Frustration over ‘growling’ toilet at Fife Airbnb leads to lawsuit

A lawyer is suing a high-profile couple from Hawaii in a bid to silence a “growling” toilet at their Airbnb flat in Kinghorn.

The case was heard at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.

James Morris, a former partner in law firm Blackadders, claims he and his wife are being kept awake at night by a malfunctioning macerator system at a property rented out by Robert Curran and Jo McGarry-Curran, who lived in Honolulu.

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The couple are well known on the Pacific island, with Mr Curran a high-profile sports broadcaster and his wife a vice-president at an international commercial property firm and a host of restaurant and food industry radio shows.

The dispute centres on a broken Saniflo toilet system in a bathroom in a flat within a former fisherman’s cottage in St Clair’s Entry, Kinghorn.

The Morris’s want an interdict imposed so the system – which is of a type installed where normal plumbing wouldn’t allow and that uses a grinding fan and pump to drain waste away – can no longer be used.

A proof hearing at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard Mr Morris (52), because of the grinding noise, had kept a “detailed” diary of guests arrivals, departures and bathroom habits.

He claimed the “loud mechanical growling” sounded like a motorcycle revving or a chainsaw being started.

Solicitor Andrew McLaughlin, for the Currans, suggested that the detail of the account could be described as “obsessive”.

Sheriff Grant McCulloch continued the proof for further evidence on a date yet to be set.