Advice Needed - Neighbours

janninew

Hi All

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes!

I've been having a little trouble with my neighbours for awhile. Was really small stuff to begin with but today its escalated.

I live in a semi detached house and my neighbours moved in about a year ao. I often hear them complaining about my dogs, they very rarely bark, unless the door bell goes, but they do play in the garden and the can get quite loud. I tell them off but they are dogs at the end of the day! Recently my dogs have taken to looking through a small hole in the fence and my neighbours were complaining loudly that i should have my dogs under control!! We have thoes fence panels and sometimes the slats slip down so there is a little gap! The dogs are quite inquisitive and have a nose at what my neighbours are doing! If i’m in the garden I always tell them off and move them away from the gap.

Anyway i just ignored them because they never spoke to my face and i really couldn't see what harm they were doing, its not like i'm sat spying through the gap! This afternoon, the 3 children (who are very loud!) were playing with a basketball and they bounced it over my fence, which is 7 foot high! I wasn't outside at the time, but inside doing housework. I had a knock on the door and a very angry neighbour who asked me to get the ball! When i went outside, one of my dogs had it in his mouth and had popped it! Both my dogs love balls and obviously they didn't know it wasn't there's! If i had been in the garden i would have just thrown it back over the fence!

My neighbour was very angry and started to shout that i should have my dogs under better control and demanding twenty pounds to replace the ball. I told him that i would think about this and i thought it was quite expensive for a ball! Later this afternoon before i go out shopping in my car i noticed a scratch from the bonnet to the back wheel My drive is right next to my neighbours and there is no fence between them. Now i am pretty sure it was my neighbours who have done this (nothing like this has ever happened before). What should i do? Think the damage is going to cost alot and im pretty worried that they would stoop to this level! I'm a single women on my own and I’m feeling a little worried now.

I know i can't prove it was them, but its to much of a coincidence!

Any advice?

Thanks
Jannine

BeenieCat

Omg!

First of all i'd tell them to get stuffed, about the ball - if they want to be so careless to let it go over your fence with dogs then that's their problem - i would expect a dog to pop it, most dogs i've met love popping balls! So it's just unlucky

I would probably outright accuse them of scratching my car to be honest, but sorry i have no ideas of how you should probably approach this?

I wouldn't even worry about their issues with the dogs looking through the fence, they're dogs - it's harmless, if they're always barking then fair enough. Whose fence is it? Could you or they put some more panels up to make it more private? I'd let them do that though since they;'re the ones with the problem.

Also - £20 for a ball?! Lol! That's an expensive lesson for their kids to learn Hopefully they'll learn to use cheaper balls now they know the risks.

janninew

BeenieCat wrote: »

Omg!

First of all i'd tell them to get stuffed, about the ball - if they want to be so careless to let it go over your fence with dogs then that's their problem - i would expect a dog to pop it, most dogs i've met love popping balls! So it's just unlucky

I would probably outright accuse them of scratching my car to be honest, but sorry i have no ideas of how you should probably approach this?

I wouldn't even worry about their issues with the dogs looking through the fence, they're dogs - it's harmless, if they're always barking then fair enough. Whose fence is it? Could you or they put some more panels up to make it more private? I'd let them do that though since they;'re the ones with the problem.

Also - £20 for a ball?! Lol! That's an expensive lesson for their kids to learn Hopefully they'll learn to use cheaper balls now they know the risks.

Thanks for the response

I don't feel comfortable asking them about the scratch, i hate confrontations and he seemed quite nasty. The fence belongs to both of us, when it was damaged in winter we split the cost in half, so i suppose it belongs to us both. I can confidently say my dogs make hardly any noise, and this wouldn't never give them a reason to complain about me. They just seem that 'sort" of people who enjoy causing trouble. Not sure what i can do about my car though, i'm seriously very angry about it!

UKTigerlily

Have to say if the ball went out into the road in front of a car I bet they wouldn't be demanding the car driver pay for a new ball! Also 7ft is quite a height! IMO it's just one of those things, the kids didn't mean to boot it over, the dogs didn't mean to pop it, kids will be kids & dogs dogs & I wouldn't be paying anything towards a new ball. If they blame the dogs you can say the dogs wouldn't have popped it if it hadn't come over, accidents happen, if anything the kids are more at fault as dogs don't know not to grab the ball, kids know not to boot it over! Just an accident!

Maybe with the car tell a lie & say they were seen & if anything like that happens again!

KellyWelly

Sorry to hear about this, OP. I know how terrible it can be for your own mental wellbeing and health to put up with vile neighbours.

Have you phoned the police? You should get a crime number from them for the insurance, if nothing else. Also it will be logged in case of future incidents and if you say you think your neighbour did it they might also record that. I doubt they will do anything now though. A few months after we moved to our house the neighbour came over drunk as a skunk and told us if we didn't stop parking our car [outside our house] where they had parked their car for 11 years they would do it some damage because she was 'nasty like that' (my reply which wound her up was 'yes, I can see that'). Anyway, next morning our car was keyed, like yours, all down one side. The police did nothing about it. That's really the worst they did in terms of financial damage though the used condoms in the garden and the stones at the windows were bad enough, we had about 2 years of nastiness from her until the neighbours on the other side upset her and she started the war on them instead.

I would probably replace the ball but not with a £20 version, I'd look on Sports Direct.com and see what's on there and warn them that if they knock it over your dogs will pop it and you're not going to keep replacing it. Hope this settles down for you.

janninew

UKTigerlily wrote: »

Have to say if the ball went out into the road in front of a car I bet they wouldn't be demanding the car driver pay for a new ball! Also 7ft is quite a height! IMO it's just one of those things, the kids didn't mean to boot it over, the dogs didn't mean to pop it, kids will be kids & dogs dogs & I wouldn't be paying anything towards a new ball. If they blame the dogs you can say the dogs wouldn't have popped it if it hadn't come over, accidents happen, if anything the kids are more at fault as dogs don't know not to grab the ball, kids know not to boot it over! Just an accident!

Maybe with the car tell a lie & say they were seen & if anything like that happens again!

Thanks for that!

I'm thinking of speaking to my other neighbours later on and asking if anybody saw anything. There is a lady over the road who is super nosey so maybe she saw something! I know the dogs aren't to blame, but i hate falling out with people, makes me feel on edge!

janninew

KellyWelly wrote: »

Sorry to hear about this, OP. I know how terrible it can be for your own mental wellbeing and health to put up with vile neighbours.

Have you phoned the police? You should get a crime number from them for the insurance, if nothing else. Also it will be logged in case of future incidents and if you say you think your neighbour did it they might also record that. I doubt they will do anything now though. A few months after we moved to our house the neighbour came over drunk as a skunk and told us if we didn't stop parking our car [outside our house] where they had parked their car for 11 years they would do it some damage because she was 'nasty like that' (my reply which wound her up was 'yes, I can see that'). Anyway, next morning our car was keyed, like yours, all down one side. The police did nothing about it. That's really the worst they did in terms of financial damage though the used condoms in the garden and the stones at the windows were bad enough, we had about 2 years of nastiness from her until the neighbours on the other side upset her and she started the war on them instead.

I would probably replace the ball but not with a £20 version, I'd look on Sports Direct.com and see what's on there and warn them that if they knock it over your dogs will pop it and you're not going to keep replacing it. Hope this settles down for you.

God that sounds like a really horrible experience for you. I would hate this situation to get any worse! I was going to offer to buy a cheaper ball before the scratch, but now i really don't want too. I think the damage to my car is going to cost a good few hundred to fix and i'm almost positive it was them! I haven't called the police yet, but i'm going to do that now. I'm hoping one of my other neighbours saw something as i live on quite a busy street.

bennymac

i can see both sides of the dog argument in this myself but its no reason for scratching someones car thats just vindictive.
my neighbour had a girl move in with 3 dogs... i was quite happy with him as a neighbour before but now i have to put up with dogs barking at me when i go into my own garden plus she lets them out very late at night around 1am sometimes and they bark around the garden at rabbits etc which wakes us up etc. I get very fed up with it as it was so peaceful before but as i said would never stoop to vandalising someones car.

Errata

Whatever you do, don't even give a hint that to police, neighbours or anyone else thar you think your neighbours scratched your car because if and when you come to sell your property you'll have to declare it and nobody wants to buy a house next door to car scratching neighbours !

UKTigerlily

I'd maybe leave it & then if they say anything about the ball again i'd say that you're sorry the dogs popped the ball, but you're sure they understand that neither the dogs or kids were to blame & that accidents happen, if they push for money i'd maybe be tempted to say that you understand £20 isn't cheap but they sell them for £6 for 2 or £4 each at the sports shop & maybe if the kids are gonna boot the ball where it shouldn't then they might wanna consider a cheaper one!
I wouldn't pay, to me it's simply an accident & they sound unpleasant anyhow so I doubt paying would prevent things worsening, more likes they'd think you'll pay for things so what can they do next to get you to cough up for!

dieselhead

Sorry but I'm going to have to disagree with the above a bit. To me with the exception of the car scratch it sounds a bit like 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

If next doors dogs were coming into my garden I would be furious, and I OP I really think it should be you who is blocking the hole in the fence to ensure it dosn't happen again. Also are your dogs outside for the majority of the day, I think people are happy to put up with a certain amount of barking and doggie playfulness, but that type of noise can get tiresome after a while.

As for the ball popping well they shouldn't have thrown it over should they, if it leaves their garden then they should consider it a bonus if they get it back, so I certainly wouldn't buy them another one.

As for the scratch on the car, unless you have any proof I think its going to be impossible to do anything, other than keep an eye on things.