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?

She said the cat does not understand gardens 🤷🏻‍♀️
I'm expecting her back at 7am.
Now I'm awake I can have a bit of sympathy. I love my cats and it's horrible when you think they might be lost but, so unreasonable to ring at 2.30. My mind went straight to "who's died?"- not a nice way to wake up and she should understand that.
I'm also puzzled as to why she's so sure it was in our garden. Was she shinning a high powered torch?

waking a neighbour at 230 am is ‘not kind’

I’m confused - why is the cat outside an issue? Is it an indoor cat which escaped? Cats are often nocturnal so the cat is likely having a great time hunting mice, enjoying some peace and quiet.

its the year 2026- can we stop with this whole ‘be kind’ ? I’ve had enough. It’s a manipulation tactic to get people to do things they don’t want but should do. 2.30am calls unless an emergency are completely unreasonable

Given her distress I assume the cat doesn’t usually go out. I would have been irritated but would have looked at 2:30. I know there’s lots of ‘it’s a bloody cat’ comments but for some people their pets are the strongest bond they have. Yes lots of problems with that, but I do try to be understanding of that (eg when team members at work need some support because of pet issues). . Also my rabbit escaped and died when I was 7 years old and I had never felt distress like it. So the 7 year old me understand the panic.

I don’t think there’s much risk of this happening again given her level of upset as I assume the cat is usually in.

Give the #bekind a rest ffs

Oh dear. MN is not the place to post this. There are a lot of people on the pet threads who genuinely priorities their pets over people. Even over the closest relatives.

YA of course, NBU. She’s completely mental. I’d be fuming too.

Poor cat. If it’s an indoor cat, that’s cruel.

I cannot believe people saying you should have been kind - they must be trolling. There is no way in hell I would be letting someone into my garden in the middle of the night. I cannot think of any circumstances when it is acceptable to wake your neighbour in the night other than fire or some other life threatening emergency.

The cat is now on my wall chilling out. Seems fine. I recognise him as he comes into my garden most nights and yells outside my patio doors- my 2 girls yell back from inside. So he's not an indoor cat.
He gave me the vibe of a cat who'd like a new/bonus family.
If she comes round at 7am she can have the cat but the cat is obviously able to make its own way home if it wanted to. I can't put the cat over the fence as there's an alley in between us.

I had exactly this OP! A neighbour from down the hill knocked on the door at 01:30, banging like the police would! So I staggered downstairs and it was a woman asking if we had her cat. Absolutely not! So she said her cat had a tracker on and it was showing as in my garden. I said ‘go on then help yourself’ at which point she said ‘I need you to come with me’. And I did because I was so shocked that she had the balls to ask! Then I went back to bed and didn’t sleep. I’m still fuming now so I’m glad you were able to let her know how you feel. Hopefully she will know not to do it again.

YANBU. If someone rang my doorbell/phone at that time I would have thought a family member had died!

It’s not though. Even an indoor cat would be fine for a night.

So doesn’t sound like an indoor house cat then. Your neighbour is bonkers. If she’s that worried about her cat being out at night she needs to keep it inside permanently.

i have two house cats who have never been outside and if one escaped I’d be beside myself. I’m not sure what I’d do to be honest if I thought one was in a neighbours garden at 2am, try and coax it back initially. But if trapped and it’s January I’d be very tempted to ring the doorbell!

but your neighbour is bonkers doing so for a normal cat who is used to being outside.

Cat is no longer in garden and her window is shut so I guess the cat went home for breakfast. As regular cats do if they've done a dirty stop out.

my Neighbours once rang my doorbell at 6am to tell me my cat had done a shit in her garden. Nutter.

If she woke me up twice in those hours for something like this I fear I might have physically harmed her.

Is it usually an indoor cat? Maybe it's got out and she's worried sick about it.

This makes her even more mental!

Do not under any circumstance entertain her nonsense. You’ll only encourage it. Be blunt that waking you for her cat is never and under no circumstances ok.

Keep up

Clearly

Id have gone nuts too. I have chronic insomnia and if someone woke me up I wouldn't sleep again that night and would go to work in a state.

I would’ve had the same reaction as you, OP. It’s a cat! They can climb! It would have got itself out eventually. Or more likely if you had decided to help it would have pelted home the second you all stepped into the garden.

I would have absolutely told my neighbour to fuck right off at 2am looking for a cat. And I say that as an owner of multiple cats over the last 26 years, all of which have been allowed outside to roam.

It's one thing being woken up at 2am, it's a whole other thing to then get dressed, and go out in 0 degree temperatures to look for a perfectly healthy cat doing perfectly normal cat things.

On a separate note, can we also fuck off with this 'be kind' bullshit now? It's used in such a patronising way, and seems to be to just try and make people feel guilty in some way for acting very reasonably in the face of batshit unreasonable behaviour.

I would have been cross too, if the cat can get into your garden, it can get back out again. No need for all that drama from your neighbour at all.

If she was worried enough to be up and looking for her cat at this time there was a reason. Indoor cat / ill / old.
I think you were wrong to behave as you did.

Yes it is annoying being woken up but unless this is a regular occurrence you should help and chalk it up to being neighbourly in an emergency even if you don’t see cat welfare as an emergency.

It will certainly have affected how your neighbour views you and a good relationship with a neighbour is worth it’s weight in gold.

Well it's might be you who needs assistance sometime. Be kind