AIBU to do whatever I like to my fence?

[SunnaStrangeInTheNeighbourhood]

Or rather is DH BU?

Last summer we replaced our tatty 6ft fence with a brand new one. It's a very long garden and that side was looking horribly bare. We have planted shrubs and flowers in beds down the side but it was still looking a bit naked because we'd had to remove a lot of established bushes and shrubs to do the fence.

DH scrounged was given some lightweight barbed wire left over from a friend's project and has been hammering it to the fence along the top and in loops and curls up and down with the intention of growing some climbing plants along it. It will also make it harder for random burglars to climb over the fence, he said. 3 years ago a potential burglar scaled all the fences down the lane and tried all the back doors, so it's not entirely silly to think it could happen.

NDN is worried about his cat getting hurt. Said cat hardly ever comes in our garden because we shout at it or squirt it with water. Until we moved in it had used it as an outside toilet. 4 years of discouragement means we hardly see it any more.

Cats aren't stupid so I think it may have encountered barbed wire before (we live in a village surround by farm land) and will have learned to avoid it or tiptoe round it. He wants us to remove it but "doesn't want to fall out over it". Dh has said he doesn't want to fall out either but it's staying.

NDN's wife says he's being ridiculous. He is isn't he?

^ Don't flatter yourself. I merely read a post and think hmm and look at the posters name, often it's yours. So often in fact that I recognise your name

Well, I'll certainly look out for you in future, Chilling, that post of your is far more than anything I've posted.

I'm not worried about the cat getting hurt because I don't believe it will happen and neither does one of its owners.

I've already said I don't think it's a good idea.

Digerd sorry just reread the thread and my response to you (way down)looks rude. I didn't mean it to be.

OP, I don't think the cat is much of a problem but the fact that I can't see how you can attach barbed wire to the top of a fence without it overhanging on your neighbours side is a BIG problem.

You can do whatever you want with your own fence but using barbed wire as something to grow climbers up is barmy. Wisteria doesn't have leaves fora lot of the year : the barbed wire would look awful.

Your neighbour is not unreasonable to ask you to take it down but he would be unreasonable to insist (unless it overhangs his garden).

I understand that you have a flowerbeds in front of the fence but what about your neighbour? Is it possible he might have kids who visit who might look over the fence. It's not an impossible thing to imagine happening. They could kick a ball over and then try and pull themselves up the fence.

Other posters are telling you just what the first few posters on this thread told you in the beginning: YABU, not your NDN.

If my penny pinching DP came home with barbed wire he wanted to put on the fence, I'd tell him to stick it somewhere painful for him! It is honestly a ludicrous, dangerous and out-of-place addition to your garden.

Never mind the bollocks about the farmer's barbed wire, as someone else stated, just because someone else has done it doesn't make it right.

I've just asked DP would he ever put bw on the fence between our garden and our neighbours'. His answer? Only if the neighbour was a prison.

I will again say that farmer's barbed wire is often on the top of a wire fence (to deter large farm animals from trying to get over the fence) or on the private field side of a hedge or wall again to stop farm animals from trying to get through/ over it. It should be out in the open and 'tight' to the wall, hedge or fence to prevent wild animals or domestic pets from getting tangled in it.

It is not hidden in climbing plants, looped 'artistically' along the tops of fences like an accident waiting to happen.

All the accidents I have had with barbed wire have been when a hedge has overgrown over it and I haven't seen it when trying to retrieve a stuck farm animal.

I would love to see artistically looped barbed fire, give us a photo OP.

If it stays I'll be happy to post a photo of DH's artistic swirls, Classy

The barbed wire fence behind our hedge is 4 rows of rusty barbed wire. Dh thinks it's been there since the houses were built - 60 years. There haven't been livestock in the fields for some years, apart from occasional horses. It's crops or meadow now.

How do you feel about the bird life Sunna?

I think the distinction with the neighbouring farmer's barbed wire is that yours will be concealed by vegetation. No so easy for wildlife to avoid.

What's with the 'if it stays', Sunna? Everyone, including you, thinks it's a bad idea. Get outside and start taking it down ffs!

The barbed wire sounds like a sales 'bargain' that doesn't fit and you don't need.

You don't like it, its not fit for purpose but it was FREE!

By the way I'm not a cat lover and wouldn't suffer from any cat guilt but if you have lovely new 'four figure' fences seems a shame to trail barbed wire over them.

Parting DH from a freebie is not easy. The only way I keep them out of the house is by allowing them in the garden.

What about if a burglar or someone the police are chasing do somehow get in your garden - would you be ok with the Police injuring themselves on your barbed wire.... would you be Ok if there was someone with with a knife at your back door and your barbed wire delayed the police getting to you. Yes I know it is unlikely but is just another viewpoint

Please take it down and replace with a trellis which will also be a deterrent to burglars without the danger.

You're on legally dodgy ground with this anyway: www.protectingyourself.co.uk/using-barbed-wire-glass-intruder-prevention-methods.html

And I think your neighbour is right.

Well it seems to me to be perfectly reasonable to use it for hanging pictures, draping artistically over the bannisters and keeping burglars out (he could drape it around the windows and doorframes).

After all, it was free, he has to use it somewhere.

it is perfectly easy: just tell him that his obsession with bringing home junk is stopping right now. It matters not a jot that it is free and the barbed wire is a perfect example.

Nobody with an ounce of common sense would gleefully bring home a roll of barbed wire and then say it is perfect for growing climbing plants against. You clearly aren't at all happy that he has this compulsion to bring home crap and then find spurious excuses about what he is going to use it for. I bet tons of it just lies around the place and has done for years.

DH needs to realise he isn't behaving in a rational manner with either his junk collecting or this latest wizard wheeze. And you both need to sit down and talk about it before it gets any further out of hand.

can you free cycle it? Then it will be put to good use elsewhere?

Seems a bit daft to have barbed wire in a garden

Perhaps he could create a barbed wire art installation : here is a barbed wire sheep for inspiration.

Not in the house, Scary. Never in the house.

Or why not keep the barbed wire and rename your house Alcatraz

I like the look of that sheep.

He's having a quiet ponder now, so I think he's coming round to it not being his best wizard wheeze.

I have no idea why you think this is a good idea OP.

He could use it for THIS instead.

Of course you can have barbed wire in the house, Sunna!

DH clearly thinks it isn't going to hurt gardeners, plants, birds, cats or other assorted wildlife, so why not have it in the house?

Spray red and green and make it as a lovely free Christmas wreath? The barbs will be super for hanging baubles from. If DH can find an old kitchen roll holder he could spiral the barbed wire around it for a free-form Christmas tree. The possibilities are endless and he could have a whole new career making these and then selling them at craft fairs. :)

My friend's cat scraped it's tummy on barbed wire. It was horrid. If the wire is covered, the cat won't be able to read the sign saying that it is there

I dunno, this is nice

I've had police scaling my back fence (between us and the neighbours) in the middle of the night in hot pursuit. Police climbed over, followed by their police dog.

I would have been gutted if had had concealed barbed wire and injured them or the dog.