Neighbour just rung doorbell at 2.30am!

[greywolfie]

I'm now wide awake and fumming. She rung twice so I opened the front bedroom window as I worried it might be an emergency. Women stood there on her phone in tears and I thought - oh, she could need help.
My husband is on his way down to.open the door.
Then she says...."my cat is in your garden"
I mean - FFS!
I said "well your cat will get out of our garden"
"Really?"
"Yes. If your cat is still in our garden in the morning we will bring it back"
Shut window.
Husband then opened the door and she started telling him about the damn cat- I yelled at him to shut it.
He wanted to go out and get it but I said that was mad and would encourage the over protective cat mother to do it again in future.
For reference, we have 2 elderly cats that very rarely scale the fence. One night one got over very late and was struggling to make it back (we have stuff by our fence that would've also helped her bloody cat up, if he cared - but their side is just the bare fence). I was a bit worried but would NEVER have rung their bell in the middle of the night! About an hour later our old lady regained her energy and made it back.
AIBU to go round in the morning and point out you don't ring people's doorbells for this reason? It's batshit right?

I think the neighbour was a selfish twat and it's very easy to be self-righteous and preach doormat behaviour when it's not you being disturbed at 2.30am for absolutely fuck all.

I would have told my partner not to open door too. You hear some awful stories and scams and at 2.30 of course you would have been fuming, and a little scared I'd imagine.
The neighbour was inconsiderate as to wake neighbours at that hour. Could have woke up a baby or someone with serious health issues.
The neighbours anxiety over her cat is hers to deal with not other people's to solve.

I'm really empathetic unless you disturb my sleep

neighbour needs to keep her cat in the house if she doesn't want it to wander.

You’re not being unreasonable, she sounds unhinged 🙄

You have done everything right, OP. Giving in and helping her at 2am would have validated her behaviour. Her anxiety is not your problem. And it would not be kind to teach her that her behaviour is in any way acceptable.

Also, "anxiety" is often nowadays an excuse for "selfishness".

So could the owner of the cat who thought it was fine to wake her neighbours up at 2.30am over fuck-all.

I mean yeah, clearly some significant mental health issues going on with this young lady which is sad. But the phrase being cruel to be kind comes to mind here.

Imagine if OP had let her through to the back garden at 2.30 in the morning to get her cat. Then the lady comes back a couple of nights later for the same reason, then the next night and the next night... OP will have enabled her behaviour and made the lady think it's acceptable, affirmed her unjustified anxiety about the cat being out and also set herself up for multiple nights of disrupted sleep. This sort of thing can have the potential to play out over months. Nipping it in the bud was the right thing to do!

Because a human being is clearly very distressed. In my book that matters so matter what time of day or night. And I would at the very least asked why it was so upsetting that the cat was out and in the garden.

oh ffs 🙄

This is an actual kindness and a reasonable response - nice(!) of you to follow up @greywolfie. OP's reaction at 2:30 and 5 were neither unkind nor unreasonable. I do feel sorry for that cat lady, but her behaviour was unreasonable and antisocial (for whatever reasons, mental health, worry, daftness, lack of a clock, inexperience) and doesn't warrant anyone else jumping around for her in the middle of the night.

To be honest, I wouldn't open it for anything at 2.30 unless it was the police. What are these scenarios in which a neighbour knocking because "Someone has died" is acceptable? What am I meant to do about it? They can call 999 or 101. Different if the neighbours are actual friends.

I cant deal with anyone that thinks their pets are people.

You were far politer than I would have been

She must have had reason to think it wouldn’t be able to get back and would be trapped surely? Maybe she doesn’t know about the stuff on your side. Had it maybe been missing a while and she heard it in your garden?

Irritating, sure, but you’re overreacting a bit. You should have let your husband crack on dealing with it.

Waking your neighbours at 2.30am because your cat is in their garden is insane!!

Was she drunk? High?

For the 'animal lovers' who think this is perfectly reasonable, have a fucking word with yourselves. Rationality is your friend.

OP did everything she needed to.

Neighbour says my cat is in your garden, OP says well the cat will get out of the garden, neighbour says "really?"

This is an adult waking their neighbours because they are anxious about a cat doing a perfectly normal thing. I would say the neighbour is so clueless about cats she probably shouldn't own one.

What else do you think OP should have done? Invited her in and made her a cup of tea, got dressed to go out and find the cat, delivered a reassuring PowerPoint presentation on normal cat behaviour?

All these people saying OP should have been kind… do you work?? I do and would have been seriously unhappy at being woken up at 2.30am for a cat. Who, according to mumsnet have the right to roam.

I had to go around next door last weekend to ask if I could get my kitten out of their garden. He's too young to be out but one of the older cats has shown him how to use the cat flap. He could have got back himself but was scared and panicking.

This was at 2 in the afternoon though. If he went missing at night, as much as I care about him, I'd wait until a decent hour to disturb the neighbours. Unless of course it was an emergency such as if he was injured, in which case I'd be full of apologies & go back the next day with flowers & chocolates to apologise to them.

The neighbours were lovely & were just glad he was ok, I doubt they'd have been happy if it was 2am though 😁

OP, YANBU

My door just went and as I got up to answer it I said oohhh someone's cat is in my garden.

Gonna be my catchphrase from now on.

That's a little naive and unsafe, DH and i knocked on our neighbours doors at 1.30 once as a caravan was on fire in high winds conditions and the embers were blowing on our roofs and sheds.

However I would have made sure that OPs mad cat lady never knocked on my door again day or night unless the sky was falling in though. OP was really quite tame.

Sounds like a catastrophic situation.

I'm now wondering if my cat is defective.

According to the helpful posters, OP's DH should just have popped out in the dark garden at 2:30am to collect the cat and deliver it into the grateful arms of its distraught owner, who could lovingly cradle it back to the hallowed safety of home in the next street.

If I saw in the middle of the night from my window that my cat had entered the back neighbour's garden, then got myself dressed, rushed around to the next street, hammered on their door until they struggled out of bed and had the conversation, I doubt my cat would:

• still be sitting patiently in the same garden the whole time;
• if she had, would let an unfamiliar man just collect her up like an inanimate parcel rather than run away from the suspicious human;
• if that had happened, would stay cradled in my arms all the way back to my own home without struggling to escape just for the sake of being an absolute arsehole, clawing my hands to shreds, then racing off into some other person's back garden.

Just my cat, then?

People are bonkers. Someone ringing my doorbell at 2 or 5am would not get kind from me. It's a cat. Cats roam. Tell her to get a different pet if she can't cope with that.

Yes of course I work. I think it's probably batshit to worry about your cat who is in your neighbour's garden, and I think it's batshit to knock on their door at 2.30am. We can still have empathy for somebody who is quite clearly in considerable distress. Maybe the cat needs medication. Maybe he's been missing for days and she's finally located him. Maybe he's elderly and unwell and he's supposed to be inside but has escaped and it's horrible weather. Nobody wants to be in tears at 2.30am and waking their neighbours up. Nobody wants to be woken up. But now I'm awake and there's a human who is having a really shit day and if I can spend 5 minutes to go and get her cat before I go back to bed and make her life slightly better then so be it. I'm already woken up, I won't be awake any longer than if I declined to help. If I declined, I'd lie there worrying about both her and the damn cat.

I am outing myself horribly here, but I work, I have ME and I am a carer to my two elderly parents who live with me and my children. I really fucking value sleep. In the last 6 months I've been disturbed twice at night. Once at 10.30pm when I took the dog out for a wee and a neighbour was shouting for help - she had fallen in her garden and couldn't get up, and I was with her until 1.30am. Another occasion at more like 2am there was screaming coming from my other neighbours and it turned out to be a deer stuck in their fence that they were trying to free. Both times I had quite nasty effects from the sleep deprivation thanks to my ME and not being able to rest the next day because... life. But I don't resent either. Compared to that and the occasional trip to A&E in the middle of the night with a sick child or ambulance call out at 5am for a parent, somebody distressed about their cat in the middle of the night is extremely small fry that I can mop up and not worry about in the slightest. If they made a habit of it, yes I'd be PISSED. As a one off? Not even registering. I guess somebody will be along soon to tell me about my privilege of perspective or some such shit.

Perhaps the lady has a health issue, sounds similar to dementia traits.