Is my neighbour messing with me?

[HereOrThere301]

Is my neighbour messing with me? (As a baseline they are very unfriendly with us and, well, everyone who’s had the displeasure of having to come into contact with them!)

I was trimming my hedge (which is level with the top of my neighbour’s fence), and my next door neighbour appeared over the fence, and looking very angry yelled something like “I don’t mean to be funny but your hedge clippings are falling in my yard and my dogs are eating and choking on them and they could die.”

I was really surprised and said something like, “that’s terrible, what if I come over before I cut the hedge to let you know to bring your dogs inside, and after I’m done I’ll come over and pick up anything that’s fallen over on your side.”

She then stopped looking angry and was like, “no, no, that’s not neccessary.” But I insisted and came over, and she was trying to put me off saying “I’ve picked it all up, it’s fine” and she showed me literally 7 leaves… I insisted on looking through her garden myself in case she missed anything and found only 3 more leaves… And I told her I would be back again tomorrow because I only had time today to do part of the hedge.

The next day her car was gone, but her partner’s was in the driveway. So I assumed he was home, and knocked at the door and surprisingly she appeared peeking through the curtains upstairs. I waved to let her know I could see her. She opened her window and said “it’s fine, you don’t need to pick up the leaves.” I told her that her “dogs almost dying ever time I cut the hedge is a big deal and it’s the right thing for me to do. You should have told me a year ago when you got your dogs!”

When I came back to pick up the leaves she had tried to do it herself and said the job was done, but I double checked and found a few more leaves. I explained if something on my property is causing damage to her dogs, I’m liable to make sure everything is okay so I’ll need to check.

What do you think… is she now saying it’s not a big deal, because it never was true? Is she making things up? But why? I’m feeling sad and embarrassed that I might have been tricked into cleaning up her garden a few times.

I'm also feeling confused, how do you think she would want me to react to her story?

Sounds like she is making a mountain out of a mole hill to have a go at you. And was then back pedalling when you wanted to clear up. The only thing you should of done was to warn them you was going to cut it for the dog's safety. And then to offer to clear up out of courtesy.

It sounds like she realised she'd been caught out being a dick and making a big deal about nothing, and you've kept insisting on listening to her initial story and refusing to accept her telling you you don't actually need to clear anything up to make a point.

Do you think her dogs will really die from some leaves in the garden? It's not something I've ever heard of - does she have no plants at all on her side? It could be the way it's written - but it doesn't sound like you've been tricked into cleaning up her garden, it sounds like you've basically insisted in coming in to pick up a handful of leaves each time, despite her repeatedly telling you not to.

if dogs could die of leaves on the ground we would need a new stock of pooches every winter!

She was being a moaner and when you reacted calmly and helpfully she has tried to backing deal because she was making something out of nothing.

You could go all technical on her...
Say that you have checked out the toxicity for ingestion of lonicera nitida (or whatever it happens to be) and the results are xyz.
Then stop speaking - and watch her do a startled goldfish impression - before you walk calmly away 😂

I don't think she's trying to get you to clear her garden, I think she was spoiling for a row for whatever reason and you took the wind right out of her sails by being concerned and nice about it so now she has to back pedal without coming out and saying she was just being argumentative for no reason.

She was having a nasty poke at you hoping for a confrontation and was taken aback by your pleasant nature.
Way to go OP 👍🏻

I think she didn't want you to cut the hedge, maybe she likes the extra height.

Thanks everyone for your replies, that was really helpful. We get a lot mixed messages from these neighbours, mostly unfriendly or hostile. They are a young couple that moved in a year before we did. You helped me decide to just forget about it and move on!

We had a incident the other year where we woke up to find a tall sunflower pulled out of our front garden bed and put on our front door step, and a note taped to our door. The note said it was from the neighbour's mother.

(It was telling us we had chosen the wrong place to live because we have honeybees and she was going to start a campaign against us and give leaflets to the community. Which was not true we don't keep honeybees, although we do fix up bee keeping equipment to use at a nature reserve. I don't know why they just didn't ask us before reacting this way? It was very upsetting and we had a few serious conversations with them).

But I'm having second thoughts about that being true that it was her mum. I've kept copies of notes left at our property and looking at it again the handwriting looks really similar and the language used. I'm not sure how to upload pictures on here, maybe I need to start a new thread or make a link to the pics and then you could give me your opinion.

Again I just feel really naive and stupid for believing that it was her mum and not her. But I'm confused why would she lie about that? My other neighbours were encouraging me to report it to the council or neighbourhood police for months... and more hostile things occurred so eventually I made one big report about the behaviours that also included other neighbours being intimidated too.

I'm so confused and sad, why does she act aggressive and then make up lies too?

I'm so confused and sad, why does she act aggressive and then make up lies too?

This is very simple.

She is not nice. You have a Not-nice neighbour.

Don’t worry about it. Give her oddness no more part of your brain space. Just ignore, carry on being reasonable.

You cannot argue with stupid, so don’t even think about it.

She's a nutter.

What kind of hedge is it anyway (and what kind of idiot dog eats hedge clippings)?

In future, be polite and then ignore. It's their problem, not yours (that they're weird and rude). But I would keep all notes and a record of what they do in case it escalates into something worse.

Christ, an uprooted sunflower in your doorstep, godfather style She bananas. Just ignore.

You have one nutty neighbour. Although some hedge leave are poisonous to dogs it turns out.

I'd plant a nice long row of sunflowers out front this year.

Oh, she sounds batshit. Sounds like the other neighbours are onto her too. Ignore!

She wanted an excuse to yell at you and instead you met her with utter cooperation and kindness. You beat her at her own game.

Avoid and ignore

Thank you again everyone. I was really nervous sharing this because it makes me feel sad and stupid! But I'm feeling better about it now. I'll just carry on trying to be nice and stay out of their way! :) :)

What kind of dogs are these FFS? COllie here has a penchant for eating, amongst many other things: coir doormats, wool carpets, the log basket, carrier bags, DS puddle suit. She's still mad as a hatter and absolutely fine.... Oh and a few eucalyptus leaves from my birthday flowers.
Your neighbour is clearly rather odd. But agree with PP that you may have completely derailed by trying to solve the apparent problem.