I have lived in Sterling Park, out in the Washington, DC suburbs, all my life. I spent 18 and a half years growing up in the same house on West Juniper Ave and have witnessed the many different phases my neighborhood has experienced. Throughout this time the house diagonally across the street has had some interesting characters living there, from a family that stole bikes from all the kids in the neighborhood, to another family with a husband that chased his wife across a four lane highway with a butcher knife, to the current residents who have a rooster that wakes me up every damn morning and annoys the crap out me. I'll refrain from specific encounters and stories for the sake of brevity, but you should know that I consider this thing my white whale.
My brother and I have come up with a number of clever plots to make this god-awful thing disappear. Some of the plans, those based on vengeance and anger toward the beast, are quite messy and would emotionally scar small children should they be present when said plans are carried out. Others are much more efficient and stealthy... we would put the KGB to shame. However, though we plot against this rooster (almost) purely in jest, my father couldn't help but tell us to not mess with it. We thought he just didn't want the cops knocking on our door and demanding an explanation but, my father explained, he didn't want us doing anything to this rooster because it could save him up to a few thousand dollars next year.
My brother and I were dumbfounded; we looked at each other with stares that conveyed messages something along the lines of: "Is he really coming up with some lame excuse for us to not kill that dumb bird?" and perhaps more importantly, "Dammit, now he'll never tell us what he did with the slingshot that he took away from us several years ago!"
The real reason, my father explained, was something more complex. You see, my next-door neighbors are trying to sell their house right now and they have a nearly identical unit as our house, down to the floor plans and sizes of the yards. Since they wish to move into a specific home out in the country, they need to sell their house at a price higher than what the both of our homes are currently appraised for in order to afford the new place. Simple enough, right?
This is where it gets cool: Because property taxes are based on the monetary value of a certain property, if my neighbor sells his house for the asking price, then our taxes will take a sizable leap up next year. Plus, we have no idea who (or what) will move in next door and we get along really well with the people that live there now. So how does the rooster factor in? If that thing is alive and crowing when people are being shown around the house, they are MUCH less likely to buy it. Just having an ordinary rooster on the same block as you would be bad enough, but remember, this is a demon-rooster and I'm not exaggerating when I saw this thing is a real estate deal-breaker.
"Getting rid of" the rooster would mean it would be more likely for someone to move next door (especially since anyone willing to pay that amount would be looking for a house that offers extra luxuries and features that other houses of the same model don't have), and since the neighbor's asking price is inflexible because they need a certain amount of money for a specific new house, they are unwilling to take a price cut to "accommodate" for the rooster, meaning that if they do sell the house, we will be shelling out more money for property taxes next year. His solution? Keep his idiot sons the hell away from that bird, which to him is worth at least a few hundred dollars.
This is why I love economics; everything is interconnected and related and to truly evaluate a situation you need to analyze what everyone has at stake. For now, that rooster is safe...it's the least I can do for my old man for him paying for my college. I'll end the story with this; that rooster may alive and crowing for now, but if my next-door neighbors end up taking their house off the market...well, let's just say my brother and I will be eating chicken nuggets for dinner.
