WIBU to tell my neighbour their animal scarer is upsetting my children?

[YreneTowers]

One of my neighbours has one of those 'ultrasonic' animal scarers in their front garden, I assume to stop cats and foxes.

They are elderly, so most likely have hearing loss at higher frequencies (almost everyone does past the age of 30 or so) and are probably unaware that some people, myself and my children included, can hear the noise the animal scarer makes.

It's a very unpleasant, high pitched tone, which can be heard for quite some distance. My eldest son in particular finds it very uncomfortable.

It's lucky for them that I can hear the noise, as if I couldn't, I would have no clue why they were reluctant to go near that house and complaining about loud noises!

Varying our route to avoid walking past this house is not an option - avoiding it would mean walking quite some way in the wrong direction. We go past this house twice a day on the school run.

WIBU to pop a note through the door to tell them their animal scarer is scaring my children?

I've got one, it works brilliantly to stop next door's cat coming in garden and shitting on my lawn.
Anyone know how I can adjust it so kids can hear it as well? Hoping to stop them from screeching and kicking balls against the wall.

it doesn't take long to walk past a house so it's a very brief annoyance surely?

They're not an annoyance, they're excruciatingly painful for anyone with sensitive (or in my case hypersensitive) hearing.

OP, you would be quite reasonable to speak to them about it, but don't expect them to change anything - a lot of people have no frame of reference for how painful or distressing these things can be.

TheNaze73
My cats don't give a shit. I could rip out that thing and beat the person who installed it with it to a pulp. As a migraine and fibromyalgia sufferer there are noises that drive me to insanity and I tend to react very strongly to them and lose my usual politeness and respect to law.

It's lady chance saloon before we get a dog to solve the issue. I can't imagine there aren't many "elderly stubborn cats" who'll put stubborn a dog

Then you know nothing about cats
Sorry but I think you're on a hiding to nothing with that plan. Cats are usually the boss and are not above tormenting dogs for shits and giggles. Seen it all too often. Also many cats are totally fearless around bigger animals and only wary of other cats. Dogs! Pah! Get an alligator (and even then I wouldn't be too complacent )

ForagingForFaerieGold

Our neighbour has a dog who's very friendly. We've known him for ages and once, while standing in front of our house he came over, flopped onto his back and asked for belly rubs. Suddenly I heard a deep growl behind me. Turned around and my 10 years old big tom was standing there all fluffy like a squirrel, growling at the bloody stupid monster intruding into his territory. He's not afraid.

Cats are usually the boss and are not above tormenting dogs for shits and giggles. Seen it all too often. Also many cats are totally fearless around bigger animals and only wary of other cats

Interestingly when over hearing me discussing said dog with my DD neighbour's suggested I might not want to get an ex-racer in case it harmed their cat. I'll tell them they have nothing to worry about then

"Interestingly when over hearing me discussing said dog with my DD neighbour's suggested I might not want to get an ex-racer in case it harmed their cat. I'll tell them they have nothing to worry about then"

Having a dog in your garden doesn't stop cats coming in, but, they can't necessarily get out again fast enough to not be killed by dogs with a high prey drive.

Cats often aren't actually particularly scared of dogs, having a dog doesn't deter them at all.

We put one in our garden to keep neighbours cats out but had to remove it as it hurt DD's ears. Didn't work anyway

I feel sorry for any neighbouring rabbits/guinea pigs etc that, are inadvertently affected by these things when their owners don't know their neighbors have got one because obviously they can't hear it themselves.
It must happen.

I don't think it's fair of your neighbours to ignore that this is causing a problem to others, so I think you'd be fine to raise it with them and they would be rude and selfish not to do anything about it.

We've got some of these in various places in our garden. The model we've got has a dial to vary the frequency so they are set too high to annoy our DDs. They do work - you can tell when the batteries have run out as the cats come back.

If you can hear it in your house with the windows open and in the garden you'd sit out in (back one I assume rather than front) then YANBU to knock and discuss it with them. It might be worth telling them that it seems to be going off all the time so it sounds as though it's not positioned correctly if it's hidden by a bush. If it's just a case of being uncomfortabe during the time it takes to go past their house, YABU.