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Original poster

AIBU to think that if you hate animals you shouldn't move to the countryside?

335 replies

shiklah · 16/06/2018 23:02

I live in a very rural community which has become popular with commuters in the last 5 years. Over the last 18 months the following complaints have featured heavily on the local WhatsApp and Facebook groups:

Cows blocking the road for 10 mins (they do this twice a day and have for hundred of years as they go in for milking)
Escapee sheep roaming the verges and traffic islands
Cockerels crowing
Church Bells

Our neighbours moved in Jan 2016 and have built a conservatory overlooking our field. They have complained:

A ram was tupping ewes in the field
Many Sheep gave birth in the field
A sheep had a prolapsed and was attended by the vet in the field (the vet delivered 2 healthy lambs, revived them and saved the ewe, it was awesome and brilliant and they are all healthy and happy but apparently it spoiled mothers day breakfast)
A fox killed a rabbit and ate it in our field
A ferral cat lives in the hedge at the side of our field
A sheep pooed when Mr Neighbour was eating breakfast

Th least one was reported to me at 7pm this eve when I was getting out of my car at the end of a 60 hour working week. He DROVE to my house to tell me a sheep pooed in his view whilst he was eating breakfast in his conservatory that he built, overlooking my field, that has been their since before my house was built, in 1762. I literally don't know know what to say to these idiots any more. AIBU to simply laugh in their faces and move on with my day Grin

I have had wine and am feeling frazzled Grin

OP posts:
Thread gallery
14
BMW6 · 17/06/2018 09:48

I think the solution to this fuckwittery is to post their complaints on local social media and really take the piss out of them. No need to name them, just their complaints.

Lucisky · 17/06/2018 10:09

Reminds me of a similarly moany person who converted a barn, which of course was surrounded by farming land. The farmers revenge for complaints was to stack his big black plastic wrapped round silage (or possibly hay) bales to a height of about 15 feet, right where they blocked the barns best view, and within a few feet of the boundary. Bit mean, but I bet they didn't moan again.
When I was a child in a rural part of Surrey commuter land, a newly arrived neighbour phoned the police to tell them there was an escaped wild animal in her garden. Turned out it was a deer.

iNeverFinishAnyth · 17/06/2018 10:12

Our (thought they were posh) neighbours used to put food out for the water voles they had seen in their garden.... which were actually rats.

derxa · 17/06/2018 10:21

Tell him you've got planning permission for a wind turbine.

Original poster
shiklah · 17/06/2018 10:29

They frequently post their own complaints on social media!

DH is reminding me he's had moaning about thistle, nettles and reeds in our field which are spreading seeds and contaminating their garden.

OP posts:
Original poster
shiklah · 17/06/2018 10:29

Wind turbine!!!!!!!! Omg OMG brilliant Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
shiklah · 17/06/2018 10:29

Feeding the rats!!!
Grin

OP posts:
DiddimusStench · 17/06/2018 10:33

Oh YES! You should contact one of the energy companies or a pjone company and say you’d be happy to have a wind turbine and/or mobile phone mast in your field.

Excellent ideas.

IdaDown · 17/06/2018 10:33

Loving Perfs idea about a big ugly Layllandi hedge. Absolutely nothing the neighbours can do about it.

Frame all the soc media, emails etc... Would make an excellent feature in your hall/downstairs loo.

TwitterQueen1 · 17/06/2018 10:37

Similar to BMW6's post: I think you should start an anonymous blog OP, where you can detail all these ludicrous complaints... You could tip off your local mag/newspaper to feature extracts from it. Wink

Or do it from an animal's perspective, like Animal Farm. You could have Seamus the Sheep on the indignity of doggers/voyeurs interrupting his sex life.

Tom the cat on the disgusting habits of his neighbours. etc etc

MrsMoastyToasty · 17/06/2018 10:38

Diversify- get some solar panels set up in your field and angle them so that your neighbours are blinded every time they sit in their conservatory.

(I used to work in the call centre for a sewerage company. The number of stupid complaints we would get about smelly sewerage treatment works from people who had just moved to the country from the city was amazing. Did these people 1. ever check out the vicinity of where they were buying? 2. Shit smells. )

Andrewofgg · 17/06/2018 10:47

Don’t be so selfish, OP - just tarmac all that green stuff over and be quick about it!

averylongtimeasspartacus · 17/06/2018 10:58

Can I second (?third) donkeys. Our neighbours have two and they live in the field about 15 meters from my front door.
They sound like the guardians of the gates of hell.
Especially at 2am.

pandamodium · 17/06/2018 11:02

We are in the northeast surrounded by fields, my mams neighbours have built a hideous
New build bungalow next door. She complained about caterpillars in the garden and blamed my mam for them coming in from her garden next door.

Nothing to do with the all the fields obviously.

LighthouseSouth · 17/06/2018 11:04

um...point of clarification please....

how does anyone stomach these comments and not say "are you on glue?" "do you need help getting to the doctor" etc etc?

stayathomegardener · 17/06/2018 11:14

I think this is happening more and more. Our new neighbours put in planning for a hideous new house mainly glazed overlooking our fields, design statement said this was to "take advantage of the views"
Now they complain when we do any actual farming activities.

I have planted a woodland, the trees are presently about half a metre high. Neighbours seem quite happy with the lack of farming currently...

They have NO idea.

FormerlyPickingOakum · 17/06/2018 11:19

I was born and brought up in a rural area, and came back to live here as an adult.

What really gets me is people moving into the area from urban areas and not understanding that they need to manage their gardens and land.

We get people buying the old farmhouses and vicarages (because they want to live in a Jane Austen novel) and they'll inevitably create a garden space at the back of the house, as though it was a semi detached suburban home. Everything else they will leave to run wild.

As a result, trees have grown to extraordinary heights. Then when winds come, they blow over (as the inhabitants haven't bothered to secure retaining walls either) and these trees take out roads, smash through roofs, and my favourite... uproot graves Hmm.

And then they expect the council to sort it out. Mate, you bought the methodist rectory with the graveyard and didn't manage the trees; it's your problem.

PositivelyPERF · 17/06/2018 11:20

I have planted a woodland, the trees are presently about half a metre high. Neighbours seem quite happy with the lack of farming currently

They have NO idea.

I think I love you! 😍 😂

Dobbythesockelf · 17/06/2018 11:36

My dad was a farmer, don't think he's had any of these kind of complaints but I will have to ask him now. He did have a farmer friend who whenever someone pissed him off would dump manure near their houses. It worked well for years until he had a dispute with his bank and decided to dump manure outside the local branch in the closest small town. Police had to shut the road, he was arrested. Still makes me laugh to think if it though.
I felt bad the other month when I complained to a local farmer about his sheep but this was cause they kept escaping cause he wasn't mending his fence properly. We had sheep in our garden, on the road and one memorable evening I nearly ran over a lamb. The field although rural backs on to a school and a busy road and they were out every other day. Still felt bad when I mentioned it to him.

Mia184 · 17/06/2018 11:37

OP, why not put up a thin wall so that the neighbours don’t see anything anymore?

AIBU to think that if you hate animals you shouldn't move to the countryside?
LighthouseSouth · 17/06/2018 11:48

Mia184, why?

TisNowt · 17/06/2018 11:55

My bet is that the neighbour is messing with and would be delighted if he knows you were falling for it.... Wink

chemenger · 17/06/2018 12:00

Can I ask something which has bothered me for a while? We live on the edge of a village; fields on two sides. I don’t mind the muck spreading, the tractors etc. When we moved in our fence was on its last legs and over the winter the sheep from the field pretty much knocked it down to get access to our garden. I wasn’t really that fussed about the garden but I did worry that they could then get to the road. When I phoned the farmer I got a stream of abuse that their livestock could be lost due to my dodgy fence. Is there no requirement for the farmer to enclose their own livestock? Our fence was replaced in the spring after this went on, and I got another stream of abuse when they moved sheep into the field while our fence was completely gone before it was rebuilt the next day. They have no fence at all at our boundary. I can’t really believe I am responsible for someone else’s livestock to this extent?

Same farmer caused us to be evacuated from the house when he burned a huge pile of dubious rubbish, claiming someone else must have set fire to it. Police and firefighters less than amused to deal with a hazardous chemical event. The dead sheep that I spotted pretty much skeletonised wasn’t that nice either. I’ve rescued his sheep from being stuck in brambles from time to time too.

ApolloandDaphne · 17/06/2018 12:00

I used to live in a barn conversion on a farm. We used to laugh about how noisy it was. But we loved it and it never occurred to us to complain.

theunsure · 17/06/2018 12:04

YANBU!

We get this here too. “It smells” (muckspreading)
“The cows make too much noise” (don’t buy house next door to dairy farm then you knob).

Utter arseholes. Hate townies. Hate, hate, hate them. And I’m not the farmer, I don’t know how he keeps his cool.

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