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)

Team cat!

Dogs are repulsive animals, and the noise they create is a nuisance. All dogs bark, of course. But owners seem to think their stinky germ breath furry nuisances are allowed to bark as much as they want. The law says otherwise.

Cats are clean, and keep vermin at bay. Living as rurally as you do, they are probably doing you a massive service in keeping rats and mice away.

You and the other dog neighbour sound like the problem here. Especially as you seem to have a stick up your arse about the cars.

As someone who's had a nightmare neighbour for a while - scurrilous claiming of bits of our property, resulting in the near loss of a sale, and even after admitting fault and signing a boundary agreement continuing to tell all and sundry that we've stolen his land (urgh), and coming round and swearing at and threatening us - this has cheered me up no end.

Not just us who have neighbour problems! Although in this case you all seem pretty out of control. Time for some mediation. Can the pet free neighbour instigate this?

Cats are legally free roamers. Dogs are not.

There's a cat that's doing my head in at the moment. It either leaves a steaming pile on the gravel right in front of my front door, or in its favoured part of my borders. I love cats but I hate this one.

But I'd far rather that then barking dogs. Noise that you have no control over is the worst. And some dogs barks safe really intense and you can't ignore them.

Live and let live. Maybe get a hot tub - they are tonnes of fun.
You can't really avoid noise or shit in this world.

This

its never worth starting a feud with neighbours but it sounds like you just have

Barking dogs drive me mad, there’s no need, tell your dogs to stop.
Her cats are stopping all the mice, they have actual use. Your dogs do not.

Cats in law have a right to roam, dogs have to be kept under control and if she complained to someone, you’d be the one who has to change their behaviour, not her.

How is a dog running around in its own garden not under control? Are you really saying that a dog shouldn't be allowed to use its own garden, because a cat wants to use it as well as its own garden (and potentially every other garden)?

I also don't get the suggestions that it's most probably fox poo rather than cat poo. How very strange for all the local foxes to have been pooing elsewhere for all of this time, but now suddenly deciding to start pooing in OP's garden immediately following several cats moving in next door!

Imagine living there!

Barking dogs are a far worse nuisance than hot tub noise and animals crapping outside.

I’m team cat. Yappy dogs are the worst.

If you had threatened to set your dog on my cats I’d report you to the police.

Sounds like you are both problematic neighbours. Owners can’t really help where cats shit but letting your dogs bark continuously can be helped and would also drive me insane.

you can buy cat deterrent things for the garden.

I wouldn't actually do that, you could end up in big trouble - https://uk.news.yahoo.com/stalker-posted-dead-mouse-ex-154315679.html

Feeling very sorry for neighbour C with everyone's insufferable pets barking and likely shitting in their garden too.

This, I'm team cat.

I don’t have any pets so no skin in this game but barking dogs are objectively far, far worse than roaming cats, even if they do leave droppings. I can deal with the latter myself by popping a few plants down.

Is there scope now you have expressed your frustrations and they have expressed theirs to have a "we have to live next to each other how can we move forward to both our benefit" talk. Preferably with tea/cake/wine/beer/bbq and other neighbours.

To answer a few questions:

Neighbour is actually called Debbie - it was not an insult. Her name is Debbie.

Dogs do not really bark, other than when they are playing together. So it's for a few minutes, perhaps twice a day. They don't bark if someone comes up the drive for example. Annoyingly, they were actually bought because their breed is known for being protective of their property and barking and, their lack of barking is a constant source of frustration to me. God knows what she'd do if I got a Dachshund, although...

As it is, my dogs don't shit in my garden - I have children and I think dog poo in a garden is disgusting. No excuse for it. So I REALLY object to picking up he cats poo. But I will be tossing it back over now.

Yes, I lost my rag. But I have put up with a lot from Debbie. SIX YEARS OF IT!!!! The cars are the real issue tbh - they stay there for weeks on end, with jacks under them (tyres missing) and are all barely road worthy. When you live in the middle of the countryside you do not want your nice, private, road/driveway congested with cars that should have been crushed years ago. But asking me to silence my dogs, who had already stopped playing by the time she stalked up my driveway, was the icing on the cake.

This. I'd do time for you.

Sounds worse than Brookside (showing my age there!)

Why on earth did you feel the need to quote the whole OP. You are the first person to answer.. 🧐😬 totally baffling!

I'm with you OP...hate the fact that people have cats and they go around crapping everywhere, but it's socially acceptable. Well I'd do everything in my power to deter them from my garden too.

As a non pet owner I hate having to remove poo from around my house.

Your dogs, your garden who cares if they're having a chat.

Well, that was embarrassing for you. Making assumptions and quoting the OP’s post in the same first post.

I bet this felt so good to get off your chest 😂

Debbie? Is this the new Karen? You sound utterly bonkers. Cats have right to roam. Get a decent humane deterrent and live with it.

Also, cats are far superior to dogs.