We've had a fairly good relationship with our neighbour up to now, so am genuinely curious as to whether my view is skewed or not.
We live in a semi detached and have done for the last 10 years.
There have been occasions over this time where we've helped next door out, usually with things like appliances having broken and pests in the garden or house. We've never asked a thing of next door as we generally get on with our own stuff or hire someone to fix it ourselves.
Now onto my issue.
Next door has rabbits. They are those small rabbits, even though fully grown. They are allowed to run free in the garden over the daytime, even with everyone at work/school.
Recently, a neighbours cat has shown interest in the rabbits, so understandably next door is worried about this and has decided to make the garden 'safe'. The plan, as we were told it, was it put anti cat spikes on their shed and the shed next door (not ours, the other side). I thought it was weird at the time, thinking just having them on the shed wouldn't do anything but didn't say anything.
Next thing I get a message a couple of weeks ago to say the workmen are coming, could they access the shed from my garden. I said no problem, just to tell me when they needed to come in and I'd put the dog inside, as I wasn't working that day. I double checked that they were just going on the shed, and they said yes!
I was putting some stuff away upstairs and looked out the window, and noticed the workmen had put the spikes all round the top of the fence on their other neighbours side, and the back, and that they were now measuring the fence on my side. So I went out, and asked if they were planning to put them on our fence, he said yes, that's what they'd been paid to do. He said 'well that halts my next question, as I was going to ask if we could put them on your side of the fence, as it is the flat side'
I explained that I'd been told they were just going on their shed, not the fences, and as the fence is under our ownership, we weren't happy about them being on there at all, let alone our side, especially as we hadn't been asked.
The workman was fine, said no worries, they'd pack up and let the neighbour know and that as the fence is ours, they couldn't continue.
The neighbour messaged the same day, asking us to reconsider and at least think about it.
Fast forward to this weekend, where after us having reiterated our point that we didn't want them on our fence. We explained that we don't like how they look, don't want the screws coming through to our side, and also don't think that they are actually going to fix the problem. We've now had a barrage of stroppy messages blaming us for the money they spent on materials, that the rabbits now can't run free because it's not safe and that we've ruined their lives.
So, AIBU to think that having rabbits running around the garden, regardless of cat spikes, is a bad idea? That we're not dicks for not wanting spikes on our fence? And that they should have been honest from the start?
Thank you to anyone who got this far 😂