After months of being plagued by a pack of feral hogs, neighbors in the Waterside subdivision of Riverstone in Sugar Land hired a trapper to catch and relocate the marauding animals, only to have their efforts stopped by the HOA.
Riverstone HOA spokesperson Jaime Villegas said the trapper had been trespassing; adding that corralling and transporting the animals is not the right way to deal with them.
Resident Bianca Calderon de Lachia said the hogs’ nightly raids on Waterside began around two months ago.
“We decided take matters in our own hands because the HOA wasn’t doing anything,” said de Lachia. “These are aggressive animals, they are invasive, dangerous and destructive. They carry diseases and are a threat to our kids.”
Dr. Caridad Martinez, one of the 14 neighbors who hired the trapper, said the animals had dug up her garden and left feces in her front yard. “I hear they bite and a few years ago a woman was killed by them,” she said. “I am scared.”
A woman in Anahuac was killed by feral hogs in 2019, police said at the time. However, attacks by hogs are extremely rare. Experts say the animals are not aggressive toward people unless they feel trapped or injured.
The neighbors said their complaints to the city manager and HOA went unheeded, so they pooled their own resources and hired professional to take care of the problem.
“On our Whatsapp group chat we said, ‘let’s pitch in and hire this hog control guy,” said de Lachia, who believes the hogs come to the neighborhood from the nearby Brazos River. “He sells them to a ranch; there’s no killing and it’ll be done in two weeks.'”
Trapping is a 2-week process
The neighbors hired Edward Dickey from Texas Wild Hog Control, who spent two weeks observing the hogs and setting a trap. Dickey's night cam footage showed there were 25 pigs; one of them was pregnant.
“It’s a process trapping these hogs because they are extremely intelligent," Dickey said in a phone interview. "I can't just set up the trap right away, I have to condition the hogs to trust the site.”
Dickey was told to stop on the 14th day, approximately seven hours before he intended to have the pigs successfully corralled. “I got a call from the HOA saying I had to pull the trap out, because I didn’t have the HOA’s permission,” said Dickey. “They told me their attorneys thought it was too much of a liability to have a trap on community property.”
Dickey, who has been hunting hogs since his teens and professionally trapping and transporting them for five years, said he had been appointed by other HOAs and MUD districts to deal with the same problem.
The Riverstone HOA’s views on the hogs appear to be at odds with those of the residents.
“We’ve worked with different agencies to find a solution to this problem because it affects everybody,” said Villegas. “According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, wild hogs are not considered dangerous.”
The Riverstone HOA’s website advises homeowners to leave the hogs alone, stating that setting traps might inadvertently injure children and pets. The HOA says the bait could attract wildlife and more hogs to the area.
“It creates potential liability for everyone involved,” the website says. “If a claim results in a suit against the HOA, a claims history is created thereby resulting in increased premiums which directly impacts the amount of the assessments paid by owners and the HOA’s ability to obtain insurance in the future.”
Miles of fencing and sprinklers
“When a resident reports a pig issue, we try to find an access point,” said Villegas. “We have miles of fencing around Riverstone that we've installed to keep these wild animals out of the community. So, if there's an access point that was damaged that these hogs have found, we can send someone to deal with that.”
The Riverstone HOA has advised residents to install motion sensors and sprinklers to deter the animals, a move which Dickey says would have the opposite effect on the moisture-seeking pigs during the current drought.
$3K in damage
De Lachia said all Riverstone homeowners are expected to keep their yards looking beautiful.
“They did around $3,000 worth of damage,” she said, waving a hand at an uprooted flowerbed. “The hog guy said eventually the pigs are going to get so comfortable, they’ll start coming out during the day. We have to incur those costs and irrigation damage…we would like a response or at least not be stopped when we try to fix the issue ourselves. We're not trying to do anything illegal.”
De Lachia, Martinez and the other residents spent around $3,800 on the endeavor.
“I'm hoping to hear from their lawyers,” De Lachia said. “I don't want money. I don't want anything. I just want to continue our efforts to capture these hogs and help alleviate the problem.”