To tell her to get lost?

[Sportycustard]

Just got home to find a note from my neighbour.

"Hi Sporty, just wanted to let you know that we're rehoming a couple of cats in the next week or two. I can see from our upstairs windows that you have some plants in your garden that are poisonous to cats so I will pop round in the next day or so and point them out so you can remove them in good time for our new arrivals"

I've just done a quick Google and it looks like she is referring to a rhododendron that was a gift from a friend who has now passed away and an azaelia that was a 50th birthday gift. Both are established shrubs and mean a lot to me.

AIBU to tell her my garden will be staying as it is?

OMG!! What have you said to her???

Post her one back. "No".

@EatCrow Cats no longer come in to or use my garden as a toilet. They sometimes walk along the back wall but the defecation has ceased. I’d call that a result! The funny thing is that my dog actually adores cats. When she finally encounters one confident enough to interact with, she’s clearly in love and rolls over to present her belly 😂

Stay polite. Say you have an allergy to cats and she must ensure they stay out of your garden at all costs.
What a piss taker and so rude to address you in that way.

We had something similar with our batshit neighbour

We'd lived here for a while,then our (lovely) neighbour died

Nutjob moved in and started up about us parking our car,outside our house in 'her' Street

When that failed to get a rise out of us,(she rang the police 3 times but they couldn't do anything as we where parked perfectly legally) she got 3 cats

Anyway,I adore lilies,roses,lavender,wild flowers etc and we'd planted loads and two trees in our garden-its our garden,we own the house and will plant what the hell we like

She came round and tried to demand we take all the plants/trees up and to get rid of our bird feeder while we where at it

We laughed and shut the door on her-our garden,our flowers,our trees and our bird feeder-her cats-not my problem (plus the other neighbourhood cats don't seem to have had any issues)

Well!that triggered batshit into space!

She tried to get us to pay vet bills that had naff all to do with our garden,slagged us off to anyone who would listen and tried to force us out of our own home ('I'm going to phone your landlord and get you out!'best of luck love,we are the bloody landlords)

Long story short,she accidentally set fire to her house last week and has moved out (the lack of insurance and the gofundme and begging for help on sm is another thread)

Good riddance to bad rubbish-the entitlement was off the scale

Were the cats OK???

@K0OLA1D that was my first thought.
I want to know more about the go fund me etc though @Sharontheodopolodous !! She sounds bat shit

She's going to have a terrible time if she's so precious about it. Cats don't generally eat plants, they live happily with toxic plants all over the place. I have an azaelia and a rhododendron and my cats ignore them. It's sheer bad luck if something goes wrong - but not your problem anyway.

I don't know how far cats roam, but she's going to have to make a lot of house calls! By her reasoning nobody would have lavender and other nasties in their gardens as cats are not known for respecting fences and hedges...

Yes,she ran out of the house and hammered on our front door (hubby and adult kids where out) leaving the door open so the cats could get out (funny how she could 'forgive' us when she needed our help)

They hid in the house-it seems they where too frightened to run out of the house

The firefighters got them out and as far as i know,they are ok,just a bit smokey

I had no idea that lavender, azalias, or even lilies were poisonous to cats until reading this thread. I have all of these in my garden, and have grown them for years. I also have a 15-year-old cat!

Wow her attitude!! I have cats and am astounded.

Tell her you will bill her right back for any damage the cats do to your garden 😂

Oh, and tell her you'll expect her to come round and pick up any faeces they leave in your garden too if she's going to be like that

I am an animal welfare professional and this is absolutely bonkers 😂. She cannot expect you to uproot your plants for her cats. Road traffic collisions are far more likely to harm cats, is she going to ask locals not to drive down the road too? Lillies in her own garden or house are not a good idea and it's a good idea to check the international cat care list of dangerous plants for her own garden and home. But she can't ask neighbours to do the same!

So sorry I didn't see your comment

The family didn't have insurance (I hate paying mine but needs must) and have set up a gofundme asking for a few grand

They could sell their car to release some cash and buy a cheaper one but refuse to

They've taken to begging for help on sm 'sadly we lost everything in a house fire,please can anyone donate anything as my autistic child (who's actually an adult) has lost everything she needs and we've lost everything but the clothes we stand up in and we almost lost our pets and everything they need'

It's all bollocks-they lost one rooms worth of stuff (a lot will be smoke damaged,granted) but they not lost a quarter of what they claim to have lost-they've been back to collect their stuff a few times

Plus the council have put them up,so its not like they are on the streets and will re-home them,with grants and charities will help etc

A lot of people are falling over themselves to help

Fools

“That sort of person” so someone she can’t walk all over and dictate to then?! We have 3 much loved cats and we have never dictated to our neighbours what they can have in their gardens. She’s mental and entitled

Update

She has contacted at least 4 other neighbours and made similar requests. She's even asked our neighbour with a rescue greyhound to only let it in the garden on a lead. He told her to f* off in no uncertain terms.

She's clearly just mad and entitled. I've never known anything like this.

She's on the neighbourhood watch one. It's mostly used for intel on car thefts as we've had a number of car thefts locally. We do have a local Facebook group which is much busier so maybe she'll turn up on there demanding we all stop driving, owning dogs and planting shrubs

Well bless her little heart - wouldn't we all like to live in her fantasy world!

She can ask, but the answer should be no, as they are special to you and even if they were not, animals encounter plants everywhere, they grow in the wild and they have handled this issue for millennia.

I see she has been and was not happy with your response. I suggest you drop her a line and applaud her for giving abandoned animals a home, but explain that the wellbeing of her cats are her responsibility and as she is aware of the nature of the plants in your garden, it is her responsibility to keep them out of it and that you will not be contributing to vets bills on those grounds. But add that you wish the cats no harm and if you are around and you see them attempting to munch your greenery, you will be sure to shoo them off! Then ask her when she is moving as there is a road outside and that is dangerous for cats too or has she asked the council to re-route it???

I love cats but they have a survival instinct - they are ingenious little critters and she should have taken all of this into consideration when she decided to rehome the cats. I think these cats will run rings around her!

My Dads neighbour had a cat and the cat clearly preferred my Dad and would hide in his garage when she called. She came round and forbade my Dad from using his garage as it encourage her cat to go in there (there was a cat flap from a previous owner). Dad laughed and said that she chucked her cat out for 20hrs a day and it had no where to go when she was out so it either came to sit on his knee or sought refuge in the garage when it rained. She tried to report him to the Police for catnapping - you have to laugh.

My sister moved into a cottage with her dog and a few days after she arrived her neighbour briskly announced that her cats liked to spend a lot of time in my sister's garden, so my sister would need to make sure she only allowed her dog in her garden if it was on a tight lead at all times.

Great update OP! I look forward to the next instalment!

Oh please tell us what your sisters response to that Batshittery was KreedKafer?

this

I've had cats all my adult life, wouldn't have poisonous plants in MY garden, obviously - but what a moron the neighbour must be, if she thinks she can dictate what anyone else can have.

OMG!! The dog on a lead thing - see my post above about my sister's neighbour! That happened about 15 years ago, so presumably not the same mad woman, but who'd have thought there were two of them?!

@Sportycustard
Regarding the plants in question, I think you should start speaking about these plants as if they are your pets and you consider them to have the same rights as humans (or even more rights than humans).
In other words be just as precious about your plants as she is about her cats.

Yeah we’ve one of these. My neighbour helpfully keeps telling me that my cat keeps coming in their house. I thought it odd because whilst I have a cat she is afraid of people mostly and rarely leaves our garden and if I’m home attaches herself to me.

he stomped over the other day to tell me he was sick of his couch being ruined by my cat and he’d trapped him in a one of his dogs cages. He carried cage back to our house.

pointed out to him that it wasn’t my cat. Had to show him my cat who was napping on the couch. But no. He wouldn’t believe it. Insisted on sending me a bill for ruining his couch.