scumbalina
Scummy Mummy
It doesnt pay to be nice to twats, so i found out to my detriment- just shop the fuckers to the RSPCA if they dont listen after you have asked so nicely, then a lob a brick thru their window- its the only way
Twatty neighbours, best way to approach them?
- Thread starter scumbalina
- Start date
lighterthief
Well-Known Member
An out of control dog sounds dangerous - RSPCA or maybe even police?
This really sounds like a no-win situation.
This really sounds like a no-win situation.
scumbalina
Scummy Mummy
I like Norwich, but parts of it are a bit "seedy", if not quite "ghetto".
How do I know? I've got cousins living on most of Norwich's council estates.
Yeah, we do have an odd mix of really posh and really err...not. I think we were second only to Newcastle for smack problems last year, it's all a bit odd when you look at the chocolate box image of it.
I blame your family
scumbalina
Scummy Mummy
TBF, maybe their dog is fine (although it's really twatty to not have it on a lead as there's a road nearby), it's more the fact that I'm worried about my dog not being fine if it comes over as it inevitably will do.
Termite Man
zombie flesh eater
geminisnake
a complex mass of conflicting ideas
It doesnt pay to be nice to twats, so i found out to my detriment- just shop the fuckers to the RSPCA if they dont listen after you have asked so nicely, then a lob a brick thru their window- its the only way
Betty beat me to the report them for animal cruelty. I would. Not sure if ignorance=cruelty but if the dog had cut its paws that certainly would.
There's also the dangerous animal aspect. You don't want a dog running around if you're trying to get in and out with a pram/buggy.
Not sure it's time for the brick yet though
DJ Squelch
King Of Insides
Start keeping a log of any problems they cause (date, time, duration etc). If you go to the council they'll probably ask you to do this as mine did when i had grief with neighbours.
scumbalina
Scummy Mummy
I'm on the housing list, I've been offered a couple of places but they've not been great...we figured better to be here a bit longer and move somewhere suitable (especially with a littleun) rather than be stuck somewhere dodgy again for another 10 years. Once we move we're pretty much stuck (as we'll loose all our points that give you the ability to move), so we want to get it right.
mysterybadger
Well-Known Member
There's your answer: they're "illegal occupants", shop them to the council IMMEDIATELY, they can terminate the original occupants' tenancy and move them on. No guilt, there's some poor sod who's been on the waiting list for years who actually deserves that flat.
It could take a few months though, so be prepared for a bit of tension...
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
The good news, mystery badger, is that scumbalina is being rehoused since she last posted on this thread.....
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
We had new neighbours who moved into the house at the back of ours - him, her, two young kids and two Rottweilers. About six months after they arrived, they built a dog-house in the back garden and moved the two big dogs out there. Cue night after night of barking, as the distressed animals kept calling for their owner, who in their minds had clearly abandoned them.
I started a noise diary on the same day, and recorded every time they barked for two hours at midnight, every time I was woken up, and every time the noise stopped me from sleeping.
I called the council, who sent me the printed sheets to transfer two weeks of records onto, and a sheet explaining that a dog warden would have to witness a clear and demonstrably negative effect on our lives from the dogs on three separate occasions, before they could launch a court case against the family.
Something stopped me from sending the sheets back to the council - and that something was the gnawing suspicion that I hadn't done enough to better the situation myself. I didn't even know the family's names, and yet I was on the verge of reporting them to the council - which I suspected would preclude any kind of friendly and normal relationship with them in the future.
I wanted to go round there and shout. I wanted to vent my frustrations, and tell them what utter twats they were. I wanted (gods forgive me) to put rat poison down and set fire to the kennel (anyone who has put up with repeated, invasive noise from neighbours will know how natural it is to feel that kind of nasty reponse!!).
So, I did the opposite of what I wanted to do. I bought a nice bottle of white wine, and went round there and introduced myself, and apologised for not having been round before. And I learned their names (which I hadn't known) and I learned their dogs names, and their kids names.
And suddenly, we were talking. I complimented them on their garden (which is better than the last family had it) and they complimented me on mine. And then, one day over the fence last week, I finally mentioned the dogs barking at midnight. And the fella, who is not the shiniest apple in the bowl, explained how his wife had forced him to house the dogs in the garden after baby number two came, and he hated them being there - but he also hated the thought that they were disturbing me. And he promised to close them into the enclosed area of the pen at night.
Well, things this week have been a bit better. The barking is less. But even when I do hear the barking, I just softly whisper the names of the dogs, and have a smile, and remind myself that they aren't trying to wind me up. And I think about the fella Paul, and his predicament, and his lovely two kids and his hard enough life, and I realised that once I learned their names, and they became people to me instead of problems, then the issue didn't actually seem quite so bad.
And by saying hello first, and being nice to them, they were all the more ready to listen to me when I had a problem - and even do their best to help. And I know that, from my point of view, not knowing them, and assuming they somehow were intending to wind me up with their inconsiderate ways (when of course they were doing no such thing) is what made everything seem so bad.
The tendency in our modern neighbourhoods is to not learn the names of our neighbours, and I think this leads to misunderstandings, and makes communication difficult - how can we hope to be friends when the first time we speak is to complain?
Not everyone will respond in the same way to decency and warmth, and sometimes the final stage will have to be to get official help, but my reading of human nature is that most people just want to feel important. They want to feel like you respect them - and that is a two-way street. Give some respect, and you might be surprised at what respect comes back your way, and from where.
I still have the records of the barking, and I might need them one day. But more importantly, from a negative situation I now have two neighbours I can wave and say Hello to, and I learned a valuable lesson I think about the effort we need to go to to create the kind of community we all seem to want to live in.
Sorry for spraffing on, but 'Twatty neighbours and how to deal with them' is now a specialist subject of mine! Ignore me as appropriate!!
I started a noise diary on the same day, and recorded every time they barked for two hours at midnight, every time I was woken up, and every time the noise stopped me from sleeping.
I called the council, who sent me the printed sheets to transfer two weeks of records onto, and a sheet explaining that a dog warden would have to witness a clear and demonstrably negative effect on our lives from the dogs on three separate occasions, before they could launch a court case against the family.
Something stopped me from sending the sheets back to the council - and that something was the gnawing suspicion that I hadn't done enough to better the situation myself. I didn't even know the family's names, and yet I was on the verge of reporting them to the council - which I suspected would preclude any kind of friendly and normal relationship with them in the future.
I wanted to go round there and shout. I wanted to vent my frustrations, and tell them what utter twats they were. I wanted (gods forgive me) to put rat poison down and set fire to the kennel (anyone who has put up with repeated, invasive noise from neighbours will know how natural it is to feel that kind of nasty reponse!!).
So, I did the opposite of what I wanted to do. I bought a nice bottle of white wine, and went round there and introduced myself, and apologised for not having been round before. And I learned their names (which I hadn't known) and I learned their dogs names, and their kids names.
And suddenly, we were talking. I complimented them on their garden (which is better than the last family had it) and they complimented me on mine. And then, one day over the fence last week, I finally mentioned the dogs barking at midnight. And the fella, who is not the shiniest apple in the bowl, explained how his wife had forced him to house the dogs in the garden after baby number two came, and he hated them being there - but he also hated the thought that they were disturbing me. And he promised to close them into the enclosed area of the pen at night.
Well, things this week have been a bit better. The barking is less. But even when I do hear the barking, I just softly whisper the names of the dogs, and have a smile, and remind myself that they aren't trying to wind me up. And I think about the fella Paul, and his predicament, and his lovely two kids and his hard enough life, and I realised that once I learned their names, and they became people to me instead of problems, then the issue didn't actually seem quite so bad.
And by saying hello first, and being nice to them, they were all the more ready to listen to me when I had a problem - and even do their best to help. And I know that, from my point of view, not knowing them, and assuming they somehow were intending to wind me up with their inconsiderate ways (when of course they were doing no such thing) is what made everything seem so bad.
The tendency in our modern neighbourhoods is to not learn the names of our neighbours, and I think this leads to misunderstandings, and makes communication difficult - how can we hope to be friends when the first time we speak is to complain?
Not everyone will respond in the same way to decency and warmth, and sometimes the final stage will have to be to get official help, but my reading of human nature is that most people just want to feel important. They want to feel like you respect them - and that is a two-way street. Give some respect, and you might be surprised at what respect comes back your way, and from where.
I still have the records of the barking, and I might need them one day. But more importantly, from a negative situation I now have two neighbours I can wave and say Hello to, and I learned a valuable lesson I think about the effort we need to go to to create the kind of community we all seem to want to live in.
Sorry for spraffing on, but 'Twatty neighbours and how to deal with them' is now a specialist subject of mine! Ignore me as appropriate!!
scumbalina
Scummy Mummy
Indded! But thanks for yours and Wookey's thoughts, which were really helpful (not so sure aout Jam's advice
), I'll bear them in mind should we have nightmare neighbours at the new place 
Definately gonna do the whole saying hi thing, as it seems a bit more normal than round here, and hopefully it will work both ways and if they have a problem with anything we do they'll feel able to approach us too rather than storing it up and it all getting out of hand. Was gonna update this anyway actually....after we got back from looking at the new place I had a panic that I didn't want to take it, sat in the car for ages freaking out. Then I came up to walk our dog, but (luckily) Mr S thought I looked a bit tired and wobbly so came up (he was meant to be returning the car we'd borrowed) and did it instead. He opened the door to take our boy out, and who should race round the corner, off the lead and attack our dog? All I could hear was Mr S yelling "Will you get your fucking dog on a lead!!!!" and loads of barking, so I opened the door and it had poor Tyke pinned against it whilst Mr S tried to get it off. The guy just walked up, took his dog off, didn't say a word then walked into his flat, with his girlfriend behind, who was laughing her head off and slammed the door, like we were in the wrong. Tykey's fine by the way, it was just rough housing luckily, but the other half was all freaked out cos he got knocked about a bit and if I'd been walking our boy (up the duff) it could have been well dodgy. Anyway, that decided whether we moved or not
Mr S was all puffed up to go kick off, but I said not to bother as we were moving. A few minutes later the guy knocked on the door to apologise! Mr S laid into him (saying we'd already asked him to keep it on a lead) and he said he would, so all fine you'd think.....until we found out that the dog has already killed a cat 
So why the fuck wasn't it being kept on a lead after that? I doubt once we've left they'll stick to it (I think it was more to do with the fact that he saw just how angry Mr S was) so we're gonna contact the council/dog warden when we leave, and make sure somethings done about it.Tossers
