JUDGE TO HOA: YOUR POTBELLIED NEIGHBOR CAN STAY 
60-lb. porcine Spring resident Wilbur Sardo will not be exiled from The Thicket at Cypresswood subdivision — because his presence in the neighborhood does not violate the local deed restrictions, a Harris County judge ruled today. The pig’s attorney, HOA law specialist Mitchell Katine, tells Chronicle reporter Erin Mulvaney that the decision in the lawsuit filed by the animal’s owners marks “the first time a Vietnamese pot belly pig has been recognized as a pet in court.” The neighborhood’s community improvement association had argued that Wilbur counted as livestock, and was therefore prohibited. The Sardo family began an extensive media campaign around its quest to keep Wilbur after receiving a notice from the association last year that it would be subject to fines of $200 a day if it continued to keep their pet at home. [NewsWatch; previously on Swamplot] Photo: iWilbur.com
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Tag: The Thicket at Cypresswood
“Veterinary experts” are now “standing by to testify” in the lawsuit filed yesterday against a Spring HOA on behalf of Houston’s best-known potbellied pig, declares the lawyer hired by the pig’s owners, Missy and Alex Sardo. What’ll those experts say? That Wilbur Sardo, the 60-lb. pet with close to 5,000 Facebook friends — and now a live webcam show — doesn’t count as livestock, and therefore isn’t prohibited from living with his owners by the deed restrictions of the Thicket at Cypresswood neighborhood.
Pot-bellied pig Wilbur Sardo now has more than 3300 friends on Facebook, a Twitter feed, a growing YouTube channel, and an online petition with more than 500 supporting signatures, but still only 17 days left before he’ll have to find a new home outside The Thicket at Cypresswood subdivision in Spring. Owner Missy Sardo says she was told at an HOA meeting and over the phone last week that she could keep her household pet if she got 51 percent of residents to sign a petition in the pig’s favor. But a certified letter Sardo received over the weekend indicates that the neighborhood’s board of directors has decided that its “initial decision [to banish the pig] will stand.” The neighborhood’s deed restrictions prohibit “animals, livestock, poultry, reptiles, or insects of any kind.” Household pets, defined as “domestic animals commonly and traditionally kept in homes as pets” are allowed, as long as they do not include “any wild, semi-wild, or semi-domesticated animal.”
- Spring family fighting to keep pet pig says HOA won’t budge, despite petition [KHOU]
- Save Wilbur Sardo
- Deed Restrictions excerpt (PDF) [Save Wilbur Sardo]
- Wilbur Sardo [Facebook]
- Previously on Swamplot: Some Pig
Video: Wilbur Sardo