Neighbour problems

Evian

Evian

Evian

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Joined
3 Aug 2014
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1,600
Hi guys, My neighbour next door leaves my gate open so my dog can run out onto the street if I don't check it, when he takes his bins out for collection each and every time, This guy is an idiot that we don't get along with at all, He hits the walls if he hears my dog in the slightest, Phones the council from whom I have received a nuisance noise letter recently regarding my dog, His wife has left him 2 or 3 months ago after the police showed up at his door around 12am one night.

Regarding the council, I have asked why he is complaining about noise from my dog and why I have received a letter he said he doesn't know anything about it but call me paranoid if you like, A woman turned up at his door the next day who I have never saw before with a briefcase, Which to my surprise looks like a "Noise Nuisance Recorder" when you google it, Obviously he is regularly phoning and persisting that my dog is making obnoxious sound which it's not at all, It's still a damn puppy.

I regularly hear him shouting to himself apparently THROUGH the walls, All different swear words, Sometimes at night he goes into his house drunk knocking stuff down all you hear is thuds, We are going through a tough time at the moment as my mother has recently got a breast removed with cancer which she will need to go for radiotherapy for around 3 weeks each day now, But this clown is doing nothing but causing stress, Our house is bought so is his.

Currently, The only fence dividing the property's is his own fence and gate on his side, I am thinking about getting one built (6ft) all the way across, I don't want to see this guy, He's not even repairing his fence.

What should I do?
 
Can the gate be locked/self closer put on it? CCTV? (Must admit I'm a bit confused about the gate situation.)

Wouldn't even know who to report such a thing to. If the neighbour is trying to kill/lose my dog :confused:.

Have you always had issues with him or has it been since the wife left?
 
Malevolence said:
That's not how I understand it, the OP quite clearly states "My neighbor next door leaves my gate open".
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Yeah but he also says;

The only fence dividing the property's is his own fence and gate on his side,
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Which I'm struggling to work out how that makes it the OPs gate or how the dog is in the neighbours side.

Unless it's two gates one either side of the fence in which case why is the neighbour using OPs :confused:.
 
OP you're not making much sense... why is he opening 'your' gate? Are you leaving your dog unattended in a shared/communal front garden or something? Perhaps that isn't a good idea. If not then why not just padlock your gate? Assuming it is actually yours.
 
dowie said:
OP you're not making much sense... why is he opening 'your' gate? Are you leaving your dog unattended in a shared/communal front garden or something? Perhaps that isn't a good idea. If not then why not just padlock your gate? Assuming it is actually yours.
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Nope, He opens his gate, Passes through my garden, Opens my gate to get out with the bins which goes on to the street through a driveway, It's a semi detached house.
 
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Mynight said:
Can the gate be locked/self closer put on it? CCTV? (Must admit I'm a bit confused about the gate situation.)

Wouldn't even know who to report such a thing to. If the neighbour is trying to kill/lose my dog :confused:.

Have you always had issues with him or has it been since the wife left?
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It's been getting worse for a while now even before his wife left tbh.
 
Evian said:
It's the only way into his back garden, I will need to check the deeds to see what type of passage it is.
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That his problem then, not yours. If, like you say, you own the property then simply tell him to stop traipsing through your garden and to find another way of taking his bins out.
 
What you can do about the gate will depend on whose land the gate is on, and whether there's any form of common right of access. If permitted, put up a fence, and maybe a lock on the gate.

As for noise, a puppy can still be loud, and if barking extensively, could potentially be a nuisance. What you can do will depend on what that letter ssid. If it was a noise abatement order, then your best bet by far is to abate the noise. Failing to do so is sn offence and could land you with a fine of up to £5000, though that scale of fine would be extreme.

Noise can be a "statutory nuisance". Your neighbour could initiate a compkaint, but it will be council environmental healthnofficers thst investigate abd determine the outcome. They will collect evidence, which could include a log from your neighbour detailing times, durations, etc. But the EHOs have to decide on the totality of their investigation, not just your neighbour's log, if any. That might involve sitting outside listening for frequency of noise incidents, how long it lasts, how loud it is, in order to assess whether it meets the criteria for statutory nuisance.

Part of the problem is that dogs that bark a lot tend to do so when left alone for protracted periods, which might be when you and your family are at work, school etc. If so, you'd be unaware of the severity because it doesn't happen when you're there. Also, puppies tend to be more insecure that adult dogs and particularly susceptible to barking.

I had that experience with a neighbour at my work apartment. The damn dog could bark and howl for two hours straight, non-stop, then take a break and be okay until something set him off again, which might be movement outside, or the phone ringing, or post being delivered, a visitor ringing his bell or even a plane going over. At which point, it'd bark or howl for another two hours. As I worked long but odd hours, I could be sleeping when the neighbour was out. Or trying to.

I don't think the neighbour understood why I was complaining until I invited him in for a chat when the rest of his family was out, and after about 15 minutes, his dog started up, howling. At which point, I showed him the log I had of times, durations, etc and he realised that 7 or 8 hours of barking and howling per day was not acceptable. Also, probably not good for the dog to be that distressed.

Nobody, or at least nobody sane, cares if a dog barks for a few minutes when someone's at the door or delivering mail, but hours and hours of it, day after day, really is an utter nuisance. And as for the howling ..... :(

There are a variety of things that could be done. Perhaps, lock the dog out of rooms, if any, with adjoining walls. Perhaps, leave a radio on when out. The noise distracts some dogs. There are also devices you can get that are triggered by dogs barking. Some emit and ultrasonic noise that dogs don't like. It barks, it gets an earful. It barks again, it gets another earful. Apparently, that sort of reverse Pavlovian technique works and is usually only needed for a week or two to break the habit.

Other types of device go on your dog's collar and again are triggered by barking, but instead of ultrasonic noise emit a burst of a citric smell. When the dog breathes in to bark, it gets the citric smell which stops the barking. That's what my neighbour used and again, it was only needed for long enough to break the habit.

Just remember, if your dog barks when left alone, it might be driving your neighbour crazy, and you simply don't realise how bad it is. For the sake of neighbourly relations, I didn't want to cause a stir, but if necessary, I was quite prepared to use the noise nuisance route, and if that didn't work, private legal action through the courts. As it happened, it wasn't necessary once my neighbour realised how bad it was. A couple of weeks of citrus aversion therapy cured it of the habit.

If your dog is being a right pain when you're not there, dealing with the noise might go a long way towards encouraging your neighbour to cooperate over the gate issue, too.
 
Aldav has probably hit the nail on the head here.

You haven't mentioned about how long the dog is left on it's own but when you do it is probably making a racket.

We bought our house late last year and there is a dog across the road that was exactly how Aldav described and it was a nightmare. Fortunately, my neighbour made complaints and got it sorted but it really was hellish for the several months it lasted.

As for the gate thing, if he has to use your garden as a walkway to get to the street then 'your' gate is as good as his by the sound of it. Just get a spring mechanism on it.
 
Evian said:
I regularly hear him shouting to himself apparently THROUGH the walls
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Doesn't this suggest the walls are quite thin? If you can easily hear him then surely he can hear your dog? Some people don't like dogs and thus any barking can be quite piercing - at the end of the day, you weighed up the pros/cons and chose to have a dog, but your neighbour didn't. Thus, if he's going through a tough time himself and suddenly starts to get a lot of barking through the thin walls - obviously he'll not be over the moon. There's usually 2 sides to any story. But, yes, that's not excuse to leave the gate wide open...

If it's your gate then the easiest thing would be to add a spring to the gate.

It sounds like he has shared access to the rear through your gate - if you build a fence preventing him access to this gate (and thus your garden) then it might be a breach of deeds/contract, so check that before thinking of stopping him.
 
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