To knock on neighbours door everytime their bloody pet wakes me in the night...

[DrDumbass]

One of my neighbours has recently acquired a pet that is kept in the garden, in a hutch. It has kept me awake pretty much every night since they had it as it makes a loud, almost chirping noise pretty much every 20 mins to half an hour every night.I work 40 hours a week, have a 2 yo son and are entertaining my family this weekend for my grandads 90th. I feel absolutely fucked.What the hell kind of beast of burden do they have over there and what can I do about it?
Just realized I have posted this twice, sorry am very sleep deprived.....

I think guinea pigs sleep on and off through day and night, rather than for any long stretch (due to being prey animals and very sensitive to noises and perceived threats).

It's late enough. Nip over and put us out of our misery ;)

Fox is a good point. A fox could have been attracted by the recent addition of a rabbit, etc.

Right have double checked on the website of the zoo we went to last week. I didn't mean copybara, it was a coatimundi. There was a sign by their enclosure saying that they're now very popular in the uk pet trade......but I have no idea if they chirrup. I shouldn't think they'd like been stuffed in a hutch. People do keep stupid things as pets, I've heard meerkats are popular as well now.

Ooh, I'd love a pet meerkat.

I think I'd quite like a coatimundi. I was feeding one peanuts at the zoo, they're gorgeous. I wouldn't really get one though. I've got two chinchillas, a dog, a guinea pig, cats and chickens. It's enough like a zoo here already.

This is just not on. I now find I'm wanting a coatimundi as my next pet (despite never having heard of them before today), wondering whether that IS whats in the hutch (looked them up on YouTube and found 2 films of them chirruping) and still the op hasn't come back to enlighten us.

What is it op??

Meerkats make crap pets. Really, really crap pets.

They are really hard to toilet train, they stink and they fight visitors.

Now I'm curios to find out what this loud animal is.
Maybe you can catch them outside and ask, "what have you go in there?" "I hear it at night and was wondering" They may well get the hint and move the cage.

curious

Quail can be quite noisy

I just want to know what it is!

ferret

OP I know how annoying it is to have noisy pet neighbours, but I would advise waiting. Our neighbours dogs used to keep me up with their barking, but now I don't hear them anymore - I just sleep through it. As frustrating as it is now, you may get used to it in a month or two.

My rabbit is noisy at night, but it is chewing and scratching and thumping. It wakes me up, so I bet it wakes the neighbour up. Oh well.

marking place to find out what sort of animal it is

I'm a bit aghast at those that reckon the OP is BU to complain purely because she has a human child.
Babies crying is exempt from noise complaints (quite rightly).
A new and annoying pet that makes noise throughout the night is hardly the same.

OP YANBU.
You might not need to complain as such, maybe pop round and say you'd noticed they had a new pet, it was keeping you up all night, and did they know how long it'd take to settle in? With your best face on. :)

Your gonna have to go round just so we all know what it is.

Why are you aghast?

Can you imagine what people would say if someone started a thread about the neighbours child?

The truth is, hey it might be annoying, but its not going to be a nonsense that breaks the law , and its unlikely the council would do a damn thing in this situation if you did put in an official complaint. And thats where the complaint really begins or ends. If you complain you are far more likely to cause problems with the neighbour really frankly, just aren't worth it.

Plus she will get used to it.

There are some thing you do just have to learn to live with and put up with.

Plus if you by law and social etiquette they have to learn to live with a baby next door then I fail to see how you can reasonably have the nerve to complain about a guinea pig in turn.

Its called mutual toleration for your neighbours.

We are not talking antisocial behaviour or wilful and disrespectful lack of consideration for others. Its falls firmly under the label of 'just one of those things'.

Because its not a child, it's a pet they have chosen to have. Why do you not see the difference?
If she was complaining about the neighbours child she would just have to lump it. As it is, it's an animal they don't have to have, can move elsewhere in the garden, rehome, or get it company to hopefully make it happier, or explain to the OP why it does what it does blah blah blah. Options. Unlike with a child where you really can only complain in your own head/home but not really have any right to whinge about directly.

And yes, of course mutual toleration is ideal, but this critter is keeping her awake every sodding night, and she has the ability to knock on their door and ask if there is something they can do about it. Which they may or may not. No harm in asking, and at least then the neighbours will be aware that its causing a bit of a nuisance.
If her DC then irritates them once in a while, you know what, it's not comparable. Because they're children. Not pets. Different.

I'm sorry, I'm not being kept awake by capybaras, guinea pigs or anything chirrupy, just boring insomnia! I type rants when tired...

Oh feck - of course as I type that the bloody dawn chorus starts up!

OP: do you usually have trouble sleeping?

Are you a very light sleeper?

Ask them to move the hutch closer to their house? Mention that your sleep has been disturbed hourly since they got the pet. Be friendly, get them on side.

ear plugs?

Sorry. Yes it might be a pet, but I still thing its a very unreasonable thing to complain about and I still think that whilst a child is superior to a pet, a pet is still part of family life and unless that animal is actually breaking the law in some way, you have to respect that.

When you take on an animal you take it on for life, and take that responsibility. You can not just rehome it because your neighbour doesn't like the way it behaves. Its a living being, and like a small child there a some instances where you really can't control the way it behaves because you can not communicate the problem to them. Its not the animal's fault and in many cases, it probably isn't the owners fault either.

What really irks me, is that there is also a double standard when it comes to what type of animal it is. The idea that its ok to even suggest rehoming as if the animal is a throw away item is appalling. There is no evidence whatsoever about ill treatment.

Plus there is a real double standard when it comes to pets. Some pets are considered 'worthy' and part of the family whilst others are not.

If I put up a thread about a cat shitting in my garden and someone suggested my neighbours rehome their cat because it shits all over my garden, I can imagine the reaction. It'd get short shrift by a hell of a lot of people, as its considered natural behaviour and not a nuisance (they could keep their animal in their premises but thats considered cruel in the UK despite it being law in other parts of the world). And yeah I might have real concerns for the SAFETY of my child using my own garden because of the behaviour of their animal. In this particular situation though, you are not talking about safety - you are only talking about an irritation that the OP WILL get used to in time.

When people live under flight paths of major airports and they cope with that with small children, I really do struggle with this. Noise and coping with noise is a part of life. Animals are part of family set ups. They aren't children, but you know what that doesn't make them something that can be tossed out with the rubbish or something that you don't have to put up with from your neighbours even if you don't like them. You do.

Unless that animal is being mistreated, or breaks you have to just deal with it.