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.

How are you going to feel about living next door to these people? @Catsos ?

I think you have done your best. The new people don't seem to be trying to ingratiate themselves into their new community!

This is really awful!!! I feel bad for your cats.

Same here. This is like a cat equivalent of when you get nightmare families who terrorise the whole street and the police tell you they can't do anything about it - it's the law, but you cannot actually believe that it is.

You are massively unreasonable and an awful neighbour

I think you'll find that using multiple exclamation or question marks is grammatically incorrect.

The cat broke the cat flap. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I'd tell them to get bent. They shouldn't have some ridiculous cat flap and no one about to contact in an emergency

So in that law posted above, where it says that it's up to property owners to ensure that cats cannot enter their property and it's up to farmers to make sure that their animals cannot be worried by them... does it specify exactly HOW property owners and farmers can ensure this? I mean, there is one obvious way to do so, but are they restricted in doing this?

How is the difference between 'free-spirit animal' and 'uncontrollable pest' considered legally, in practice?

John Lewis will take her rug back so don't worry about that part.
I would also ring citizens advice for advice.

You could argue that if a cat flap allows a cat in when it is locked is either substandard design or badly installed.

Just pay for the damage from the ham and crab sticks. I absolutely would not be paying for her new rug. Why would you have a rug that you want in a house that is still being renovated, surely it was at risk of being dirtied or damaged from the painting etc?

£2.8k reasonable? And too small for house insurance? That's why you pay for house insurance. Besides the law is on OP's side so it's irrelevant

I’d like to point out something that I think no one else has mentioned. The neighbors also intend to let their cat roam or they wouldn’t need a cat door.

@Catsos Do they know where you live?

The thing that makes you the most unreasonable is you’ve just shrugged your shoulders in your last thread and said you won’t be keeping your car indoors, and you’re saying you won’t pay for the damage created (I don’t care what the other poster found, you are morally responsible for the damage created by your pet and absolutely responsible for shoving food through their vents), AND you want them to claim on their insurance and have their premiums go up?!?! So essentially no to paying for what your cat did and no to keeping the cat inside to avoid it happening again.
This is some of the cheekiest fuckery I’ve ever seen
on here and if I were them and you refused to pay I’d be looking into whether I could take action against you for trespass (yours, not the cats, to be clear)

Unless they have a camera on it they can’t prove OP’s cat broke the flap.

I honestly don’t believe this anymore …

Realistically, what can be the damage from crab sticks being on a windowsil for a day or so, and ham in a vent?? It's a quick wipe of the windowsill and maybe 20 minutes of fiddly cleaning of a vent.
The neighbours are being idiots.

I agree they are but if OP can just get away with paying for that than hopefully she can avoid the other ridiculous things being suggested like a new rug. I am a cat owner too.

You cannot control Cats, it’s in their nature to roam and explore, so short of heavily sedating the feline there is very little you can actually control.

These neighbours are unreasonable, they should have secured the Cat flap.
Refuse to pay, and if they insist tell them to take you to Court.

All of this.

I’m not convinced by that quote of the law. A bit of googling this issue has yielded quite conflicting interpretations. The quoted text saying op is not liable is not the actual law as written, it is just one of the many conflicting interpretations.