Neighbour just rung doorbell at 2.30am!

Even if she does have anxiety - so what. People have enough to deal with in their own lives, families, workplaces etc without picking up responsibility for the mental health of randoms. It’s not like she was in MH crisis, she was just anxious about a cat.

Because she didn’t actually need any “help”. She needed to go back to her house and get a fucking grip! This was not a situation requiring help in any way.

Yes, she’s overly anxious. But I just can’t imagine leaving someone in that state when I’m already out of bed.
The point is, you're only out of bed because she rang the doorbell. It's like being woken up by the phone in the middle of the night, and answering "I was already awake". I have some sympathy, having had cats, but I think I'd have waited until a more reasonable hour before disturbing neighbours.

We had an older cat who broke his leg when trying to escape by climbing when trapped. I'm sure this neighbour wouldn't have come ringing the bell at 2:30am needlessly. She was clearly upset and the cat was likely distressed. Have a bit of compassion. Some of these comments are just heartless and cruel.

I’m not doing it under any kind of Be Kind mantra. I’m just imagining myself in the position of opening my door and seeing someone crying there because they felt their cat was in some sort of danger.

Yes, she’s overly anxious. But I just can’t imagine leaving someone in that state when I’m already out of bed.

Is that ‘be kind’ or just what you do when someone is clearly in mental distress? There really are a lot of cold people on this thread. Yes, the distress was disproportionate. But it’s not for us or the OP, whatever her experience with young adults, to mentally unpack why someone responds that way and if I was going to go to the effort of writing her a fucking letter, it would be gently suggesting that she have a chat with her GP.

Side note - I also can’t imagine it being my job to work with young adults and not use that training in the moment. You support them through it by letting them into your garden to get their cat and then you check in on them the next day re speaking to their GP. Even if it’s 2.30 in the morning. Because actually, it isn’t the ‘kind’ thing to do to leave her out there crying her eyes out. It isn’t the right thing to leave someone in a vulnerable state in order not to ‘pander’ to her. 2.30am
and crying your eyes out isn’t the time to learn to sit with discomfort, and it’s not our job to teach that anyway. 2.30 in the morning is a time when perspective cannot be sought, you cannot self soothe on the street in floods of tears. On what planet do we not help someone in floods of tears because we don’t judge that those tears are proportional? It’s such a clear expression of low mental health. It’s when we should, actually, BE KIND.

I understand the OP’s resentment but not helping someone in the middle of a mental health wobble is just wild to me.

For goodness sake, catch yourself on.

Also pandering to someone being utterly neurotic and ridiculous under the mantra of “be kind” does them no favours, in my humble opinion. She’s clearly overly anxious but pandering it to by going on a fool’s errand searching for a cat in the dark that’s just out on a normal cat nocturnal wander won’t help her the next time she gets overly anxious about something quite commonplace and every day. Sometimes people really do need to learn to sit with a bit of discomfort for a while and see that the world don’t fall in, to help themselves learn to manage that anxiety. Insisting that others rush to help all the time because someone ‘is anxious’ doesn’t help in the long run. What about the next time, and the next time. It’s not a normal reaction on the neighbour’s part, and maybe she should take steps to manage that, rather than all the people insisting this should somehow be the OP’s problem to help with just because she’s crying = so be kind.

No unless the cat had been missing or is injured its is mad to ring the door bell at that time.

This cat wasn't coming to its name though, was it, it was happily chilling in OPs garden ignoring its owner.

So why would it come to OP if not its owner?

You’ll be waiting a long time, it was me who mentioned Karma, not @Didimum !! And not in the context of wishing punishment on anyone, or ‘striking OP down’, but simply that generally what goes around comes around.

Neither myself nor this poster have said that the neighbours’ behaviour was reasonable - of course it wasn’t, or that OP had no right to be annoyed - of course she did. I was simply pointing out that the cat is not the issue here. The issue is a young girl so upset as to be in tears in the middle of the night, and OP not being able to see past her own annoyance enough to help.

OP has since posted that she does have empathy and has tried to reach out to the neighbour with a letter, and has also backtracked somewhat on what she said in her first post - in which the anger and frustration are palpable, and understandably so, but that doesn’t change the fact that people coming to the thread and engaging are reacting mainly to that post, which showed no empathy for the girls’ situation at all.

I’m done with this thread. The few posters who have tried to advocate for the neighbour have been jumped on by the majority smug in their healthy ‘me first’ boundaries and some of the comments in reply have bordered on personal insult. This isn’t the first time l’ve hoped that MN isn’t a microcosm of the attitudes of wider society and it probably won’t be the last.

Has anyone considered that maybe the neighbour’s cat was trying to get away for a reason? Maybe the cat was done with the neighbour’s neuroticism as well.

Blagg her - be relieved that it was ONLY the cat that had escaped > NOT the <insert some name
(false widow spider)

>

But that's what outdoor cats do so there was no need to disturb anyone or cry about it. I'd help if there was an actual emergency but this wasn't it and crying about it doesn't change that.

Sleeping probably means a lot to her neighbours.

Somehow I had read all of OP's posts but missed the update about 5am and about the letter.

Definitely sounds like the owner who has anxiety and not the cat!

@Bloozie it's a CAT. A CAT. The neighbour's cat managed to get itself onto the OP's property, it could have easily have got itself back to its own house and garden. It didn't need rescuing.

The owner couldn’t get it because it wasn’t on her property.

OP, I’ve had cats all my life and I have 3 cats now. All 3 come to their name.

It’s not like I think the neighbour is reasonable. Far from it. Like I said, her behaviour is not good. But she was crying on the doorstep at 2.30am. I’d have got the cat.

I might have posted here to say, my batshit neighbour did this AIBU to think she’s batshit? Because it IS batshit. But I’d have got her cat - or tried to - because it clearly meant a lot to her. She’s out at 2.30am, and crying. I’d try to help.

Ha ha yes! 😆

Unknown woman knocking at 2.30 am with a weird story about her cat? I don’t think my first impulse will be to stay polite and help her. And I love cats.

OP it was great that you wrote her a letter back explaining how cat’s world works. She clearly needed some home truths about cats and how to be a good neighbour.

Calling us miserable people hating, stone cold hearted zombies is certainly an interesting choice of compliment!

So much irony in their posts isn't there? They can't see it though. It's quite bizarre. Preaching the #BeKind mantra, whilst being anything but that themselves!

😆

Let's face it, @DotAndCarryOne2 and @Didimum know OP's mind and her neighbour's far more than OP does. That must explain their tenacity at showing no empathy for OP and tying themselves in knots trying and failing to prove that she is somehow lying.
Really OP should have just asked them to tell the story from the outset, although she'd probably have had to ring their doorbells at 3:15am to do so. I'm sure they'd have been all helpful and happy for the opportunity.

Telling someone woken at an ungodly hour to be kind to a madwoman needlessly neurotic about her cat!!!!!!

Cats are nocturnal animals. They wander into other people’s gardens if you let them out of your house.

Your neighbour is a full idiot. I would go round there at 6am and tell her so and say if she ever dares to wake you again for such a stupid stupid reason, you will call the police.

Just reading your post makes me fume. YANBU in any way @greywolfie

If the owner can't manage to get it, how on earth would a stranger? Especially half asleep in the dark?

Also, when would OP be allowed to actually sleep?