To report my neighbour..

[ariaknox]

I don't like the idea of reporting my neighbour but this is getting ridiculous

Little back story
Neighbour bought the attached house to mine about 2 years ago give or take
Friendly guy
Not home a lot
We have had a chat about the noise his dogs make pretty much all night long and he always says I'll bring them in or check what's triggering them and then a few days later it's back to the same noise

My 3 year old is scared to sleep in his own room because the neighbours two dogs bark constantly all day and all night
And even if I do get my 3 year old to sleep in his room he's usually woken up from the noise
We swapped rooms hoping that my husband and I can just ignore the noise but now it's disturbing mine and my husbands sleep waking us up every hour
And I have a small baby now so she is being disturbed also

Now the neighbour has his kids only on weekends and when they are there we can hear banging and running up and down the stairs shouting and screaming
None of that bothers us at all we have two small kids so our house isn't the quietest
But the dogs all night long is just too much
Nobody's getting any sleep

I know other neighbours must have complained because about a month ago I got a letter in the post from the council saying that people are complying about "my dogs barking" assuming it was coming from my house
We did call them and informed them that is was in fact next door
And we were hoping that the letter would get him to take action in either keeping them inside at night or anything else
But it's been a month and we're still gotten woken up

At 3am last night my whole house was woken up by the loud barking and I was sat with two exhausted screaming children till about 4:30 when I finally got them back to sleep

This is a long post but I'm just going crazy with exhaustion

Would I be unreasonable to report him again? Should I just wait to see if the council who is already aware of the noise does something? Do you think me calling them would make a difference? What would you do?

I'm willing to bet they get very little exercise and stimulation. Poor things 😕

The dogs are barking because they are unhappy being left alone all the time. Absolutely report

Are the dogs outside all night? report to the department that sent the letter but also have you thought of contacting the RSPCA?

Can you move? I'd possibly consider that.

What is his housing situation? If he is not an owner you could approach the person who does own the house. I think you have to report. Keep a diary as mentioned above.

Oh sorry - you said he bought the house.

He is leaving the dogs for days on end????

He sounds like a prick but I bet you could get support from the other houses nearby and get it sorted quicker if you all complain via rspca and environmental health

I would've been on his doorstep screaming at him by now. No way should you have to put up with that!

Stop being so nice and start threatening him that you are going to report him. Why does he even have dogs if he isn't even there for them?

I had this problem where the dog barked 24/7, it was so bad I felt like I had permanent jet lag. After filling in many diary’s, Environment Health sent someone round with a machine so I could record the noise. The neighbours were leaving the dog in the garden as security as they weren’t there at night. They were told to remove the dog from the premises, which they did. The council would’ve removed the dog otherwise.

You are being too nice and, dare I say it, too passive, OP. I'd have lost my shit at him by now! His dogs are a persistent noise nuisance that are causing you and your children emotional distress and the lack of sleep must be impacting your health. I would coral your local councillor into action – contact them and explain the issue and ask them to put pressure on whichever department sent that letter to you by mistake to go after your neighbour. Then keep up the pressure. Make a constant stream of calls/emails/complaints to the council until they take it seriously. Talk to your other neighbours and team up with those who have also obviously complained. But, most of all, stop caring about how the dog neighbour will react. HE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. If he was, he'd do something about the dogs knowing that they are keeping your DC up night after night.

I mean corral, not coral!

My dod barked outside for literally 5 minutes at 10.05pm - which to be fair, feels like a very long time - and a neighbour 3 doors down and across the road reported us. I agree my dog should not bark outside. I would definitely report, report, report if I were you

I’d have reported ages ago! Sleep deprivation has such a massive impact on physical and mental health, there’s no way I could’ve tolerated it as long as you have. And yes, I own two dogs.

Report report report! And I'm a dog owner. Totally unacceptable and sounds like the dogs are neglected. I would put money on them hardly ever being walked either.

As a pp says, talk to the neighbours and coordinate all of you contacting the council/RSPCA at the same time. Maybe a group vjsjt to your local councillor's "surgery".

Keep on at the council about the noise, the squeaky wheel gets the grease so be a squeaky wheel.

Also contact the dog warden at your local council and report both the noise and the neglect issues. Next time he leaves the dogs home alone for days, ring them. Once a dog has been left for 24hrs the dog warden can legally seize them.

This! We had something similar happening and a group of neighbours sent a joint letter to the offending dog owner. This fortunately solved our issue but sadly, not all people will respond so favourably. We had tried talking to the owner previously to no avail. It was only when the owners realised just how many people were affected by their dogs that they sorted it. I would certainly not be worried about offending your neighbour. He clearly has no consideration at all for you!

Sounds like a nightmare.

Report him and start keeping a log.

We had this with a neighbour's dog. I did report it to the council, and encouraged many other disrupted neighbours to do the same. It is a bit of a process to go the whole hog with a complaint, but our council gets the dog warden to send a letter saying there have been complaints in the first instance, which quite often solves the problem without having to take it further.

In my case, I got the total rage one night as their dog was yet again, barking constantly in the garden at around 11pm. I stormed round in my pyjamas and banged on their front door so hard I bruised my hand! Annoyingly, they were all fast asleep! My banging (and subsequent shouting!) scared the shit out of them though and they brought the dog straight in. We could still hear it barking in the house, but as they're in a detached house it didn't bother us.

It's been about 2 years now and while the dog has still barked occasionally it's been a lot better. It has recently ramped up again and someone (not me this time!) must have complained to our Residents Association as another email went round giving people information about how to complain about dogs.

These owners must have got the email too because the dog has suddenly been a lot quieter!

Thank you everyone
We did report him to the RSPCA when he first moved in as I said the dogs were left alone for days and we didn't know if they had food or water and it was 30+ degrees
The RSPCA didn't do much
And yes he does own the house so can't do much about reporting to home owners haha

And with impeccable timing a lady from the council knocked on my door at 9am this morning to set up noise recording devices

So obviously they've been getting a lot of complaints and are finally taking action

Here's to a decent nights sleep hopefully soon
Thank you again

Also
My husband send the neighbour a text at 3am last night because him and my son were woken up again
The the neighbour said he's not home but he'll check the cameras to see what's provoking them
So he obviously still leaving them outside a lot while he's away
AND someone mentioned about them not getting exercise I can tell you in the last two years I think I've seen him take them for a walk once
My son and I like to go on walks in the evening when all the neighbours walk their dogs my son loves stopping to talk to them all so a few of them have mentioned about my neighbour
So it's definitely not just us worried

Hi op
Call the RSPCA again and insist they come out and that the dogs are neglected with no food or water or shelter.they he feeds them before he goes away for days on end is ridiculous as they will have eaten the lot straight away.
Call every authority that you can to get these poor dogs cared for properly.
Be careful about lifting fence,only if dogs are hungry,bored,restless,thirsty and in a pack there is obviously a risk there.
I'm sorry about your lack of sleep.

Thank you
Don't worry
My husband and my other neighbour lifted the fence and gave them water and food
Me and the kids were inside x

RSPCA won't do much IME whereas council dog warden tend to be much more proactive. I reported a neighbour for leaving their dogs, the RSPCA came and chucked food through the letterbox and said they'd call back in a week. Called the council dog warden instead, they put a seal on the door of the property to check whether anyone was attending it then 24hrs later when the seal was still intact they had the police force entry and they took the dogs. The dog warden can also come out and talk to the neighbour about keep their dogs under control.

I hope the council get enough on the noise monitoring to take some action, OP.
I think it's really unfair on the dogs that they're left alone so much, and it's clearly hell for the neighbours.

I'm getting close to reporting my neighbour's puppy for noise nuisance. He's taking ages to settle and has been waking me in the small hours and then crying for an hour or more. It's been a month now, and he's not getting any better.

I would never have let either of my pups cry in the night for more than a few minutes out of consideration for my neighbours. And both of mine were sleeping through the night in a couple of weeks.

I agree with this. The dog warden information should be available on your local council's website.

It was our local dog warden that dealt with our issue too.