Recently purchased house, barking dog.

glasgowdan

I agree that people who allow dogs to bark so much are wholly inconsiderate, but as Dave says, what can really be done about it? In reality virtually nothing.

The only chance the 'friend' has is to speak nicely with them and hope to tap into their considerate side.

saajan_12

ED2 wrote: »

When she was buying she noticed that there were quite a few dog owners around, she asked the vendors if there was any issue with barking and was told via the agent, that you rarely heard the dogs barking.
..
She could certainly raise this with her solicitor, as technically the vendors should have declared it.

What does this have to do with a solicitor? The vendors may not have had an issue with the barking, resulting in no dispute to declare.

Beyond that, it is up to the buyer to ask specific, relevant questions (ideally via a solicitor) e.g. how frequently do you hear barking? You may then have some recourse if the vendors lied (not sure how you'd put a monetary sum on it though). The EA will say they were passing on what they were told, and how will you prove what the vendor said, in exact words?

Cloth_of_Gold

ED2 wrote: »

Its the action I recommend and do myself Cloth, always try and sort things out amicably. The best way to be.
Sometimes in life, people don't feel the same way unfortunately.

Yes I appreciate that but I get the impression she hasn't tried to talk to them about it so how do you know they won't react positively? Yes, they might well be unreasonable and inconsiderate people but what has she to lose by trying this approach as she might be pleasantly surprised? Even if she did ultimately decided to complain to the council I think it would help her case if she could demonstrate that she had raised the issue with the neighbours herself.

Red-Squirrel_2

4 hours a day seems excessive, but is that really accurate? It would be a very distressed or agitated dog to actually keep that up. I suspect that somebody sensitive to noise would exaggerate the reality in their mind a bit.

Dogs do bark, it's not reasonable to expect them to never make a sound! It's normal and not anti social for a dog to bark a few times a day, mine only do it when I come home from work, and when there's a knock on the door or a disturbance of some kind that they are alerting me to. I certainly wouldn't train them not to do that, it's part of the reason we invited dogs into our homes/caves in the first place!

I suggest keeping an accurate log of the noise. Not '11th May dogs barked all day' but '9.08 - dogs barked for 3 minutes' etc. Then you'll have a realistic picture and maybe a pattern and can decide if it's worth going to talk to the neighbours.

elsien

ED2 wrote: »

Perhaps bringing it to their awareness would solve the issue, but as a person living alone my friend will run the risk of confrontation, because the neighbor couldn't work out that very loud noises disturb other people.

It depends on how you handle it. Many people live alone and are able to have perfectly sensible conversations with neighbours about potential issues. I have managed to talk to various neighbours over the years about noise nuisance, water damage to my property due to their lack of maintenance and rats/mice coming from next door's yard. So far I've not got into an argument or had anything turn nasty. Your friend is going to find other issues over time that they will talk to neighbours about - otherwise how are they ever going to get anything resolved?
If they try and it gets silly then that's a different situation. But so far nothing you've posted indicates the neighbours are anything other than thoughtless.

PasturesNew

The trouble is, the owners won't know the dogs bark and will refuse to admit that they do.... a simple covert camera set up in their home would show them they DO.

Owners don't want their dogs to be upset/distressed when they're not there and have a blind spot to realising that dogs might bark, if not trained right, when they are not present.

I've seen it on the telly when they set up cameras in "dog problems" tv shows - and the owners are surprised when the video shows their dogs pining/barking from the minute they leave, to when they pull into the drive.... as they've never heard the dog bark they REFUSE to accept it does.

I think there are few routes to solving the problem. People are either dog lovers, who have checked/trained their dog to not do it and be happy when they're not around .... or they are people who "like dogs" but don't really give a !!!! so long as they get to buy it cute little collars.

I have one neighbour with a dog, in a small house - and she did have THREE as she had to take in two for emergency reasons .... in three years I've heard her dog bark ONCE, just one single WOOF ....

always_sunny

hope for your friend that most neighbours are past child bearing age...
Some council may investigate noise but if it's past day time.

nikongirl

I've recently been in a similar situation with my upstairs neighbours. When I moved in, their friend was living with them and he owned a lovely, well-behaved, very quiet spaniel. After he moved out with the dog, the couple decided they'd get their own dog. I'm guessing it's a Weimaraner - that sort of size in a 2-bed flat. I don't think it's the most suitable breed for living in a flat but they do make sure it's well-excersized and one of them comes home at lunchtime to make sure he's not on his own all day.

The problem I had was not so much barking but howling and whining for up to an hour after they left the house each time. Things came to a head when they went out for the evening and he was howling all night because of the change in routine. I recorded the noise on my phone, just in case they disputed it, wrote them a note and then had to sleep with noise-cancelling headphones on. In my note I was very careful to emphasise that I knew they weren't neglectful owners but maybe just didn't realise what was happening when they weren't at home and how much it was impacting me. They both apologised (the girl was really upset that her 'baby' had been distressed), gave me their mobile numbers in case anything else disturbed me and made changes to their routine to deal with it. I very rarely hear him howling now. I have had to text them once since to deal with the noise of things (the dog's bone) being dropped on the floor which sounds like a bomb going off above my ceiling but again they were understanding and responsive.

I can definitely relate to being a single female who's not great with confrontation but I think it depends on the other behaviour you see from the owners as to how well you think they'd take the 'feedback'. If my neighbours had been the 'let's train a Staffy to be aggressive as a replacement weapon' types then I would have struggled with that conversation.

ED2

G_M wrote: »

Is this thread a wind up?

:eek:

Surely your friend noticed the dogs when she was reviewing the area? If they bark for 4 hours a day they must have been barking on one of those visits......

House viewed in winter, dogs inside earlier.
Now approaching summer, dogs outside later.

ED2

elsien wrote: »

But so far nothing you've posted indicates the neighbours are anything other than thoughtless.

Having an animal make loud noises in a neighborhood is not just thoughtless, but incredibly selfish and ignorant. If somebody started banging on your bedroom wall or cranking up music regularly when you were trying to relax in your garden, you'd agree.

But as soon as its a dog, it gos from downright anti social to mere thoughtless. Its not an indication of good character, to have an animals loudly barking for hours per day.