To put anonymous letter through neighbours door about their dog

[Whatisgoingonheredear]

A neighbour has a little dog that barks all day, for ages.
Starts at about 6am. Runs outside, barks for about 5 minutes solid.
Will happen throughout the day, including if anyone walks past, pulls up, if anyone has a delivery, if anyone goes to their car or bin. Usually does it's last round of barking at about 10 - 10.30pm. Barks when leaving for walks and when arriving back from walks.

It's been grinding on me for a while but is now seriously pissing me off. I'm not sure if they're blind to it. It isn't one or two barks and will go on for minutes at a time. When they first got this dog they'd occasionally say "no" or "stop" (which obviously didn't work) but I am not sure if they have made any other attempts to do anything about this.

I am dreadful with any sort of confrontation and would prefer to put an anonymous note through the door, saying I am not sure if they realise the frequency of the barking and is there anything they could do to please reduce this.

I also really feel for the dog as it must be constantly on edge.

WIBU to do this? I don't want to report to the council.

Also if you're the one with the barking dog, rather than bemoaning frustrated neighbours why aren't YOU contacting THEM and saying hey, I'm really sorry about my dog barking, just giving you the heads up that we are trying to address it.

That’s not necessarily true. I put an anonymous letter through a woman’s door about 20 years ago as she was retired and the dog was always in the garden barking its head off, all day every day. A bird, a car, a plane, a bee, anything set it off and it was all day.

She ignored the letter, so my DP went to speak to her but that made no difference, so I reported her to the council and they sent a letter out reminding her of the statutory nuisance guidelines and the fines she could endure. The dog soon stopped barking! It was all anonymous. She wasn’t a direct neighbour, she lived behind us so she wouldn’t have known me from adam. She was an entitled woman who didn’t give a shit about the nuisance she was causing.

We have a dog where we live that is left at 6pm. It whines and cries consistently until they return, it's starting to drive us bloody mad. I think I shall do an anonymous letter before trying the council. I'm not into confrontation.

You need to be very careful with your anonymous letters these days - a lot of people have cameras. Whatever the arguments for anonymous letters vs speaking to them directly, attempting to be anonymous but getting caught on camera would be far worse than either!

We live next to 2 dogs that bark every single time they are let out, and if in the garden (which they are a lot) every time someone walks past/a leaf falls/a car goes past…it starts at 6am and goes on intermittently until after 11pm.
After months of this, DP went round one morning at 6am when the dogs had been barking for 10 minutes non stop and politely asked if they thought it was acceptable to let their dogs do this every day at this time when people are trying to sleep.
The dog owner shrugged his shoulders and walked off!!
I guessed this might be the outcome as other people have tried talking to them and received the same response.

I feel for you OP and think you should do what you feel comfortable with.

I don’t understand how people can be so seemingly selfish and oblivious to the upset they’re causing by letting their dogs bark like this and not at least trying to deal with it. Our neighbour claps his hands after 10 minutes of barking and says come in, and the dog ignores him and keeps barking!!

It’s unlikely to be anonymous if you have to walk up their drive to post it through the door, most people by default will glance up at the window.

OP, I would write a note, address 3put a stamp on the envelope and send it.

It might work. I hope it does.

Totally understandable that it’s awkward, this is your home and castle and last thing most people want to do is confront people. However this is your “home and castle”, just casually start talking to them when you next see them (go over it in your head a few times), start with something along the lines of “I wonder if you’re aware, but your dog has been barking outside at weekends at 6am, it’s just that weekend mornings are precious to us to have a change to lay in, is there any possibility you could look to maybe send him out at “x” am instead please?
Be wary of being too flippant, especially if:
a) you have kids yourself that are playful
b) have a dog (it cold bark when you’re out and you’re unaware)
c) one of you plays a musical instrument
d) anyone in the house do anything slightly unsocial

you want to keep the lines of communication open so try not to lose your cool.

good luck, and I say this as we have a neighbour with the same and after 8 years of it being left alone and ruddy barking I did snap.

Our council has an information sheet online about all the rights and responsibilities around barking dogs. I often consider going round to the worst culprit to post it through their door, with salient points aggressively highlighted but do think it's a bit passive aggressive and it's probably more mature to knock their door and tell them there's a problem, on the off chance they're genuinely oblivious to the stress they're causing their neighbours and would immediately take steps to sort it out whether that's a training programme or bringing the dog in the minute it starts. If they genuinely can't do anything about it and it's barking constantly at the least little thing inside the home they need to face up to the fact their dog might end up being rehomed if the council has to get involved. I can't pinpoint the exact house where the worst barker lives so I'm hoping those who live right next door will sort it out. Can't understand how they have stood it for so long..

We were on the receiving end of an anonymous neighbor complaint to noise control. We'd gone out of our way to be welcoming when they moved in, they had my number, we'd had lovely chats, nothing to suggest a polite conversation wouldn't be had when our dogs were annoying them while we were out.

Instead, an anonymous complaint comes through with very little detail for us to go on as to what the actual issue was so no chance of being able to rectify. The details very much matter when it comes to nuisance barking. I put the complaint up on our local neighborhood FB page with a polite message to ask the person to come talk to us so we could sort out a solution.

They didn't much like that, and were a bit defensive when confessing during a convo we had later that week. Not gonna lie, I felt a bit betrayed. Why would they not just talk to us? There was nothing to suggest an ordinary conversation wouldn't be had. Instead they chose the dog police as first port of call.

Unfortunately it's very much left a bad taste and I have zero interest in getting to know them any further. I'm still polite, but I just don't trust them to be straight with me. If I were petty I could call noise control when their teen is blasting music over the neighborhood or his friends drive noisy cars up and down outside our house - but I was raised to deal with neighborhood problems directly if at all possible (ie no safety concerns present - a slightly uncomfortable conversation or awkwardness does not constitute a safety concern). If it's a problem at any stage for us it'll be a call or a drop round to chat - which is what I'd suggest OP does.

Why don't you go round and have a chat with them? Much more neighbourly and less confronting than a note through the door.

'all day, for ages.'
Starts at about 6am. Runs outside, barks for about 5 minutes solid.'
so from the above, I would ask if the barking stopped at 6.05 am ?

I have the same question as @OlderGlaswegianLivingInDevon .

Does the dog bark for five minutes and is then quiet for several hours until he/she is let out again?

Or does he/she bark constantly for several hours?

Does the dog bark for five minutes and is then quiet for several hours until he/she is let out again?
Or does he/she bark constantly for several hours?

Will bark for several minutes multiple times per hour. For example, my neighbours start coming home at 4pm from work. Usually goes something like -
3.30pm - barking while children come back from school
3.45pm - barking while children play in their gardens
4pm - barking while neighbour gets home
4.15pm - same neighbour goes out again
4.30pm - another neighbour gets home
5pm - somebody has a delivery, usually a food shop, a few times per week

Across the next couple of hours there are home deliveries, people going in and out, and it'll bark for between 1 and 5 minutes every time there is movement outside the house at all, even if it is just somebody putting something in the bin.

This happens up to about 10.30pm.

This is similar where I live. It's not any better just because it's not non-stop and in fact intermittent regular barking is also considered a nuisance by law. You think you're getting a reprieve and then ten minutes later it starts up again. And on and on and on.

I am dreadful with any sort of confrontation and would prefer to put an anonymous note through the door

You're a dreadful coward if you write and post the note anonymously.

And it's not 'confrontation'.

That's just an excuse that lots of cowardly people make.

It's polite adult communication.

I'm sure between the two of you, you or your husband can manage words.

Op has said neither she or her husband (who is work colleague of neighbour) want to raise directly
The over reliance upon recommending polite conversation assumes the neighbours will tolerate this. Have yiu considered risk? What if it escalates, gets fractious? Polite conversation only works if both parties are receptive and can maintain boundaries to negotiate a mutual agreed outcome

This! There was s something nasty and underhand about anonymous letters. If you don’t have the courage for a face to be conversation then at least sign the letter! If I received an anonymous letter it would go straight in the bin.

Send them a link to calming products for dogs ?

You say they're nice people and you don't want to report it, so for heaven's sake just talk to them. Suppose it were to come to light that you were the sender of an anonymous note? - what would you expect them to think of you then?

You are genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of this dog, after all, so start by asking after it and go on to explain that the reason you're wondering is that the prolonged barking sessions from dawn to dusk are a real problem.

It's a good idea to have in mind what you're expecting them to say or do about it. Has anyone else brought it up, do you know?

By all means put a letter through the door. Have the balls to put your name on it

Just knock and say I’m a bit worried about your dog. It’s barking all the time and sounds very distressed. I feel really sorry for it and to be honest it is starting to annoy me a bit too! Have you considered taking it for dog training as you’ve heard they can help stop barking like this?
This way it sounds more like you’re more concerned about the dog than the noise. IF they still do nothing then you’ve every right to get a bit more stroppy!!

@Whatisgoingonheredear OP you say the neighbours are pleasant? Then go and talk to them - it's by far the best way.

You shouldn't frame this situation as confrontational - start with what you said in your first post, that they may not be aware just how much the dog barks and what an impact it has on you. And then have a friendly discussion with them.

Having said that, it is VERY difficult to stop a dog barking and you shouldn't expect a complete resolution (even if you do complain to the Council). However there may be something they can do to reduce it ... not letting the dog out at 6am strikes me as a good start

YANBU. Nuisance dogs like this should be kept indoors to minimise impact on others.

OP I read on Reddit a while ago that someone put a letter saying something like, "you may not be aware but your dog barks frequently and it is becoming disruptive. If you would like to discuss we are at no 42."

I think that may take the sting out of the prospect of a confrontation - which people are inexplicably minimising. The prospect of a confrontational response rises simply by dint of the fact they have failed to consider their neighbours in the first place.

People nowadays are too lazy to train their dogs. We have new neighbours, they have a dog. The first time I saw her, she didn't say hello, just let her dig bark and snarl at me. Needless to say next time I saw her I turned my back on her. Uurrgg!!!!!