Neighbours (retired couple in their 80s) have a cat and a dog. Our gardens have quite tall fences and there has been a hole in a low fence panel for quite a few years that their cat has used to come between our two gardens. We are both mid terrace houses and our gardens are functional but not big.
Their cat poos in our garden all the time. It was always in this same dirt spot under a tree, so I just cleaned it up and didn't make a fuss about it because I understand that's kind of what cats do. I would rather the cat wasn't in our garden as I have young kids who I have to keep away from the part of the garden it was using as a toilet, but I have never once said anything to the neighbours complaining. Our garden is functional but not fancy. We usually get along well enough- they look after our houseplants while we go away, take in parcels. I have given them a sign in to our netflix etc.
We have been away for two weeks, and then there was bad weather, so yesterday was the first day we were outside hoping to enjoy our garden in close to a month. Their cat has clearly gotten very sick. There was about twenty piles of cat poo on our lawn, many appear to be bad diarrhea, we couldn't let our kids onto the lawn at all to play and spent nearly an hour cleaning everything from this cat/ trying to scoop up the chunks and cut away all the dirty grass, along with some more over by the tree and a bit on the gravel. The grass has grown a little long lately (top of an ankle boot height) so it was really hard to clean/ see. It was absolutely disgusting and really stunk. I blocked off the hole in the fence because I couldn't cope with having to clean a mess like that again.
I received a text from the neighbours today that their cat is very old and needs to be able to come into our garden and they didn't want to fall out over this, so they were letting us know they had opened up the hole into our garden again. I rang them to explain about the liquid poo on our grass and said I wasn't comfortable with the cat coming over anymore. Neighbour then told me the cat is only an outside cat now and fairly feral, and needs to be able to leave her garden when her dog goes outside or the dog will hurt her. Apparently the cat being able to come into our garden and just go into theirs to get food when the dog is shut away has been the cats living situation for a while. Noone ever asked us! Cat is too old to climb fences apparently.
I explained my concern with the poo I couldn't clean up around my young kids and another relative who is undergoing chemo. I never said anything nasty, I never called her a name, I never made a threat. I was just trying to be firm. I said I needed to talk to my husband about it after hearing what she'd been saying about her cat being unsafe in her garden and about this sickness likely being permanent for the rest of the cats life due to old age/ kidney problems. But then she's been sending some really hurtful text messages accusations saying I am clearly having 'Karen' moments, that I should 'stop upsetting two pensioners with health problems', that I should 'let it go' 'that I have mental issues going on if I'm upset about their cat (she knows my parent has terminal cancer so I'm going through an emotionally draining time), that I better not hurt their cat (I have never hurt their cat!).
Honestly it's been so bad this afternoon I've just blocked them on my phone. Fence hole is currently unblocked, no sign of their cat before it got dark. I am both so upset I just want to block the fence up permanently and be done with them, but don't want to leave the cat in a dangerous position. Do I get my husband to text? Do I just ignore them and carry on cleaning up after the damn cat? Do I sprinkle pepper on our lawn?
They have been kind neighbours in the past so i would probably have just put up with it once she told me about the dog being unsafe around the cat, but then these nasty texts started. AIBU if I block up the fence and blow up neighbourly relations for good?