Neighbour constantly throwing food out to birds and now one shit on my baby

[Saausage]

A bird, not a neighbour for the last part.

AIBU here? My neighbour constantly throws food out to the birds, anything goes. I’m fed up with it,

Wait, from the title of the post are we sure it's the seagulls shitting on the baby?

Because if it's the neighbour whose taking a dump on your kid, then YANBU.

Of course it’s disgusting. It’s lazy and unhygienic to throw leftover food in the garden, it’ll attract vermin - I class seagulls as vermin! Seagulls are a nightmare - so messy and SOOOO noisy! YANBU

Oooo it must stink.

I do think you should move OP....somewhere nice and restful with white rooms, clean floors....and bars on the windows.

I live in a village and am half a mile from the sea and I can categorically tell you they are dangerous. Seagulls nested on my roof last year and flew down and attacked me every time I went out of the front or back door for about 3 or 4 weeks. My ndn had put bits of food on his shed roof by my garden wall and he was also attacked. I've had my roof seagull proofed and they are on a neughbouring roof. But they're flying low round the village.

Whilst they're a protected bird it's generally accepted in Cornwall that they're pests and in many areas you'll see signs not to feed them. With a metre wingspan when they're flying at your face and they defecate while flying at you they're terrifying.

@Sashytomps interesting & something I've been wondering about. Our town 25 miles from the sea & 10 miles from the lough, has suddenly had lots of seagulls in the last month where there were virtually none before. I initially thought they were struggling for food, but would have thought they would have been ok round the NI coast. Will have a look at your recs.

OP, yabu. Faux grass is grim, although I have a small patch of it around our playhouse for ease as I'm a childminder. I have plenty of real lawn & plants & 35 trees in the garden to make up for it! Seagulls are a bit aggressive -sounds like there needs to be a programme to encourage/help them to where they should naturally be.

I had a neighbour who did this all of the time when I lived in East London ..... until she saw this really huge rat making off with a Yorkshire Pud!

Anyone with fake grass is on my list of people I cant be bothered with. Covering up our planet with plastic is inexcusable.

@Sashytomps I think you are deliberately misinterpreting what I said, which was that I have no problem with feeding birds native to the garden environment, but not those are not part of the garden ecosystem. No judgements there about which have more value. (And no problem with wasps, or any other creepy crawlies either. I have kept or keep tarantulas, snakes, lizards and hissing cockroaches)

And you have ignored the bit where I said I have been physically attacked and hurt by seagulls. It is a regular occurrence where I live by the coast, especially in nesting season. Clearly you'd be fine with that though.

I'll have a read, always happy to expand my knowledge. And interested to see how someone feeding seagulls white bread and scraps in their garden is a solution to the destruction of their habitats or can compensate for it.

Brilliant

Well birds do tend to shit. If it makes you feel better it's lucky to be shat on

I used to have a seagull. Well not as a pet. He used to sit on the roof of the house next door to where I used to live. Used to fly down whilst I was outside not menacingly or anything and would just watch me inquisitively for a while before flying back on to the roof again. Over time I could stand there and call him down by making tttttttt noises. When the chicks got bigger and were learning to fly I was always a bit more cautious if they were down as well but the adult seagull would happily fly back up and leave the chick pottering around the car park/garden with me. I used to buy a cheap loaf of bread each week. I could've stood there with the bread in my hands but he wouldn't come down until I'd either called him or he'd seen me put it onto the floor. I had him for 2 years until I moved out last November. I still drive by every now and then and fondly watch him sitting up on the roof. They do say seagulls are extremely intelligent and can recognise a person.

The same way anyone else would and shove it in the bath. Unless you leave it on for hours and hours it'll wash off easily. I learnt that after a while it sets like cement when I got shat on once and there was no bog roll to clean it up. I was literally caked head to toe in the stuff. Mind you then again I didn't decide to create a Mumsnet post over it. I just had a good laugh pulled my hood up over my hair and carried on with my day. I did need to use nigh on a full bottle of shampoo though to wash it out of my hair. Have you had the first poonami yet? God help you if you haven't!!

Feed birds in winter, fine.

No need in summer, there’s tons of natural food available

If a cat 🐱 does a 💩 on plastic grass just pick it up with a nappy bag and antibacterial spray the area

Job done ✅

OP the cat's waste is much more dangerous to the baby than the bird's is.

How on earth did you not find this absolutely hilarious?

A bird shitting on you is meant to bring good luck.

Having read into this more....YANBU! Who the fuck feeds seagulls? Rats of the sky!

@supercalafragalistico, do you put a sign up to inform the seagulls in a non-judgmental way that the food is for garden birds only?

🤣🤣 @mathanxiety . No need, I use actual bird food, not human's leftover scraps, in feeders that are hard for larger birds like seagulls and magpies to access (yes, I am an evil person who also discriminates against magpies- again I have no wish to kill them, just discourage them as they eat the eggs and young of smaller birds ). Plenty of bird feeders available on the RSPB website that can only be accessed by smaller birds.

I would just start leaving our poisoned bird and cat food. Cut down all trees and use amble weed killer and insecticide to ensure all living non human things are thoroughly dead. You could also but an air rifle to shoot at overflying animals.

YABVVU - both for complaining about your neighbour feeding birds, and for having fake grass.

I do hope you're not a troll OP, this thread has given me a few laughs this morning sadly in short supply on Mumsnet lately.

You have fake grass and don’t like people feeding birds. Oh mate, you’re going to get rinsed.