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)

"lowered the tone"? Seriously?

Hyacinth Bucket lives!

Brilliant well done 😂
some people just need to be told.
That said I have 2 cats and I can’t help where they go to the toilet.

If you hadn’t mentioned dogs you’d have got different responses OP. No one wants cats shitting in their garden, loud music coming from neighbouring houses or someone revving and working on cars next door but you have a dog so your complaints are invalid.

How can people tell apart cat shit from foxes, badgers and other wild life shit? Cats are known to be private about where they do their business, foxes much less so. You losing your cool is not going to help relations in anyway. Be prepared for them to give even less a shit then they did before -excuse the punt!

its going to be a fun neighbourhood to live in now, isn’t it?!

It was most likely fox shit op can't tell the difference

WTAF?! 😂

No cats round here (or their shit). No wonder I’m always having to fish fucking mice out of my tea.

Check the noise regulations where you live. If she’s making noise outside these times report her to the council. Get a water sprayer set on movement and have it active when you and dogs are inside. This will deter the cats from shitting in your garden.

You come across really badly in this, OP.

You pretty much threatened to have your dogs kill her cats. Nice.

mental

It's like cat owner bingo here.

They don't always bury their shit. My neighbour's cat shits in my lawn - I've seen the bastard do it.

Fox poo and cat poo are distinctively different and if there are cats next door then the law of averages suggests it will be the cats.

Cats might have a right to roam in the law but that doesn't make it ok. Tax avoidance is also legal.

Cats kill millions of birds annually. They are pests.

I don't understand some of the comments on here. Just because cats are allowed by law to roam, doesn't mean that finding their shit in your garden isn't disgusting. We had neighbours with four cats for a while. The neighbours themselves were lovely people but it was so great when they moved and I wasn't finding shit all over my garden.

Where did the op say that?

This! Couldn't care less about the petty argument, wtf is the Debbie shit about? Casual sexist ageism?

Hand the cats a shovel and tell them to clean their own mess up

Cat owners will do anything to get out of taking responsibility for their pets. YANBU OP cat shit is disgusting.

Not sure why you think your dogs are less of a problem than her cats?

It's all very tit for tat

So you have what sounds like a lovely rural setting and a wanker tinkering with old wrecks and a hot tub. Lowering the tone is absolutely right.
I hate dogs barking but can live with it if it's not constant.
My dh watches Escape to the Country and they're always showing barn conversions in a lovely setting with 3 or 4 homes and I always think "no way, what if the neighbours are wankers?" you were right to tell her.

And yet the OP has dogs - who also have to shit!

And just to add, the people who moved in next have a barky dog. I'd much rather that next door than cats who come into my garden to shit.

What will they do? What do I, as a cat owner, go out of my way to do to 'not take responsibility' for them?

You sound like you’ve got unnecessarily aggressive and wound up about all this, to the point where it’s made you behave a bit crazily. It’s a cheek to complain about her cats but disregard any nuisance that your dogs could be causing? There’s really very little cat owners can do to prevent their cats shitting where they want, unless they keep them inside. Which would be a shame given that you live in what sounds like a nice rural area, probably teaming with wildlife that shits all over your garden often without you realising.

Anyway given that you all live in close proximity of each other quite remotely, in the spirit of being neighbourly I’d probably just tone down the aggression and chill a bit. It’s unforgivable to threaten to set your dogs or otherwise deliberately cause harm to her cats. That’s definitely a you problem.

Oh and almost all cats are obnoxious, it’s part of their charm.

I mean, were you dogs barking? Because that is annoying.

But car owners are just obnoxious in general with their general entitled attitude, to purchase a “pet” which they happily allow to shit everywhere, and that’s without the torment they unleash on the local wildlife. I find it quite sad they choose to live in the deepest countryside and then bring a load of cats to romp down the songbirds. I’d be chucking all her cat shit back over the fence from now on and investing in one of those sonic devices.

It’s a tricky problem. I too have neighbours cats shitting in my garden and killing wild birds too sadly. I have cat proofed my fence - legally but they still get in. I have a dog. He chases them if he sees them. He also barks. Not non stop though so not a noise nuisance.

I haven’t had a full on row with neighbours but I am sure they don’t appreciate my dog chasing their cats but tough….keep them out of my garden then.