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 didn’t say she knew her neighbour on a personal level. I said she knew it was her neighbour. I also didn’t say not to treat with caution. You can treat with caution AND not be fuming and shout demands at husband not to help.

Wow the compassion of mumsnet

I once woke up our neighbour at about that time because my youngest was very ill and I was waiting on an ambulance for her. Neighbour came and sat with our oldest who was about 5 at the time. I was on my own with the two children. That is the kind of emergency you wake up neighbours for! Not a cat which was neither ill or missing in action!

Exactly! Now this is something I definitely would've helped with.

An actual emergency.

There's no need for compassion about an outdoor cat doing outdoor cat things.

I save my compassion for things that actually require compassion.

What the hell is a cat doing out in a garden at night? Shock horror!

"Is that you Gillian? Come back in the house and be treated like a human, immediately. Don't you ever try and escape again, you naughty feline."

Some people say #BeKind no matter what a prize twat the person in question is.

Maybe you should #BeKind to people who disagree with you.

#BeKind. 🙏

Anxiety is a normal human experience. An anxiety disorder is a mental health condition. Are you diagnosing the neighbour?

The OP does not say she set out to be rude and I don't think she was rude. She prevented her husband opening the door as a safety precaution. Scams where a distressed woman or child knocks on a door at night not unknown. You are free to decide your own security arrangements but you are not free to judge other people's.

You keep harping on about distress as if tears are the magic potion to make other people do anything you want them to, they are not and discernment is not a crime. The OP ascertained there was no life threatening emergency to deal with and quite sensibly went back to bed.

No one is obliged to help anyone who is being inconsiderate or does not have a genuine emergency just because they are upset. Even if it's only once...so far.

For someone who doesn't hold back in labelling others you are remarkably sensitive about the suggestion you might use someone else's distress as an opportunity to bolster your self esteem.

Why wish Karma on people?

You need to #BeKind 🙏

Didimum, I say this kindly- honestly- you seem to be a bit stuck on a couple of my words that I used when adrenaline was pumping and my mind was racing. The kind of jolt that starts as confusion and anger and morphs into something anxious and unpleasant.
If you read my posts, you'd see I've been on a bit of a journey since 2am.
I'm sorry you're clinging to that initial negativity. People aren't bad imo, they're human. I can see that you have great empathy for my neighbour.
The world isn't out to get you. People can be angry and kind, cross and caring. I've come around to empathy- and a bit of worry- for my anxious neighbour (that's why I wrote the letter).
You can be cross with people in the moment if they make silly mistakes but still have care for them as a fellow human being.
It'd be nice if you could find some empathy for both sides but you seem a bit entrenched.

Yes but what is your point? I’ve assumed you think it’s to diminish the ops anxieties as unreasonable because it’s a neighbour. Was not that the point of your comment “She swiftly knew it was a neighbour however.”

What a well thought out reply when you must be tired and I imagine running on empty by now.

I do hope the poster becomes empathetic to your side of this, as (to me) in insisting you should be kind, curious and understanding, they’ve ironically not been.

Kind? At 2.30am? The woman ringing the doorbell could have been kind and not woke her neighbours up at stupid o'clock. Absolutely pathetic

cat doesnt understand gardens-thats a good one

You seem hugely over-invested in this scenario, and determined to be on the neighbour's side no matter what. I have never seen anyone so desperate to defend someone they (seemingly) don't know.

Not everyone is the same you know, and just because some people would do things differently to you, that does not make you right, and others wrong, or you good and them bad. There's a certain 'I'm a better person than YOU because I would have done everything in my power to help' kind of attitude from a few people on here, including you.

No-one has to explain themselves to you or anyone. And as for the tedious and passive aggressive comment 'wow the compassion of Mumsnet' from @beeautifullif3 , just stop it already. Many women on here have learned the hard way to not be a mug, not to be a pushover, and that you don't always have to BE KIND because you're a woman (or a mother.) You get fucked over and walked on, if you are constantly pandering to other people. You will learn that one day!!!!

And as a pp said, there's a whiff of performativeness in your posts @Didimum (and that goes for several other posters too.) Stop acting like you're better because you do things differently to others, and subscribe to the tedious and outdated #BEKIND mantra. (Which is always, exclusively aimed at women!)

.

I'm sure if she needed help in the future her batshit crazy neighbour would be last on her list.

@Zov I couldn’t agree more.

And thank you to everyone who kept me company last night! The rest of my family find it ridiculously easy to get back to sleep- I absolutely don't. So I was feeling a bit ragged today and this thread really helped ❤

You can quote where I haven’t been. Will be waiting.

I'm also waiting for you to explain karma to me and what exactly the punishment is for not retrieving a cat at 2.30am since apparently you think karma will strike OP down.

Also, have you considered that losing her cat might be karma for the neighbour for being a dick in some other area of her life? surely if its karma that causes shit to happen then the neighbour must have done something bad

So many people with no healthy boundaries

Do you ever sleep? Or are you busy bestowing kindness upon strangers every night?

Again. At one instance I wouldn’t begrudge the sleep interruption.

I have not mentioned karma once. Irrelevant.

Ah. Perfomative. MN’s buzzword of 2025.