The two men bought the 4-acre property for its view of waterfalls near Pukihae Stream. After signing the deal, they visited at night and found “screaming frogs” and a neighborhood “populated by drug dealers and hookers,” according to a story in Courthouse News.

The real estate contract also included a “frog pest alert” but the buyers “didn’t realize what made coqui frogs a pest, the story said.

According to Courthouse News:

“Instead of being in an area ‘where one could hear the flow of water falls and a stream … all one could hear is the sound of dying and tortured animals (which is the sound of the frogs occupying the area) and [the property] was in a neighborhood where drug dealers and prostitutes frequented,’” according to the amended complaint, filed in 2007 in the Third Circuit. 

The men said the broker warned them of frogs that croaked all night, but they took that to mean “chirping little frogs.” But the broker produced the pest disclosure which said, in part, “The noise from a group of frogs can exceed 70 decibels, rivaling the sound of a lawnmower or chainsaw.”

Read much more about this case here.