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)

Why did you quote the whole of the OP? Yours was literally the first answer!

Sounds like there may be a
degree of fault on both sides. I like dogs and cats (I have neither), but I don’t appreciate barking or cat poo in my garden. I also wouldn’t like scrap cars, loud music or a noisy hot tub. On balance I would say your neighbour is being more annoying than you tbh. She may not be able to stop her cats from roaming but needs to sort out the cars and unnecessary noise.

If your dogs are genuinely only barking
very occasionally and not at
unsociable hours or for prolonged periods then I don’t see a big issue. Shame you lost your shit though. That’s hard to come
back from and is likely to escalate the issue.

Pretty sure barking in their own garden doesn’t constitute’out of control’ 🙄

Sad lonely cat lady incoming….
complete rubbish

You left out the perfectly sensible cat people.?!!

Yes, I did, didn’t I? 😏

Boring jibe, stupid stereotype!!!

How is she incorrect then??

Barking for 6 hours sure. But a bit of barking is normal and acceptable

multiple broken cars, loud music and cat shit is never ok

I have a dog and a cat so like both. My neighbours have 2 crazy spaniels that are let out when my neighbours come home and they run around the garden playing and barking for a few minutes- they’re just letting off steam.

Yes cats can roam and they might shit in your garden-just remove it. But dogs are allowed to have fun- as long as it doesn’t go on for ages I don’t see it as a problem.

Dogs barking is not anti social nor is it noise nuisance. Dogs barking for ages or repeatedly is anti social.

I’m surprised by how much anti-OP there is here. OP didn’t say her dogs were barking or out of control, merely playing. It is not OP who sets her dogs on them, or has barbed wire.
OP ignore all the haters here. They haven’t read the post correctly.
quite frankly I admire that you stood up for yourself and refused to be bossed around in your own land when you’ve been basically minding your own business.
Qualification: Owner of cats and a dog. And a good neighbour to mostly good neighbours and one family of obnoxious family.

Wow, well done DogsandFlowers you managed to use a trope that Trump and his misogynist lackeys used to try to denigrate women during their election campaign. On a predominately female site. Read the room and maybe hold back on the lazy stereotypes?

Charming.

Speaks volumes doesn't it...

I feel like you and your neighbours are the problem. Not the cat lady. Barbed wire, setting dogs on cats and leaving your dogs to bark? I'd be reporting you all. Disgusting behaviour.

@FinnalyCracked missing the point of the thread entirely, but I also have GSDs. They make noise when they play (sound like they're ripping each other to shreds) and my youngest barks when excited, so when I get home from work or if someone they've not seen for a while walks up the garden . That's it. I have no idea how GSDs have the reputation for barking that they do! 😂

Lots of entitled cat owners on here.
and you can fuck off with the “Just pick it up” comments when it comes to cat crap.

My neighbours almost pushed me to a mental breakdown when their 8 cats kept crapping all over my front and back gardens and I had to keep disposing of it whilst pregnant and aware of the potential damage cat crap could cause me.

That said, I’m not on the OP’s side either.
Dogs barking are bloody annoying, but then I’m not a dog lover and don’t think they should be pets, they’re a general nuisance.

All of you and your pets are annoying.

I'm always surprised hearing people on here talking about cats shitting in gardens. I'm not a big fan of cats but there are a lot of cats where my parents live, not in the UK. Plus they have them themselves, and I can't remember once finding cat shit in the garden. There was even a stray living in there garage for years.

But there are no foxes where my parents live. Where I live now we have foxes and I'm constantly finding fox shit in the garden. It looks a lot like cat shit but more disgusting. I do wonder if a lot of people on here are confusing the cat shit for fox shit.

Story of my life!! It’s literally five minutes, isn’t it? They go 100000mph when they play, and then about five minutes later conk out on their back with their legs in the air (usually tangled up together)

Could your DP/DH not have done that? My DH did our cats' litter trays when I was pregnant. I don't think cat shit would do any harm unless you stuck your fingers in it. I use a scoop for the litter trays.

8 cats is a LOT though! Though having been told as a cat lover to fuck off I don't know why I am giving you any sympathy!

"Entitled cat owners" isn't a very nice thing to say. I'm certainly not one. My cats have never crapped in a neighbour's garden because they're indoor, but they are only indoor because they are happy to be. I don't think anyone can contain a cat that desperately wants to go out.

We hardly had any cats in our garden when we had our indoor/outdoor boy. He was way down the pecking order in the street but the back garden was his territory and the other cats didn't breach it. Out the front was a different story...

This, totally. Oh, and setting them on the cats? Yeah, that basically means they might run down the garden after them, if they can be bothered!! 😂

I feel for neighbour D, frankly. A, B and C all sound batshit

You all sound like equally obnoxious and inconsiderate people. I feel sorry for neighbour D.

Once upon a time, our neighbor's very large tomcat not only tormented our new puppy but stalked and killed ducklings in our yard from the lake we all lived on. For awhile, we also had a problem raccoon. Animal Control gave us a cage to bate and capture him. Guess who was in the cage one morning. Before I opened the cage to let him out, I walked over to the bulkhead and dunked him a couple of times. He ran home and never bothered coming back. Get a hose.

Solution #2 was for a large dog often roaming free. My neighbor and I noticed some of our shrubs dieing from him relieving himself on them and large piles of do-do. Chasing him away did no good; he was always back another day, and no one knew who owned him. One day as I worked in the yard, there was our visitor taking his daily dump. This time though I didn't shoo him; I coaxed him to me. Once I got a good handle on him, I picked up that pile and rubbed it in really good from head to tail. Never saw that dog again.

Before I get harped on for my solutions, I'm actually a very nice person who would never cause permanent harm to an animal. It's the owners I wanted to send a message to.

I doubt if many people would not understand the problem.

It's a typical English insanity that with so much space around you, four houses are crammed next to one another.
If you take a trip out to the wash area of East Anglia, you will see thousands of acres of flat land. Criss-crossing that land are very straight roads with a small strip of land along side them and then the drainage ditches that stretch across the wash to keep it drained. These are the only pieces of land that are totally unsuitable to build a home on. A house would have a road immediately outside the front and a drainage ditch slightly behind it. They are also the only places where house construction is allowed..........

I always think “oh here we go” when someone mentions cats vs dogs as there are a lot of dog haters on mumsnet. I personally love cats and dogs and have grown up with both. Cat poo is annoying and we get it from neighbours cats in our garden, but our dog poos in the garden so we just pick it all up each morning. It’s hard to stop cats pooing in others gardens and I do think cats shouldn’t be locked in the house, it’s no life for an animal like that. However, the number of people saying that a dog barking is a nuisance and has legal recuperations 🙄 - excessive dog barking is, but a dog having an excited bark as it’s let out or every now and again, well I’ll wait to see the council that does anything about that since I’ve seen dogs left outside to bark through the night and council nor animal rescue wanting to do anything about it. Sounds like a lot of people in this thread need to get some of the perspective they are asking the OP to have. Anyway OP love your attitude to some of the responses - it’s made me giggle whilst I sit hear with noise cancelling headphones due to my neighbours party music