a six-figure settlement out of her former co-op building. The building's transgression? Violating her right to keep not one, not two, but three emotional support parrots in her home.

It's a colorful case, but it isn't atypical.

Astampede of emotional support dogs, cats, llamas, peacocks, ducks, miniature horses, and more are showing up in America's airports, businesses, and apartment complexes. This has produced no shortage of conflict, particularly in the housing context.

Across the nation, landlords have been feuding with tenants over whether a federal law designed to protect disabled people's access to housing also guarantees renters' right to keep fauna of nearly all shapes and sizes in their homes, "no pet" policies be damned. Small pigs, very large dogs, various lizards, and at least one emu have been caught up in these skirmishes.

The New York woman's name was Meril Lesser. For nearly two decades, she kept two parrots in her home at a ritzy co-op building in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighborhood.

The birds' noise provoked occasional complaints from other residents of the building, named The Rutherford. When Lesser acquired a third bird in 2015, the conflict escalated.

Within months, her neighbors filed dozens of noise complaints with the city. The building's management company sent Lesser letters citing the bird's excessive squawking.

In response, Lesser took measures to soundproof her home, promised to add additional soundproofing, and noted that the city's inspectors had failed to formally cite her for noise violations. This did little to mollify the neighbors. In 2016, the co-op board moved to evict Lesser.