To ask my neighbour to stop feeding to fucking foxes!

[Foxthefoxoff]

This is my first post so bare with me. Firstly I will say that I am a animal lover and vegetarian but any advice on Fox extermination or neighbour elimination will be greatly appreciated.

We live in a small cul de sac of 8 houses. One neighbour has been feeding foxes for years. We are now overrun with fat spoilt foxes that sleep in the road and barely move for cars. I have counted eight in the garden this morning. The smell is foul, they steal washing, we can't have any children's toys outside or garden furniture as they piss, shit and chew to death anything left out.

This is bad enough, but my main concern is that stupid fucking neighbour is feeding them raw chicken that they are bringing into my garden, happily dripping blood all over the patio. This morning I come down to two foxes on back step playing with raw chicken with all its lovely campylobacter, salmonella or god knows what else. DS is 21 months old I am scared to let him play in the garden for fear he becomes ill. They are so over fed they are playing with food rather than eating it. I have spoken to council who say they can't do anything.

I am at my wits end, any ideas? Wise MN'ers

Well I certainly won't be signing any petition to get fox hunting reinstated! I have always found this an abhorrent practice. I've never got how it is acceptable in modern society. If it were chavs chasing foxes around a sink estate with pit bulls the daily fail would be in meltdown.

UPDATE: So I spoke to FF just now, as pp have suggested this probably hasn't done much good. She claims to be only feeding 'Lilly' the odd chicken wing She has no idea why a succession of foxes were trotting from her property to mine with raw chicken dripping from their mouths. I told her I was really concerned about the health hazard of the raw meat, especially with the baby. She was very apologetic and has offered to buy me some 'nice bleach' I've declined the offer but she was quite insistent. I didn't threaten with extermination as I didn't have the heart to. For background FF suffered a bereavement a year ago & does come across as a bit on the edge. The foxes and feeding were an issue BEFORE the bereavement, but all the same I don't want to upset someone vulnerable.

UPDATE P2 As I was typing this FF has just knocked and given me 2 bottles of wine!! She apologised over & over. I tried not to accept it but she kind of threw it into my hands, then I was distracted by DS trying to escape!! Now what do i do??

Take a bottle of it back over and have a glass with her.

Tell her gently it's not about bleach and you don't want to clean up after the foxes SHE encourages. Point out that feeding Lily/them makes them fat, unhealthy and less able to look after themselves, so it's kinder to leave them be and just enjoy the odd sighting.

I don't think you'll get anywhere with your neighbour, who clearly sees them as pets and sounds a bit disconnected from reality.

You need to make your garden fox proof.

What DarlingNakita said

I was woken up by the noisy feckers last night, screeching and yelping in the road. One of the NDN has a skip, I reckon they're ransacking it , its always spilling out rubbish .

I can sleep through thunder storms so I'm narked that the foxes woke me .

Dont accept the wine! I'd be pissed off if I'd gone to my neighbour with a legitimate concern and she'd tried to buy me off. Be assertive!

justilou1 - that is an evil thing to suggest, and also illegal

You could put chicken wire flat on the ground and extended maybe a foot up the fence. Then the foxes would be unable to burrow into your garden, also grass would grow through and hide it. Shrubs could be planted through it.
Also you could put supports so the chicken wire extends a couple of feet out so the foxes can’t climb over, as is done around prisons.
I put carpet gripper rod on the top of garden fence where the ground rose up to it- this was after we’d been burgled whilst all upstairs in bed. I was told I could be sued if a burglar injured himself but was angry enough not to care.

If your DH is urinating, he can use a jug, not fo it freestyle. My Dh took a day to get a good quantity in a jug and then too it outside (TMI?)

Contact your local councillor. Council officers are more likely to listen to them than a normal resident.

Hopefully FF has seen the error of her ways and will now tone down the Fox feeding. She certainly doesn't sound like she wants conflict with the neighbours which is a good thing.

The wine is not enough she sounds lonely. Ask her to not feed them anymore, they will survive without her help and they will stop coming into her garden. Maybe she could just keep to feeding the birds or looking at the local wildlife. Don't accept her offer of bleach, it's not your job, let her come round to clean your patio.

This is why we can't leave our patio door open in the evening, as we've had foxes nosing around trying to get in

Woman is injured by a fox after the animal crept on to her bed at night

Jodie Nailard, 22, suffered six puncture wounds and spent two days in hospital after being bitten on the bicep

Urban foxes have no fear.

👍

People who feed foxes in an urban or suburban setting are normally lacking in mental capacity.

Foxes, though wonderful animals, are a nuisance and unhygienic when around a house.

I'd keep complain to the Local Authority , with evidence about the chicken etc and also ask your local ward councillor (or equivalent) to complain on your behalf.

There is absolutely no point in trying to reason with the fox feeder.

I saw a woman buying cold meat scraps in Morrisons "for the foxes" and she looked at me as I if was mad when I advised her not to feed wild foxes as it was, in the end no good for them.

I have even seen staff feeding foxes under a portakabin at work- and then wondering why they were infested with fox fleas.

Blimey....it sounds as if you live next door to my crazy mother! Always going off to Tesco’s to buy chicken wings or leaving fish and chips out for the foxes 🤨🤔😦 You’re not in Dorset are you?!?! 😮
The council are talking tosh. It is an environmental health issue, and your neighbour does have to be spoken to.
I can understand her love of wildlife etc etc but this is impacting on your life, not to mention it can also attract vermin, cockroaches and other nasties.
Certainly it is also a wise idea to see what you can do to ‘fox proof’ your property in other ways.
Borrowing a friend’s dog to puddle in your garden could be useful too. I agree with another poster who mentioned this neighbour being in a kind of fantasy. Foxes can do enormous damage and there are reports of foxes that are a threat to children, they fear no one after a while. Don’t let the council fob you off. They can certainly help, and it is also environmental healths job to speak to neighbour. Hope you get some resolution soon!

You should get your husband and a few of his mate around to be around your neighbours garden when she isn't in to try discourage the foxes from going in there.
It would be worth it for the shits and giggles if nothing else

Foxthefoxoff
For one min I thought you were talking about my street
We seem to have a family of city foxes mum dad and two huge cubs
They also sprawl out sunbathing in our street as it’s a real suntrap and move very slowly and with a resentful look when I beep at them to get out the bloody way

They appear to have no fear of humans
The only time I see them move quick is when the dustbin men arrive with their huge truck
Otherwise they don’t give a fuck

I have been guilty though of making sure in this hot weather they have plenty of water to drink

But I don’t feed them. But I’m pretty sure my neighbours are feeding them because they are so fat and well fed

They have a den in the bushes at the bottom of my street where they chill out when not sunbathing

How old is this thread! Just reading it thinking I'm sure I've read this before. And I have.

June 2018

Can you borrow a dog off a friend for an hour or so a week. My old neighbours Pomeranians regularly saw off foxes. It was their fave thing: apart from mini tennis balls.

We had foxes in our garden. Lots of the buggers and had the same problems. I'm sorry to say that the only thing that ended up getting rid of them was the person stopping feeding them and an airsoft gun