Polly wants some peace and quiet?

This story from Reddit tells the tale of an anxious parrot, new parents, a not-so-sleeping baby, and a rescuer just trying to do the right thing.

Let’s dive in.

AITA – Pet parrot causing conflict with neighbors

We have a Moluccan cockatoo who has been with us for five years.

We gave Peaches a home, because a family member couldn’t keep him due to allergies and Peaches’ was in bad health.

(He was being kept in a cage all day and was feather plucking.)

Peaches demeanor changed completely in his new environment.

Peaches is now a completely different bird. He’s much happier. He’s stopped feather plucking entirely.

He now has lots of attention and out of the cage time.

We even built an outdoor aviary for him, so he can enjoy playing outside.

Outdoor aviary = Peaches is going to get to know the neighbors.

This is where the “AH” factor might come in.

New neighbors moved into the house across the street from us. In April the mom knocked on our door, and said that Peaches is making too much noise and it is waking her baby up.

This happens when Peaches is indoors or outdoors in his aviary.

Exactly how loud is this bird? They can hear him inside and outside?

We said we would make changes. These have included:

1. We asked what the baby’s schedule is and we don’t let Peaches out during those hours.
2. We have added additional sound proof paneling inside our house.
3. When Peaches is loud, we discourage him from screaming.

They seem to be taking appropriate steps, but it’s not enough for the neighbors.

The neighbors returned yesterday and said that Peaches is still keeping their baby awake and that he has to go.

They said they’d be filing a noise complaint if we didn’t get rid of him.

The author did even more to try and make things work.

Other facts:

1. We let Peaches play in his aviary for about 2 hours each day and it is always supervised. We don’t just stick him in the aviary and go off and do our own thing. If he starts getting loud we try to distract him or we bring him in doors.
2. He is never outside during early morning or evening hours or during the baby’s nap hours.
3. It is hard to teach a cockatoo to be quiet.
4. We live on a 1 acre property in the suburbs (not a townhouse or an apartment). None of our other neighbors have ever complained about Peaches.
5. It would be very difficult to re-home Peaches, especially since he is a feather plucker. We are his third family. When we got him, it was with the understanding we’d be his forever home. He has grown very attached to us and I am afraid if he was re-homed, he would start plucking again.

Let’s let the commenters of Reddit chime in on this one.

Peaches for free? Sign me up, says this commenter.

Another commenter offers a potential future piece of information.

It would be cruel to make Peaches move again, says this comment.

This comment appreciates how much work the author has put in, and thinks they’ve done enough.

But then, several commenters provided some context on just how loud this species of parrot can be.

One commenter went so far as to look up the sound, and they learned some things.

I guess it’s a good thing that there aren’t millions of Peaches, just one loud one.

But we are who we are!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.