Environmental health, now RSPCA.... :(

[Bobbie]

My neighbours are horrible creatures.

ever since we moved in about 3 years ago, they have never liked us, from calling police as i was parked on a bend, and my mother on the grass out the front (no yellow lines or signs to say we cant) they have called the council to because we drive on the grass or we park on the road rather than about 5 minute walk from the house in an allocated carpark which you cannot see from our house, and in this area youd rather be able to see tbh..

admittedly we dont cut the grass all that often and yes we have weeds, but my mum has been unable to be out there with carpule tunnel syndrome so she cant garden...

our neighbours are snotty old people that grow stuff and are just all round grumpy.

I clean out every other day and over the weekend it might be on the third day as im busy. my ferrets are vey well cared for and they get taken to the vets when needed, they always have fresh water and lots of food. i dont know about any of you, but i have been battling flies this year, with the weather being hot and wet and then dry etc, i have flie traps up and paper everywhere, the traps smel the most as they smell of maggots in order to attract flies and trap them.

the old bloke, when im outside, he will bicker and moan and often swear at me for having the ferrets, claiming that its illegal to have so many and that they smell (yes they are ferrets, and in season hobs smell a bit) etc etc.

but what made me very angry was that he called the Environmental health out to me, because of the smell.

i have a compost heap, which i put the soiled shavings into, along with any of our house hold waste etc, like most compost heaps. i have had to take this away, and i must take all soiled shavings to the local tip which is not so local and is 20miles away. he has also said in a follow up letter, that he was concerned about the number of ferrets that i have here. i had 28 in total, and i have rehomed 5 of those these passed couple weeks, and i have 4 going in a couple weeks to, so i am downing my numbers.

we have had the entire family over for the passed week and we have been completely tidying the garden and making it look more presentable to keep our neighbours quiet, and he has the cheek to walk passed niggering and mummbling 'About time too' under his breath(my sister heard him) he such an old fart

lighter news.. yesterday, the RSPCA came around, he was very very happy with the way my animals are kept, he keeps ferrets too, and loved my set-up and was impressed that they had so many toys and they were clean, all of them are lovely and healthy, and over all he was chuffed, which made me very happy.

im just discusted with my neighbours for deliberatly trying to agrivate us and for attacking my animals.

sorry thats so long, just upsets me and i havent done anything rong yet they continue to try

bobbie xx

[ChloEllie]

there r some tosspots out there quite frankly. my neighbours used to do that...but not with animals.
used to complain about the noise (i had a newborn baby that was only woken up because the girl used to get in at 4am and arty till 7pm the next night) and that we oarked in their space (we had our HOUSE NUMBER ON OUR SPACE lol but they still though it was theirs)
just a general pain in the arse in general.

F them (for lack of putting it more politely lol)

[Shell195]

Whenever people have more than the average number of animals you always get the select few that complain. Ive spent my life being haunted by horrid neighbours who hated the fact that we had more pets than is considered normal. In the past we have had the RSPCA and Enviromental health out many times and every single time we had a letter saying that they could find nothing wrong. Since we have bought our house we have had no trouble from anybody. I hate bloody neighbours

[Bobbie]

our neighbour on the other side, is great, he loves the ferrets too.

we have a dalmation, who loves to bark, she doesnt like the nasty neighbours, and she will bark alot if she sees them, they got the dog warden round to us as they claimed that mindy had been pooping on the green out front and we were not cleaning it up. we had a fence put up as they claimed she was agressive and tried to bite them, she doesnt have a bad bone in her body the poor dog, she will bark cos she is excited, and will kiss you to death once you say hi to her.. admittedly now its more of an aggressive bark toward them, but they deserve it...

mindy didnt bark once at the rspca man, she was really well behaved, and he even threw the ball for her a few times, lol

[Zoo-Man]

I was reported to Environmental Health for having my marmosets. The bloke rang us up & tried telling us we needed a Dangerous Wild Animal license for them. We argued the toss with him. He came round to check them out, & he then admitted he had found out that no license was needed for marmosets. The only thing he could say negative was that there was a bit of a smell. After being educated about the way marmosets scent-mark their territory using their urine, he shut up. I know who reported us, & it was just a personal attempt to throw a spanner in the works for us at the time. It didn't work.

[feorag]

"Nowt as queer as folk" and quite frankly nothing more queerer than non-animal lovers who cannot understand why any of us would want to keep one animal let alone dozens!

I just wish people could live and let live!

[KathyM]

I can understand both sides of this to be honest. Perhaps some form of mediation would help at this point? Lots of councils run that kind of service through Environmental Health. I would probably get rid of the compost heap too as you're not meant to compost the waste of high protein eating animals? I know it's borderline whether I can compost the rat waste and I don't compost the babies' waste as it's higher protein. I bet that heap is contributing more to the smell problems than the animals themselves. Perhaps if you write down the changes you have made to try and help ease the situation and sat with them through a mediator you could help the situation. I don't think they're being unreasonable if you yourself have admitted the smell and the mess have got a bit much? Perhaps you could get someone to help you clean the garden up a bit?

[thalie_knights]

get an official 'glowing' report on the health and keeping of your animals..and have it 'accidentally' fall through the neighbours letterbox..

[Athravan]

Not getting on with neighbours is a nightmare. We had new neighbours moved in last month, the second day they had moved in they wrote a threatening letter to us saying that they would be reporting us to the environmental health for the disgusting way we keep our dogs - because there were 3 bits of poop in the garden. We have a GSD and we clean up every day but if she and the border collie both go in the morning then yes, there is a tiny bit of poop out there until we clean it up in the evening. It's our own garden and it doesn't smell, there's an 8 foot fence so the only way they could have seen would be by hanging out of their upstairs window trying to look into our garden, the nosy buggers

Then they complained that my hedgehog wheel was keeping them up ALL night. I lived with the previous neighbours next door for 5 years who never mentioned being able to hear the wheel... we sleep in the room next door and don't hear it, but apparently they can hear the one wheel from the hedgehog that uses it at night and threatened to report us to the council for "banging all night". The neighbours on the other side have no clue as they said they never smell anything from our garden or heard any noises from our house.

Some people just like to complain. Yet my neighbours think its fine to sit in their garden cackling away like witches drunk on 5 bottles of wine half the day and all night, where the entire neighbourhood can hear them and smell the booze.... but my hedgehog isn't allowed to use his wheel and my dogs aren't allowed to go to the bathroom in their own garden. The mind boggles.

Just have to ignore them and get on with it but I know what sort of strain and stress it is to have neighbours that just seem to nitpick at every little thing

[LisaLQ]

I'm one who likes to think from both angles. Clearly there's a problem if this guy is complaining, not all neighbours are evil scheming fun-stoppers. Perhaps the smell really IS bad, and it's ruining his happiness in HIS home - which he's entitled to whinge about. Imagine if the boot was on the other foot, and your neighbour had a stinky garden or noisy animals or an eyesore of a garden (not saying yours is, just combining nasty neighbours horror stories here lol).

Clearly if you've had to get help clearing out the garden and cleaning out the animals, things have got to a stage where perhaps it is time to step back and say we need to cut back a little or close our doors to newbies, and work on keeping the place a little cleaner and less smelly. That way both of you are happy - you have more time to keep on top of things, and your neighbour has less to whinge about.

Kathy's right about the compost by the way, you're not supposed to compost waste of animals who eat lots of meat