According to a story this week in the Idaho State Journal, a couple in Idaho may be forced to lose their home over the Ball Brothers mink farm.
“They moved in on us and they have more or less bankrupted us”.
In 2007, construction began on the farm, after the Ball brothers made plans to move their fur farm from Morgan, Utah to Malad, Idaho. The farm is estimated to imprison 20,000 mink.
Neighbors of the farm fought in court to block the construction of the farm, but ultimately lost. Now two of the neighbors – Bob and Bev Reudter – have had their hours devalued to the point they move lose the property.
The couple says that because of the smell of the mink farm, family no longer visits them and friends will not come over. The couple says they can’t cook outside because of the smell and number of flies.
“We have flies, not by the hundreds, but by the thousands,” Bev said. “You wake up in the morning and you have to kill flies. You start breakfast, you have to make sure the flies stay off of the breakfast. You leave even a cereal bowl down and it’s (quickly) full of flies.”
The Reudter’s gave this admonishment to anyone in a neighborhood where a fur farm might move in:
“We just want people to be aware that if they get news there is a mink farm going to go in, to fight, fight, fight, because it’s awful. It’s dropped our quality of life to almost nothing.”
This is the full article:
MALAD — When a mink farm sought to locate on property adjacent to Bob and Bev Reudter’s rural Malad home five years ago, they and several of their neighbors fought against it to no avail.
After nearly five years of living next to the mink farm, which Bev says has robbed the couple of any quality of life, the Reudters are also in a dire financial situation they currently see no escape from.
“They moved in on us and they have more or less bankrupted us,” Bev said. “There is $3,000 between us and nothing. Our financial situation is $3,000. That’s all we have in savings.”
After Bob retired from the railroad in 1995, the couple, who lived in Utah at the time, decided they wanted to move out of state and were ultimately called on to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Illinois, beginning in 1997.
After that mission was complete, they headed to Montana, a place where they had family and had always enjoyed.
“We built a house up there, enjoyed it for a while and then the kids said, ‘You are too far away,’” Bob said.
Their decision was to sell the house in Montana and move to their current home in Malad, a home their children actually found for them.
“This is as close to Utah as we wanted to get,” Bob joked.
It was a fixer-upper and the couple knew they would be investing some money into the home and the nearly five acres it rests on.
Quickly rattling off a list of things the couple has done to the home, Bev says that includes replacing all the windows, all but one door, replacing the floors, putting in new drywall, painting and even building a workshop out back.
They were investing in the future, fixing up a place with the hope that their children would one day be able to sell for more than they purchased it for.
“And all for what?” Bev asks. “All for what?”
The Reudter’s moved into what they believed would likely be their last home in December of 2005. During the summer of 2007, they, as did their neighbors, learned Bill and David Ball, originally of Utah, purchased the property next to theirs and intended to locate a mink farm there.
Signatures were gathered against the creation of the mink farm and submitted to the Oneida County Commission. Many also spoke during public hearings on the issuing of permits for the farm and construction of the facilities needed for the mink farm.
But the Oneida County Commissioners found that they could not stop the Balls from building their mink farm as the land was zoned agricultural and Idaho Statutes allows for the farming of animals for fur as an agricultural purpose.
The decision was appealed to the Sixth District Court by the Reudters and several other neighbors of the proposed mink farm. Then Sixth District Judge Don Harding presided over the case and in a five-page decision upheld the commissioners decision.
With little else to stand on, the group fighting the mink farm no longer pursued legal recourse.
The farm has been in full swing for several years, with about 20 buildings filled with what the Reudters estimate to be thousands of mink.
With those thousands of mink comes the strong odor of excrement that mink farms are reputed to have.
The Reudters says it is an odor so foul, especially during the summer heat, that they can barely stand it. Family no longer visits them — the primary purpose of locating in Malad — and friends will not come over. The couple says they can’t even grill outside because of the smell and the significant numbers of flies that now invade their property.
“We have flies, not by the hundreds, but by the thousands,” Bev said. “You wake up in the morning and you have to kill flies. You start breakfast, you have to make sure the flies stay off of the breakfast. You leave even a cereal bowl down and it’s (quickly) full of flies.”
Knowing that they will not likely be able to sell the home, the Reudters tried this summer to alleviate their financial burden through a reverse mortgage, one that would allow them to stop making monthly payments and maybe even take a few dollars out of their home.
Bev said it was all going well, they were being told it looked good but they needed to do a few things around the house to improve their chances, such as painting the outside.
They got right to work on it earlier this month.
“Right in the middle of it all we got a letter stating we were denied,” Bev said. “(Because) of the mink farm.”
The mortgage company, aware of the proximately of the farm, also feared it would not be able to sell the home when the time came.
Bev became emotional when talking about what they believed was their last opportunity.
“We were counting on not having a mortgage (payment) so we could save that mortgage money, which is $640 a month,” she said. “That doesn’t sound like it is very much, but we were going to save it until we got enough money so I could take papa to Alaska. He’s always wanted to go and now we can’t even travel.”
The Reudters are in a position now that offers few choices. The only ones left, they said, are to continue down the current path, hoping they don’t fall into a financial situation under which they lose the home, or to simply walk away from it and let all that they worked for to go back to the bank.
“There might come a point where we just have to pick up and leave,” Bev said. “We just want people to be aware that if they get news there is a mink farm going to go in, to fight, fight, fight, because it’s awful. It’s dropped our quality of life to almost nothing.”