When Casey Chiappetta returned home and smelled bug spray, she thought her roommate had ‘bombed’ the house for bugs. Then she saw her dog Harley was wet and shaking on the couch.
“It looked like he was sprayed with the hose,” Chiappetta said. “He was covered in Raid.”
Someone had sprayed her dog with bug spray, soaking her backyard patio, she said. Nuisance dogs that bark throughout the day is a common compliant in Hermosa Beach, and Chiappetta acknowledges Harley barks when left alone, especially if someone approaches the property.
But that doesn’t give anyone the right to spray her dog with bug spray and enter her backyard—and the Hermosa Beach police department agrees. Det. Mick Gaglia said the incident is being investigated for possible animal cruelty and trespassing.
Harley, 13, a shy Pit Bull, has the run of the house and fenced-in backyard when Chiappetta, 28, is at work, which includes modeling work and a part-time sales job at Easy Reader. She has lived in the duplex for about five years and has received numerous complaints from neighbors about Harley’s barking, she said.
About two months ago, she came home from dinner and found Harley soaked with bug spray, she said. Days later, she found a bicycle and patio chairs had been stacked against the outside the back door, preventing Harley from going outside using his doggie door. Then she found ground meat soaked in what looked like detergent in the back yard, presumably thrown over the fence.
Enough was enough, she thought. She had a security camera installed by a friend in the business. On Aug. 19, she recorded a man entering the backyard, to which Harley scurries inside the house through his doggie door in the backdoor. The man proceeds to place a bicycle and patio chairs against the back door.
On Sept. 6, she and a friend went out to dinner for an hour and a half, she said. When they returned, she found that Harley’s head was wet with what she suspected was Raid, and that the back door once again had been barricaded on the outside with a bike and chairs. The 8:22 p.m. video taped shows an arm reach over the fence and spray an aerosol can toward a barking Harley. A minute later, what appears to be the same man as in the previous video enters the yard with a flashlight and proceeds to stack a bike and chairs against the back door.
Chiappetta and police suspect the man is a neighbor.
Chiappetta, who lives in the 600 block of Manhattan Ave., said her neighborhood is full of barking dogs.
“I’m not arguing that he (Harley) is not a nuisance, not at all,” Chiappetta said. “My neighbor’s dog barks in my window, and it drives me crazy. But I’d never think to try and kill him.”
Sean Tanabe, field supervisor for the community services division which is also animal control, said barking dogs is a common complaint.
“We get quite a bit of calls for dogs barking, probably daily,” Tanabe said.
Asked how often a dispute over a barking dog escalates to the level of someone physically responding against the dog with something like bug spray, Tanabe said, “That’s pretty rare.”
It’s unclear if the bug spray was meant to merely chase Harley inside the house or harm him. Chiappetta said she brought Harley to the veterinarian where his blood was examined and found to be poison-free.
Eric Anderson is a neighbor of Chiappetta’s for the past four years, he said. Anderson said he worries something might happen to his Pit Bull if he left her alone, so he takes his dog to doggie day care during the day. Anderson said he has heard random neighbors scream for dogs in the neighborhood to shut up, and he has yelled back through his window that dogs are suppose to bark if strangers approach the property.
“Barking dogs are a problem,” Anderson said. “We’re both afraid to leave our dogs home alone.”
