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?

People seem to mean Be Nice when they say Be Kind. Being nice is saying "oh dear, poor you, poor cat, can I help?" at whatever cost to yourself and facilitating unreasonable behaviour. Being kind is setting a firm boundary for her and yourself and saying "this is not an emergency and not appropriate behaviour at this time". The reason it gets blurred is the way in which we say it. So F off sounds aggressive, but it is a firm (and frustrated) no to a ridiculous request.

Unquestioning/any accomodation of daftness like this isn't kindness, especially when she didn't get the message at 2:30 and came back at 5. Saying no and stop is not unkind, but it may not feel or sound nice.

Once i was woken up i would have got the cat just to be clear of her.

I would then have gone round next morning and said if she or a member of her household ever rang my bell after 11pm or before 7am, I’d call the police immediately.

I do love cats but this is not acceptable.

Noting has to be long about it. A sentence would suffice.

And how controlling to shout at her husband to shut the window and stop talking.

😂😂😂

I despair

Ringing someone's doorbell at 2:30am over A RUDDY CAT???

People are mad

Have you ever had a neighbour like this? By which I mean someone who doesn't put themselves in other people's shoes and consider whether their wants need to be met immediately and with no consideration to whether they are reasonable or will negatively impact others? I have and it's never a one off.

From her updates OP did have a conversation and was, in fact, very compassionate given she's had a completely disrupted night of sleep.

Very well explained. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is assert an appropriate boundary.

You assume here that the neighbour is a persistent nuisance, yet there’s nothing to suggest that at all.

Exactly. I also think people are referring to being nice rather than kind.

Being kind does not mean you have to assist every person you meet no matter how ludicrous the request.

The police wouldn’t care a jot about this.

You can really spot the crazy cat owners on this thread...

I bet OP would have VERY different responses if a man had knocked on her door saying exactly the same.

Mumsnet would be:

"You should log it with 101, he's definitely up to no good"

"I would not have opened the door to him, YADNBU OP".

Where did OP shout at him to stop talking? She shouted to close the window. I would've done the same because I wouldn't have wanted to encourage her any more and risk her waking us up again the next time it happened.

Calling people mad and sanctimonious because they have a different view to you is a bit insulting 🤷🏻‍♀️

Have a day off.
Hardly kind to wake people in the middle of the night over a cat is it?

What an unkind and immature attitude.
It’s not being a ‘doormat’ to help the woman; her behavior is clearly bonkers, but at the same time she was very upset. It sounds like she was distressed, not being ‘super unkind’. The OP had a choice how to deal with the situation; she was already awake so being kind and trying to resolve the situation in a slightly more adult and productive way would have been possible, with less stress all round. Bearing in mind that they are neighbors, they have to live nearby. Maybe helping her and then the next day taking the time to visit and explain why she shouldn’t knock on the door at 230 am would have been helpful.
Lets hope that you never do anything bonkers in a state of distress and if you do, that perhaps someone might show more kindness to you.

I would be terrified if someone knocked my door at 2:30am. I have complex PTSD and sleep badly as it is. There is no fucking way I would be interested in a cat in my garden.

It sounds like she was distressed and not being unkind? Yes it’s bonkers behavior, but surely it’s possible to resolve the situation productively and like an adult and be kind.
Honestly, what is the world coming to?
Grow up.

I thought the fumming thing was a joke? Someone years ago said it as a spelling error and then it was a MN thing for ages

Why was it OP's responsibility to resolve the situation? It isn't her cat and it wasn't an emergency.

It's perfectly acceptable, especially in the middle of the night, to say no. Doesn't make someone any less of an adult either.

I think fumming works. It puts me in mind of vibration so like an internal rage ‘fumming’ away. Maybe I should apply to have it added to the dictionary 😆

If your neighbour had been calling the cat, and it was close enough to hear (as it would have been if it was in your garden) but wasn’t going home, it’s because it just didn’t want to. So if you had gone out to get it, chances are it would just have kept running around and then hopped over the fence into the next garden.

If somehow you had managed to get it and give it to the neighbour, as you say she lives round the back and not next door, chances are it would have escaped from her arms on her way back home and then who knows where it would have ended up.

I actually asked my dh if he would have gone to get the cat in this circumstance, and he said he probably would but would then be really grumpy about it the next day because he would have realised how unreasonable the request was and would be annoyed at himself for not setting a boundary.

This. I think some of the replies are really harsh. If the neighbour was doing this regularly l could understand it, but the girl was young and obviously upset for whatever reason. Of course it’s not reasonable to disturb a neighbour in the middle of the night, but anyone who has experienced spiralling anxiety will know that when you’re in the grip of it, you’re not reasonable !! And no, we can’t be responsible for everyone’s mental health, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help out a fellow human every once in a while, albeit somewhat at our own expense. My work was connected with MH services for many years, and there is a world of difference between ‘enabling’ unreasonable behaviour, and showing compassion for someone in distress ONE time.

Well handled.

She sounds unhinged. Do you have a ring doorbell to save you answering another time - you can just yell at her to f off from the comfort of your bed

It's a conflict of wants and needs. She wants to find her cat. The OP needs her uninterupted sleep. I think needs outweigh wants, usually, and especially in this case.

Also for those saying it's a one off - she already came back at 5.

My work was connected with MH services for many years

So was mine. But this is not a workplace, it's the OPs home and her household was disturbed twice in the middle of the night. OP was firm but from what she's reported here, not unkind. It's completely reasonable to have boundaries about what you are willing or not willing to do for neighbours.

And my previous post was based on my experience of two different neighbours with poor mental health, who were not able to consider the needs other people have (such as sleep).

How will it help this girl to let her think it IS reasonable to wake a family at 230am and then again at 5am because an outdoor cat is being an outdoor cat?

It's much better for her to have her unreasonable behaviour pointed out so she can learn from it. If she's allowed to think it's reasonable, even once, then she'll continue to think her wants outweigh her neighbours needs (and rights tbh).

Much kinder and more help to teach her lessons about healthy boundaries than to leap out of bed and chase down her normal behaving cat, just because she's got herself worked up.