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)

The woman’s name is Debbie. You dived in with your ‘this is ageist misogyny’ trope when it was actually a fact. Honestly go and get a grip.

Have you unilaterally decided that no more women called Debbie exist then? Someone tell Debbie Harry!

It's perfectly possible to prevent cats from pooing somewhere, as long as you make sure that they can't access that place.

It's just that most cat owners come from a place of assuming that their cat can go wherever it likes, and they somehow can't or shouldn't be expected to enforce any physical boundaries whatsoever.

It's perfectly possible for the neighbour to secure their garden, so that their cat has the free run of it but stays within it. Nobody is suggesting that the cat be forced to stay indoors all the time. They just can't be bothered to, as it's far easier to let their cat stray into the dog's garden next door and complain when the dog has free enjoyment of its own garden.

It seems that the dog is just being expected to give way and not enjoy itself, to compensate for the fact that the cat owner thinks that their pet is naturally the only one that matters.

Meanwhile, you're saying that dog owners can stop their dogs from ever barking - even just for a few minutes (ironically when they do it because a cat has entered their territory). How can you humanely and kindly prevent a dog from ever barking?

Barking dogs and cat poo. I’m glad I don’t live in your close.

This is like some kind of Mumsnet bingo game. If only you'd thrown in a parking problem (with diagram) we'd have a full house.

Definitely shove the shit back to her side!

Where does the OP state the dogs were barking continuously?

Please explain to me how you would report anyone to the police/RSPCA for someones dogs in their own garden chasing cat that shouldnt be there? Wow i would love to hear that conversation. Mr Police officer, someones dog has just chased my cat out of their garden. hahahahaha

Do you really need it explained again? Genuinely?

Why would she bother complaining if it's not a nuisance? 🤷‍♀️

That is not what I, not the other PPs who objected, meant.
Happy now you've had your little dig?

Cat are pets for lazy people

What. The. Hell.

This has got to be one of the strangest things I've ever read on MN 😂

Omg, I bet you felt amazing after finally giving her a piece of your mind!

Scuse me? Statutory nuisance?

You and the one other poster who objected seem to be blithely ignoring the fact that the neighbour’s actual name is Debbie.

I thought you would be happy after all your dogs at the OP.

Edit: digs not dogs. 😂

Urgh barking dogs are the worst. You can deter cata quite easily with various things. Tou can't shut up your neighbours dog.
Barbed wire is a bit mental😂
This sounds like a horrible settlement to live in.

Please do not spray water at them!

Some of these responses are ‘barking’
I live in a cul de sac and between us we have dogs, cats, car repairs, no hot tubs but a garden swimming pool with noisy children.
I am sure that all of us are bothered by noise and nuisance at times, but none of us expect silence from dogs or cats to be contained.
I am home most of the time and my dog is normally only in the garden for a few minutes at a time.

If a cat decides to come in the garden when he’s out he will probably chase it. I don’t encourage him, but I’m not going to keep him on a lead in his own garden.
Fortunately the cat owning neighbours are fairly laid back, accepting that whilst their cats are exercising their right to roam the rest of the world doesn’t stop for them, and the non cat owners pragmatically clear up the cat shit in their gardens.
Unless we live on an estate deserted island we probably have to accept that we are going to cause some nuisance to our neighbours, and them us.

Its absolutely true. I was a cat owner and they are for people who want all the love with hardly any effort. They clean themselves. They exercise themselves. They often feed themselves (Killing and begging other cat owners). They even go and shit elsewhere so the owner doesnt have to clean it up.

They are the absolute example of lazy owners pets.

I think your last sentence really gives the game away for many cat owners.

They assume that their pet is better than other people's; and by extension, what they (the people) want also automatically takes precedence over what other people want.

Some people do it with their children too: how dare anybody ever complain about their 'loveable rogue' taking over the streets and perpetuating any amount of selfish, anti-social behaviour; because they are naturally far more important than you are.

Not at all. What's lazier than buying a pet and then sticking it outside to let it roam about unsupervised for hours on end where it can run into the road and be hit by a car, or shit it someone else's garden, or be fed by someone else, or annoy or attack other people's pets, or kill or injure birds, etc etc.

If you think that's one of the strangest things you've ever read on MN you've either not been here long, or haven't read much.

Dogs are pets for antisocial people. There, I said it.

lowered the tone

Hello Hyacinth!!

Plenty of dogs shit in people's gardens. And are allowed to roam off lead causing a nuisance 🤷‍♀️

I mean, I think there's more than one cat owning Debbie living in the UK. 😂

I’m not sure Debbie will be take the ‘outing’ to the police what with it being only her first name (shared by thousands) mentioned

ops dogs can be in their own garden. I wouldn’t set my dog on a cat but if a cat wandered into my garden and my dog was in it then I wouldn’t always be there to see what happened. As it happens my dog is terrified of cats and would be useless. But you don’t have to supervise your own dogs in their own garden. If the cat goes in and the dog goes for the cat, that isn’t your fault. Cats do have the right to roam but it’s not fair to let your cats continuously shit in your neighbours gardens. It would be disgusting if someone let their dog shit in someone’s garden, cat poo is no nicer than dog poo.