Work 3.5 days, DH 5 days. Our medium sized dog barks when left outside as he gets lonely, so we don't do this, we let him eat and do his business then bring him inside as he likes the company. He's a family dog and a great character. Gets walked daily.
Dog usually barks for 5 secs or so when a car pulls up outside our house and when the doorbell rings/deliveries come otherwise we leave him the radio on in the day. We don't work long hours so dog let out to do his business by 5pm when I'm home latest. Otherwise he barks a lot during the window cleaning process and does this barking once a month when the window cleaner comes for typically 15 mins or so - always inside the house and kept in the kitchen and utility.
We never leave dog outside to bark for more than 6 barks because-its annoying but when the cleaner used to mop the floor for 5 mins we had neighbor round complaining and the last time I said it's less than 15 mins in total (ie one bark every 2 mins or so) so don't think it's u unreasonable every 2/3 weeks or so. However we did ask cleaner not to mop the floor again after 2 episodes or this happening. Anyway neighbor stopped speaking to us after that so has reported us to council for excessive noise disturbance saying he can't concentrate at work. His house Is not attached to our house it's a separate semi. AIBU to think this is over the top? The case with the council was open for six weeks where the council asked him to record every time dog barked and the case was closed with no discussion phone call (something council advised would happen if they thought there was a case) as the council said it wasn't a disturbance. As soon as it got closed, the week after my daughter brought her friends pregnant dog over to visit for 10 mins max while we were at work and our dog was on high alert so barked non stop - plus it wasn't fair on little pregnant dog so they left after 10 mins. The next day council phoned to say the neighbor reported that the barking has ramped up 'because we knew the case was now closed' (which we didn't incidentally as the letter was left unopened). So now the council have installed noise recording equipment in the neighbors house. Is this normal? Through illness I've worked at home a lot recently and barking is perhaps a couple of times a day for 30 secs as described above. AIBU to think the level of noise is not unreasonable? Thanks