Elderly Cypress couple selling their home after HOA hits them with lawsuit for feeding ducks
CYPRESS, Texas - An elderly couple in Cypress is selling their home after being sued by their HOA for feeding the neighborhood ducks.
65-year-old Kathleen Rowe has lived in the Bridgeland Community of Cypress for 11 years, along with her husband who suffers from multiple sclerosis.
For more than a decade, she says they've been feeding the ducks that live at the pond across the way.
"We just watch them, and they're just beautiful," Rowe told FOX 26.
However, when new neighbors moved into the area, she says they started to complain to the HOA. They started to receive numerous letters from Lakeland Village Community Association Inc. demanding that she stop feeding the ducks.
"Actually, I tried, I went 3 whole days of staying away from them, but they started coming across the street from the waterway and into my yard and basically crying," explained Rowe.
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She says she's seen many of the ducks abandoned in the pond as adults not knowing how to fend for themselves, and she couldn't find it in her heart to let them go hungry.
"They were starving, these were the ones that people they just dropped them off," she said.
On June 9th her HOA stopped sending letters, and instead slapped her with a lawsuit.
"There are just a lot of hateful people that just do not like ducks, and me I just love them," Rowe said.
The lawsuit demands that she stop feeding the ducks, and pay a fee of up to $250,000. Rowe says her attorney informed them that there is nothing in their by-laws that states they cannot feed the ducks. The lawsuit claims Rowe's actions have violated community rules; like emitting foul odors, causing unclean conditions, and annoyance to people using the common areas. However, when FOX 26 stopped by their home unannounced Saturday afternoon, the neighborhood seemed clean and quiet.
As the Rowe's fight the lawsuit, they chose to put their home up for sale and leave the neighborhood for good Rowe's only worry, is who will take care of the ducks that she's leaving behind.
"It hurts, it just hurts, I've been loving these same ducks for years, and if there's any way I can grab a couple of 'em and take them with me, I will," Rowe said.
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FOX 26 reached out to the HOA on Saturday requesting a comment, they're closed on weekends, so we haven't heard back just yet.
Check back later for updates.