To break into my new neighbours house *THREAD 3: The Final Conundrum*

[Catsos]

I’m really not trying to drag this out 😩 but I seriously need some advice following on from my posts this weekend where my cat (who has a reputation for breaking cat-flaps in the neighbourhood) broke into my new neighbours vacant house while it is being renovated.

Here is the original post if anyone needs more context:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4881905-to-break-into-new-neighbours-house-serious-question-not-trolling

After not being able to get back out the cat-flap he was stuck in there for 48 hours over the bank holiday weekend and then finally released by the builder after various rescue attempts by me.

During that period however some damage occurred to my new neighbours property. I had hoped they would take it all in good spirits as fellow cat owners and we’d laugh about it and be new cat bessie mates but they we’re absolutely seething!!

They have proposed that I pay £1,600!!! for the following:

£800 to replace the rug my cat wee’d on

£400 to replace an area of laminate flooring as apparently the wee has gone into the underlay

I offered to pay £100 for professional rug cleaning, but the wife (who seems very neurotic) says her cats will still be able to smell my cats urine and they don’t want that to stress their cats out when they move them into the new home

£150 for repainting areas of muddy foot prints on the walls where my cat scratched to get out
(again I offered to just wipe them off but the wife insists it is repainted)

£50 to repaint window sils where the crabsticks & icecubes I dropped through the window has damaged the paint

£200 for a new bathroom window vent as I pushed thinly slice honey roasted ham through it

AIBU to think they are being very over the top? I could personally clean/repaint all of these things myself. Should I refuse to pay this amount? I don’t even have this amount available anyway, I would need to get an overdraft.

They're being more than fair and you need to pay it all.

Your inability to keep your cat safe and not allow him to be a nuisance has caused a lot of damage in their new home.

What exactly do you think the ham would have done to the air vent that couldn’t be cleaned? Crab sticks?

Weren’t you the poster calling it a hate crime?

I would view this as an investment in your future neighbourly relationship. Perhaps explain that you cannot afford £1600 and can instead offer your labour on the painting, sanding, cleaning, etc. I would replace the laminate and rug though as the smell of cat pee is so pervasive and you will likely just end up in a ‘I can still smell it’ round and round forever. Perhaps also replace or fix the cat flap as that way you’ll have assurances that it is actually fixed and your cat won’t get into the same scrape again. I honestly think that’s the only counter offer that’s reasonable. Anything to get some peace and avoid neighbour histrionics which will make your life hell.

I read the first two threads and was expecting a sizable cost for damages, wasn't at all surprised in it coming in close to £2k when factoring in labour costs to complete the repairs.

I'm so pleased to learn from this thread that things don't cost as much as they actually do if you simply decide that you're only willing to pay a fraction of the price.

I must try it soon: go to a restaurant and run up a £100 bill, then tell them I'm only willing to pay twenty quid and blame them if they aren't happy with that.

The house was secured. The cat broke the cat flap. Something he has done before. If a burglar broke a window to get in would it be your fault for not having a shatter proof glass?
OP I don't know if the amount is reasonable. You probably need to get a second opinion on how much the painting etc wil cost re the rug again ask dor details and research the cost

Shhhh, we're enjoying it! I thought thread 3 was going to be about the builder. I was wrong! Thread 4 might be though. Or she has an affair with the neighbour's husband.

I would also move before this turns into a formal dispute that requires declaration to buyers.

That's different though surely. You're rescuing a dog from a neglectful owner. The owner is potentially commiting a crime.

While a cat owner might be saving their animal, the person who owns the house hasn't committed a crime, therefore surely should have some rights.

@Catsos I do hope you get a good, reasonable resolution to this mess.
At least your new neighbours have shown their true colours at the outset.
Do consider CAB or legal advice, don't just cough up whatever telephone number figure they suggest next!
Your instinct to go on RightMove was a good one!
Good luck to you and your beautiful cat!

It seems more likely that the builders didn't secure the house and your cat was trapped as a result of their actions. I'd pay a taken amount and no more. Surely you're not responsible for the actions of your cat in the way that you would a dog.
Your actions have caused some damage but not to the value they're requesting.
Sit tight and wait to see if they attempt legal action, meanwhile check your household cover and any legal cover you have via trade union membership etc.

No @AliceOlive I don't. As a poster upthread has said, they advised the OP how to remove and access the cat flap pretty early on. Instead she left the cat in the house and stuck food through the open window. Replacing the air vent and repainting wouldn't be needed without that, possibly not the rug cleaning/replacing either.
I am also very suspicious why someone who had to Google 'do cats like crabsticks' chose to push them through a window.

I have wondered whether it's someone researching a plot for a comedy TV show.

You put ham in the vents and crabsticks through the window, and PP's are still calling them horrible for being upset?? Seriously? I'd be upset too, all other things aside you've made their house stink!

The rug, I would push to say you will have it professionally cleaned, and they are chancing with £150 to have the bit of the wall painted, you could offer to buy a tin of paint and do it yourself.

Thread 4: mysterious cat death, with multiple suspects, OP counter sues for emotional distress.

Daily mail will publish a short sidebar click bait article, complete with house price details of neighbour's and OPs properties.

They'd be phenomenally foolish not to have insurance in place.

I think 50 percent is a fair price to pay, some things like the smell of cat urine may not be resolved by cleaning. I had a neighbour like you, she caused a bad flood from her flat in to my bedroom due to her negligence, I'd had my flat professionally painted a couple of months before the damage, and she wanted to send her partner round to repaint, someone who was not a professional painter, and then she requested a key to my flat in case it happened again while I was not home - she could let her self in and move my valuables (laptop etc) to ensure they weren't damaged! You need to pay more than 25 percent. And you need to sort out your cat, by making it a house cat, if you are not willing to cover the cost of the damage it causes (or you cause by trying to rescue it).

No, it was actually quite late and the OP had left for the night when that advice was posted.

We still never got a photo of that right angle cat tunnel did we 😂

You and your cat caused all that damage to their new house, as unfortunate as it is, why should they have to pay to put it all back to how it was?

Also, she is right about cats peeing on the same spot - a neighbour’s cat got into my friends house months ago and peed on her rug which she has had cleaned. Her cat wont stop peeing there now (and never did before).

Another thing to consider...

You may be able to 'get away with it' and pay nothing as it might not stand up in court, but what happens next time when your cat gets stuck in their garden shed or attacked by their cats?

It seems unlikely they'd deliberately harm him as they seem to be cat people but ultimately you don't know them at all. My mate had a parking dispute with a seemingly unreasonable neighbour - was moaning about cars parked outside his window. My friend just ignored him in the end and parked there to spite him as the the guy was half his size and didn't seem very threatening.

Then the guy came storming round on the warpath when my friend was having a bbq and started ranting and raving and threatening to kick off if cars weren't moved immediately. It escalated and the guy ended up knocking out three guys. Turns out he was an ex amateur boxer and known locally for being a handful after a few drinks.

We've heard nothing about the bed yet. According to the OP that was the only other furniture in the house apart from the rug. Thread 4 will be a hitherto undiscovered turd which the cat deposited on the pristine £5000 handmade luxury mattress after it ate the ham and crabsticks.
Am I right, OP?

Obviously, it's not a hate crime to put meat into a house in the circumstances that OP did - it's not like she did it to deliberately upset the owners knowing that it was anathema to them, although they would be utterly horrified and distressed if they were members of one of the several large demographics in society who consider pork to be offensive; but how breathtakingly entitled and egocentric would you have to be to presume that you could just go ahead and do that to a stranger's private home? And then start scouting around for their possessions that they may have in the garden which you could cheerfully destroy in using them to break their windows.

Especially when you know very well that your cat routinely invades other people's homes and couldn't care less about that fact, because you reason that your cat's full entitled happiness is far more important than that of your neighbours in their own home.

How can you care so little about your pet right up until the point that it (totally predictably) invades a house, but then all of a sudden, you'll stop at nothing to rescue it?

If someone’s cat peed on my rug I would want a new one too! If want them to prove it cost £800 though and was in a like new condition.