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Bob Dylan’s neighbors were furious to be living next door to him. They weren’t bothered by fans dropping by the house or late-night recording sessions but by the stench floating over from his yard. Instead, his neighbors complained that on breezy days, the smell of raw sewage came from Dylan’s yard. They claimed that the powerful odor was highly disruptive to their lives.
The ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ singer lives in Malibu
Dylan rose to fame while living in New York, but he has lived in the same Malibu home since 1979. He purchased the house for $105,000 and has since acquired neighboring properties to form a compound. Per the Daily Mail, the main home is 6,000 square feet with six bedrooms and seven bathrooms.
The famously reclusive singer has a swimming pool, basketball court, and trampoline on the property. While the home is set back from the Pacific Ocean, he has access to it via a dirt road.
Bob Dylan’s neighbors complained about the smell coming from his yard
Though Dylan keeps to himself, his neighbors had issues with living next door to the celebrity. In 2009, neighbors began complaining about a noxious scent coming from a portable toilet outside a guard house on Dylan’s property. Nearby residents said that the breeze carried the smell over and that Dylan refused to remove the bathroom.
“It’s a scandal — ‘Mr. Civil Rights’ is killing our civil rights,” neighbor David Emminger told the LA Times.
Emminger and his wife, Cindy, installed five industrial fans to blow the scent away, but even that didn’t work.
“It started in September. I’d go into the front yard and get nauseous,” Cindy said. “I couldn’t figure out at first where the smell was coming from.”
Emminger said that she and her eight-year-old son, David, were the most impacted by the smell.
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“We both have allergies and are sensitive to chemicals,” she said. “I finally noticed that they had moved the porta-potty directly in front of my front door.”
The Emmigener family claimed the smell was so bad that they had to stop sleeping upstairs.
“It’s worse when it’s misty outside at night,” Cindy said. “We turn on the five fans, but it still gets inside our house. We’re not even using the upstairs now. We sleep downstairs.”
The city manager didn’t find the same problem as Bob Dylan’s neighbors
The Emmingers claimed that the city of Malibu was more lenient with celebrities, which officials denied.
“There’s no truth in that whatsoever,” city manager Jim Thorsen said. “Everybody, in our opinion, is a high-profile person. We have to treat everybody by what the code says. It’s not a matter of clout or of money. We treat everybody exactly the same.”
According to Thorsen, officials hadn’t required Dylan to get rid of his portable toilet because he hadn’t found an issue with it.
“I drove by one time and couldn’t locate the porta-potty or smell anything,” he said. “I called the rental company on her behalf to find out what chemicals they use and forwarded that information to her.”
