Vegan takes neighbours to court over smell from their barbecue

‘I can’t enjoy my back yard. I can’t go out … I haven’t been able to sleep’

A vegan masseuse has taken her neighbours to court in Australia – for having barbecues.

Cilla Carden says fumes from meat wafting from next door are ruining her quality of life in the Perth suburb of Girrawheen.

“All I can smell is fish,” she told the city’s 9News. “I can’t enjoy my back yard, I can’t go out … I haven’t been able to sleep.”

In a 400-page dossier of evidence presented to judges, she also said her neighbours – on both sides of her own property – smoked on their patio and sometimes had lights on in the evening.

The children, she added, made a noise while playing with their toys in the garden.

But the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia rejected her claims that there was any breach of residential law.

“What they [the neighbours] are doing is living in their back yard and their home as a family,” it noted in its judgement.

An appeal was also rejected by the state’s supreme court, and Ms Carden was told she could not take her case any further.

“The volume of material that she has produced ... suggests that these matters have to an extent become somewhat overwhelming,” said Chief Justice Peter Quinlan.

But, despite both decisions – the last which came in July – she has now told Australian media she does not consider the case closed and will look for other avenues to pursue it.

“It’s been devastating,” she said. “It’s been turmoil. It’s been unrest.”

The families at the centre of her claims declined to speak out about the dispute but both pointed out that Ms Carden’s demands had been found in court to be unreasonable.