ABSTRACT

The word ‘nuisance’ is used in popular speech to mean any source of inconvenience or annoyance, but the tort of nuisance has a more restricted scope and not every inconvenience or annoyance is actionable. Nevertheless, this tort ‘has become a catch-all for a multitude of ill-assorted sins’,1 such as the emission of noxious fumes from a factory, the crowing of cocks in the early hours of the morning, the obstruction of a public highway, the destruction of a building through vibrations, and the interference with a right of access to private property. The remedies available to one who complains of a nuisance are:

(a) damages; (b) an injunction to restrain further nuisance; and (c) abatement.