Help with Neighbour over our bird feeders please

winnie81

Thank you for taking the time to read through this and I hope its in the best place.

My neighbour to the left have 6ft panel fences going down the garden boundary and we are in a terrace with our right of way going through his garden.
About 2-3mths ago we placed a metal pole birdfeeder in the top left corner of our patio/stoned area in direct view of our living room window so the children can watch the birds. The bird feeder is approx 2-2.5ft from his 6ft fence.
Yesterday I looked out of the window to see that he has place bird scarers on top of his fence to scare away the birds from our fence. He has placed 4-5 strips of plastic tape (red/white hazard type stuff) onto gardens canes which are about 1.5-2ft in length each.
Is there anything that says these can be removed either by him or ourselves as they are hung over and blow onto our boundary?

He has been very childish as we have always been overly considerate as they are elderly and we have small children and if the position of the feeder bothered him that much he could have said something and we would've moved it immediately, but now we've lost all patience with them and would like the tape removed if possible?

The other thing I would like advice on if possible is if we are allowed to place a bolt and padlock onto the garden fence which is used for our right of way. The fence opens into our garden and is only about 4ft high so the kids can now easily get out as there is only a catch at present but as the gate is a part of his fencing I don't want to get into trouble by attaching a bolt and padlock if I'm not allowed?

Thank you once again for reading all through this and I would very much appreiciate any advice you may have

Claire x
Here is a pic of the bird feeder and scarers and since this pic was taken there have been more scarers placed along the top of fence

winnie81

O.k someone has told me about a law regarding 'trespass of airspace' which would possibly allow me to take away the strips or have I been misinformed.

I tried to search about tresspass of airspace but its very confusing lol

Heath_Robinson

If it were me I'd have a word with them and ask what the problem is. A lot of people have a problem with attracting pigeons as they consider them to be vermin, no different to if you left rat food in your garden.

You could maybe reach a compromise where you fitted a feeder in such a way that pigeons can't use it. Once they find a food source they'll turn up every day for a feed forever more, unless you take the food away.

My friends are in a rented house and they put a birdfeeder in their garden and their landlord came round when they were out and put poison down and put a note through the door saying something to the effect of 'don't attract vermin, if you find dead birds it's your own fault' which naturaly they found quite upsetting.

winnie81

I would love to be able to talk with them but they are very unapproachable and will walk off at times if they don't want to talk to us

It is the lady of the house that cuses the problems and husbund just goes along and does the 'deeds'. She has upset and alienated herself from all the neighbours over the last 20-30yrs or so. She has been malicious and vendictive to many other neighbours in the past and will not reason with anyone.

They have asked us i the past to move/change tings which we have had no problem so I can't see why they couldn't just ask us to move the feeder away from there fence?

The way that he childishly just put up the scarers without so much of a word to us got our backs up so to speak as it was so unnessasary and after 3yrs of us giving in to all there silly gripes and moans we've had enough. I would rather keep the bird feeder there as the children get so much enjoyment from it.

There are pigeons nesting in a very large overgrown conifer in a neighbours yard and they also nest in his 10-12ft high lleylandii hedges

Its so frustrating living next door to them and we've put up with soo much over the years, the worst being the lady hoovering every morning at 5.30 as it gets too hot to do it in the day - yep it wakes us up all the time

woodbutcher_2

Get in touch with the council for advice.You definitely have a right to complain about the noise.They can issue a nuisance order on them for unreasonable noise levels.One of my brothers neighbours had his stereo removed for playing it too loud at inappropriate times.Not sure what to do about the bird scarers though,so would ask the authorities.

Heath_Robinson

Well to start with then I'd trim all the bits of tape that go over the fence. then I'd put up loads more bird feeders till my garden looked like Trafalgar Square.

I wouldn't be putting up with hoovering at 5.30am. Maybe you could arrange for them to have a little accident? Old people can sometimes have a nasty fall....

coolagarry

In fairness to those who oppose birdfeeders, I have a pergola which has containers of peanuts, sunflower seeds and wild bird seed in fat hanging from it. The result is that I get wonderful birds coming to my garden (my favourite is a lovely red-necked woodpecker). The downside is that I have had to call out the vermin department from our local authority twice because of rats - they are obviously attracted by what falls on the floor.

From my point of view it's a price worth paying and I dont have any houses on that side of my house but I would sympatize with someone who doesn't particularly like birds but gets the rats instead!!

winnie81

Thanks guys I was going to speak to council about noise but was frightened that we'd get locked into a long, horrid neighbourhood dispute but they have lost any thoughts or consideration I felt for them :mad:

They also have a grandfather type clock that is fixed to a joining wall that chimes every 15mins and plays a longer chime on the hour every hour of the day . Its set so high that it can clearly be heard above all music/t.v we may play :mad:

I think I will add more feeders than he knows what to do with just for pettyness sakes

I think I can ask him to remove any over hanging tape as it is classed as "trespass of airspace" although I'm trying to get more info on this

I will keep you updated

Claire x

woodbutcher_2

I also get rats coming after the bird food but the dog soon sees to them.

davsidipp

heath robinson when people read your post they will think you are being nasty but i quite agree with your post we have neigbours from hell and are in the process of doing the house up to move people like them make you think that way

winnie81

coolagarry wrote:

In fairness to those who oppose birdfeeders, I have a pergola which has containers of peanuts, sunflower seeds and wild bird seed in fat hanging from it. The result is that I get wonderful birds coming to my garden (my favourite is a lovely red-necked woodpecker). The downside is that I have had to call out the vermin department from our local authority twice because of rats - they are obviously attracted by what falls on the floor.

From my point of view it's a price worth paying and I dont have any houses on that side of my house but I would sympatize with someone who doesn't particularly like birds but gets the rats instead!!

I have my dog who always clears any food that is dropped/fallen and is there for a long time scavaging what the birds have dropped. If the feeder was attracting rats then I would absolutley call out pest control and rethink the bird feeder as I totall understand how unpleasant that would be but he has never mentioned rats, we've never seen rats and the dog has shown no signs of there being rats about-shes a jack russel mix and from working stock?

I wish he'd just said something to us and saved the bad feelings