Finally lost it with neighbours

[FinnalyCracked]

There’s four houses on the close - and none for miles (converted country barns - hence the being so close together and yet nothing for miles).

Neighbour A has three cats and all are outdoor cats. Me and Neighbour B have dogs. Neighbour C is irrelevant to this pet debacle.

Neighbours A’s cats, since they moved in, have constantly shit in everyone’s garden. Don’t come at me and tell me it’s not them as the closest village is six miles and no one else has sodding cats!! They sit on the garage and hiss at anyone who goes by and are, quite frankly, obnoxious.

I’ve bitten my tongue but neighbour Cs and B have not. Neighbour B has taken much delight in having their dogs chase the cats off. Neighbour C has invested in barbed wire and other such things to keep the cats out

Yesterday, neighbour A knocked on my door and asked me to call my dogs in as they were ‘destroying her enjoyment of her garden.’ I was very polite - but very firm - and told her to fuck off (not quite that frank, but you get the idea). I’d just finished work, so the dogs had been inside with me so they’d been out about five minutes when she appeared. She launched into a a bit of a diatribe about how B and I have been ruining her summers for years now with our dogs barking and running around.

I snapped. Said her cats constantly shit in my garden and I had to pick it up as I had small children and that her fucking hot tub was obnoxiously loud, so was their music and their shitheaps of cars (her partner always has a rotation of them that he tinkers with) all over the driveway lowered the tone and created exhaust fumes, and that if I ever saw her cats in my garden again I’d be taking a leaf out of neighbour Bs book and setting my dogs on them. Then I told her not to come onto my property again and slammed the door in her face.

It’s a first world problem, I know. But I am just so fucking sick of biting my tongue and being a good neighbour )including taking her fucking parcels) and she has the bloody gall to tell me my dogs can’t be in the garden, as their playing ‘ruins her enjoyment.’

WHAT ABOUT MY FUCKING ENJOYMENT, DEBBIE?!?!

That’s it. That’s all I wanted (just a place to rant)

Would you feel the same way if your pet chased and got hold of a neighbour's budgie or hamster and killed it?

You'd fully support them if they shot your pet, so that it would have been the last thing it ever did?

Most pets can be annoying or antisocial - even dangerous - but cat owners do often tend to see their own pet through rose-tinted glasses that they would never dream of extending to other non-feline pets.

😅

Regardless of legalities, one person's choice to own a cat means someone else will very often have to deal with its shit in their garden. That's always seemed a bit inconsiderate to me. Just like not picking up after your dog is inconsiderate.

Of course a dog can be out of control in its own garden. Do you not follow the news about all the people bitten and killed by their dogs/neighbours dogs in their own garden/house.

Obviously a cat is not a person but purposely setting up a dog against a cat with the purpose of injuring it, is still illegal as is setting up any animal against another - eg cock fighting, dog fighting etc. It doesn't matter where it takes place.

There is zero evidence any cat has ever smothered a baby. That is an old wives tale.

Well done! A dog letting off a little bit of steam in its own garden, briefly, is not a nuisance, no more than a child playing outside and shouting/laughing.
Cats constantly shitting in someone else’s garden is a nuisance, as is someone interrupting your evening to tell you off for something so bloody minor! Debbie can get over herself.

A quick google shows that it has happened sadly. The poster claimed no cat had ever killed a person. That is untrue.

@FinnalyCracked Collect up a weeks worth of the cat shit wrap it in newspaper. Put the package on the neighbour's doorstep, set it alight then ring the doorbell and run off.

YABU to use her actual name !!
YABU to be SO rude to her and smug about said rudeness - it is not big or clever !!
you live in the countryside in converted barns ? The cats are probably assisting with keeping the rodents away and if it wasnt cat shit it would be fox shit !!
blimey you cut out for country life ? Or life with neighbours ?????

I have a friend with a lightning fast Jack Russell that's killed several cats (amongst many other creatures). It's acting on instinct. Taking a shotgun to it would only leave you with a very expensive court case to deal with.

Not a bit of it.

I walk my dogs in the local park. The dog walkers are all really sociable and stop to chat with one another while the dogs meet and greet.

I have to say, I'm quite amused at the cat posters' hysteria at the op saying she would set the dogs on the cats. Unless her dogs are very unusual, setting the dogs on the cats will result in the dogs chasing the cats out of the garden and nothing else. Any self-respecting cat can deal with the average dog if they get too close.

A neighbour's cat used to come round to us to get my dogs to chase her. She would yowl at the door until I let them out, run half-way down the garden and then stop and stare at them. They used to be very confused because the cat wasn't following the rules of the game which required it to run while the dogs chased. I was quite fond of that cat.

I'm with op - cat shit is horrendous. And the majority of cat owners just shrug and say "well, nothing I can do". If you won't do anything about your cat shitting in my garden, I won't do anything about my dogs chasing your cat out of my garden. I know they won't harm the cat but they will deter it from hanging around.

This is what happens when agricultural land is commandeered for vanity housing.

There are lots of products that deter cats, coffee grinds for instance. Cats don’t tend to poo where it is visible. They do it in flower beds and bury it. If you are finding poo in the open it will most likely be fox poo.

I hate cats.

Yep. I really don't get the fuss over cat shit, it's not that bad for goodness sake, and it breaks down. Do these people fuss over bird and wildlife shit, too? Do they stop their kids from going out in the garden and playing in bird shit-laden soil? Such precious snowflakes.

I love cats.

There are loads of things you can do to protect a garden from cat poo. Have you actually tried to mitigate or have you just sat there fulminating, OP?

When we got kittens in our first house we bought tubs of garlic cat-repellent for our near neighbours to discourage the kittens from crapping in the flower borders, and netted over the vegetable patch. Citronella, eucalyptus, mint and citrus also worked.

Cats will use the most comfortable convenient place as a litter tray. Unless they are permanently inside, that’s just going to happen. If you make things less comfortable and convenient, they’ll find somewhere else.

Yes, it would be wonderful if pets didn’t crap, make noise or inconvenience others. But we live in the real world. Give and take and a bit of tolerance from all the neighbours would be a lot more helpful than all this Team Dog, Team Cat, ‘lowering the tone’ bullshit.

How in the world is your neighbour supposed to control where her cats do their business? It sounds like neighbour A is being bullied by you and the other neighbours. Now if you wanted to complain about the hot tub noise then that’s another matter.
I’m feeling so glad for my current neighbours right now.

Why do posters continue with this sort of rubbish? Cats are quite happy to poo wherever the mood takes them - they don't always bury it (and even when they do it's disgusting finding it when you're gardening) and often do it on lawns or on the top of flower beds. Why the hell should your neighbours have to spend time and money keeping your cats from shitting in their gardens?

Why do these threads always descend into a hatred for cats? Its bizarre. Just ignore and go about your business, you don't need to turn into a raving psycho.

Animals defecate - all animals - birds, rats, squirrels, foxes - are you going to cover your home with a dome to keep everything out? Plus you've moved to the countryside - more wildlife.

Team dog here! Neighbours have 4 bloody cats, round the corner has 5. It's a battle ground of cats in my garden so I do allow my dogs to chase them out of my flower beds.
Sick of picking up someone else's pets shit! I know the law says cats can roam and dogs must be under control.
In my garden, it's fair play. My dogs are experts at chasing the herds of cats away!
OP, ywnbu.

Not read the whole thread but I’ve got to chime in and say how much I hate cats shitting in everyone’s garden. I’ve got a small dog who has a penchant for eating it and trying to remove cat shit from a garden whilst pregnant and suffering with Hyperemesis before being able to let my dog out in the morning to pee used to push me over the edge 😂

Team dog.

My neighbours cats shit in my garden and as a result, I literally cannot use my own garden. It's too small so it's not possible to get far enough from the flowerbed because it smells like a fucking... ugh. It's just disgusting.

It's vile. I've tried everything to make them stop including water pistols, spiky plastic mats, and chilli flakes. Nothing works and now I'm going to have to move if I want a garden I can actually use.

so you're ok with dogs being noisy and rowdy ( barking and annoying the hell out of the neighbours)

Whatever the situation threatening to "set your dogs" on someone's cats is bang out of order however annoyed you were. I can't believe you and another neighbour think this sort of behaviour with dogs is OK.
If the cat neighbour threatened to poison your dogs if they killed her cats how would you feel?
I lived beside a nightmare neighbour for many years before I couldn't take it any more and moved. One of the things that worried me most is that he would harm my cat. Lay off the threats, simply not helpful and borderline illegal.