MALIBU, Calif. — How sweet is life when you live next to a celebrity in Malibu?
Outside Bob Dylan’s house, the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.
That’s what some of the singer-songwriter’s neighbors are charging in an increasingly onerous dispute over a portable toilet at his ocean-view estate.
Residents contend that the nighttime sea breeze sends a noxious odor wafting into their homes. The stench has made members of one family ill and forced them to abandon their bedrooms on warm nights, they say.
For more than six months, Dylan, 67, has ignored their pleas to remove the outhouse, the downwind neighbors say.
“It’s a scandal — ‘Mr. Civil Rights’ is killing our civil rights,” said David Emminger, whose home is directly behind the toilet — which apparently is intended for use by employees of the entertainer, best known for 1960s-era protest songs.
Emminger and his wife have installed five industrial-sized fans in their yard in an attempt to blow the odor back at Dylan. They say the fans are no match for the ocean breeze that sweeps across the singer’s land, however.
“It started in September. I’d go into the front yard and get nauseous,” said Cindy Emminger, 42. “I couldn’t figure out at first where the smell was coming from.”
Malibu officials said they were investigating the complaint.
Although Malibu’s municipal laws apparently do not directly address the issue of permanent use of a portable toilet, one code section states that temporary structures for authorized construction projects must be removed upon completion of the project. Another prohibits objectionable odor “in excess of what is normally found in the neighborhood.”
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