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)

I live in the middle of a field,water on 3 sides and field and drive on the other!
My nearest neighbours (only two properties) are 1 mile away (its a long drive) This information is given so you know why its feckin wonderful not to have close neighbours🫣😁

My point is that it is obviously not acceptable to leave dog poo so why would it be any more acceptable to expect people to be accepting of cat poo.

And yes, cat poo is dangerous too.

Any self respecting cat is more than capable of dealing with the average dog.

And no, not all cats poo at the sides.

How are you supposed to do that? Make the cats wear nappies? Go round every day to all your neighbours and asked if your cat has shat in their garden that day, and if they believe it has, provide proof that it was actually your cat not someone else's??

If one of my cats produced the giant shit some dogs do, I'd have them straight to the vet!!

I've literally come across two cats that behaved like that in my entire lifetime of having cats and witnessing the neighbours' cats. Maybe they'd do it if they felt threatened by a dog but the two I'm talking about were aggressive towards humans. Cats will normally run if chased. They're not aggressive at all. They will defend themselves from attack though, quite rightly!

You can act like a responsible cat owner (very rare) and cat proof your garden to prevent them getting out.

You can make your garden more attractive to poo in.

If you're not willing to be responsib, then don't have one.

You sound like a bit of a nightmare. Also, if your neighbour were to see this post, it would be evidence of intent to damage property (which cats legally are). Good luck

I have 2 dogs, my neighbour has 2 cats. The cats are not remotely scared of the dogs (a giant breed). They come in the front garden and sunbathe on our recycling bins and know the dogs can't hurt them, as they are always on a lead on their way in or out. They don't dare come in the back garden where the dogs roam free. Anyway, my neighbours tolerate a bit of barking (really only once a day when they are excited about going for a walk) and I tolerate the cats in the front garden. They do sometimes poo on our path but I just pick it up.

Well maybe you could come up with a method of training cats where to poo. You could patent the idea and you would be worth a fortune!!

Go on then, how would you suggest the owner take responsibility?

Generally because it's impractical and unaffordable. Very limiting too for a cat that likes to roam.

My cat is a small breed which most owners keep indoors, but I think a wholly indoor life is cruel. But they wouldn’t be able to hold their own with normal sized moggies, so at present we have a 3x3 metre pen that we sit in with him. When we are in the garden he has a long lead on a proper harness so he doesn’t strangle himself.

It's not particularly impractical. If you can't afford it, you probably can't afford a pet.

The reality is, most cat owners don't give a shit about upsetting their neighbours. They are just too selfish to solve the problem.

I don't hate dogs but my NDN used to have two of them years back. They barked constantly when the owners were out of the house - and that was all day, when they were at work. I wanted to shoot them too when I was at home on maternity leave! God forgive me but I was relieved when they died. She got cats instead. I'd take a bit of cat shit any day over the barking but they don't seem to fancy my garden as a toilet for some reason!

How did you train her? Genuinely? Though my last guy came to us as a stray. He used to poo in Colin's garden apparently. He didn't poo in ours. We got him neutered so kept him in for a couple of days. He liked his litter tray so much, he'd come in from outside to go. I hadn't intended it to be permanent so took it away and he pee'd on the floor where it had been in protest, so I had to put it back!!

That was down to him though - I really don't know how you would go about training a cat not to poo in gardens?

I agree with you about letting cats out at night. Even the ones I had that had outdoors access were kept in overnight.

Pregnant women are advised to avoid cleaning out litter trays because of this risk.

I would love to have no neighbours (though to be fair, mine are fine for the most part) but I don't want to live anywhere there's no street lights! I was born and raised rurally!

Hard disagree. You can absolutely afford a pet if you can afford its food, insurance, litter, excess charges at the vet, and any ongoing expenses it needs. It doesn't mean you'd have hundreds/thousands of £s to spare on catproofing the garden.

I have a lot of trees in my garden so I think it would be pretty impractical.

It's not about being selfish. Cats roam and cats shite. Well you can't call me selfish because mine are indoors. My NDN totally disagrees with that because she thinks they should be allowed out. We agree to disagree. I love my neighbours' cats visiting my garden (except when they kill a bird!) and I know them all by name and who they belong to.

Ok. I will clarify that to say you can't afford to be a responsible cat owner. Responsible ownership includes ensuring your pet does not cause serious nuisance to your neighbours. Cats shitting in your beighbours' gardens is a serious nuisance.

And yes, it is about being selfish.

As someone who has both a cat and a dog I find other peoples dogs a lot more irritating. My cat doesn’t go beyond my garden and so he is not a nuisance to anyone. I always call my dog in immediately when she barks because listening to neighbours dogs barking away is one of the most irritating things you can hear outside.

so if you’re allowing your dog to bark then your neighbour has a point. Cats shitting in your garden is annoying but I’d actually take that over barking. Maybe I’m in the minority.

I mean no, pets are really important to people, can really help mental health & can help with loneliness & isolation as well as exercise. There's a strong argument for ownership not to be just for people who can afford them. But they're starting to be recognised as a social justice issue. The benefits of having pets is considered to save the NHS & social care thousands a year.

It's a nuisance perhaps but not a "serious nuisance". There's plenty of stray and feral cats out there too, so who's to say they're not shitting in gardens and they don't belong to anyone anyway?

Most people can be reasonable about it. In the 35 years I have been a homeowner, I have never experienced cat shit in my garden at a level I would consider a "nuisance", and I'm a crazy cat lady who welcomes and has welcomed dozens of cats into my garden over the years.

Even when I had my beds freshly mulched a couple of years ago, I only noticed one single cat do a crap in it!

I don't see it as "selfish". It's just cats doing what cats do. What are you going to do about foxes, badgers, rabbits, rats, mice, birds etc shitting in your garden? I think some people over-exaggerate. I wear gardening gloves so if I did encounter some crap it wouldn't be that big a deal!

Have you not heard of a litter tray?
It's unfair for this mother to have to worry about her toddler and her neighbours cat poo. Train the cat to use the litter tray.

In the garden? What a droll suggestion!! Newflash, not all cats with outdoor access go back in to use their litter tray, if they even have one! No, I've never heard of a litter tray. My three indoor cats just go in a corner in the kitchen 🙄

I would be most amused to learn how anyone trains a cat to come in to poo!

As for the toddler, I've had three of them and they managed to survive! At least you can see cat poo. Plenty of other poo you can't! Do you know the proximity of a rat? Give me cat poo any day! The presence of a cat in your garden is likely to deter them too.

Thank you. We did when they finally admitted it 3 months later in a very chatty way. They told us he was run over when it happened and how they'd carried him to our garden! And then didn't understand why we really didn't want to know them.

That's so sad. The horrible bastards. I would never speak to them again. They're scum xx