Hello,
We received a complaint from a neighboring party that our cats are defecating on their property—directly in front of their front door and next to their car. They say there is now a constant smell of feces, which wasn’t the case before we moved here.
I actually like these people, but in this situation, I don’t know what to do. We have been asked to stop this or take action against it. However, I don’t know what I could do about it. The cats (two of them) have been outdoor cats for over 10 years, and I can’t suddenly keep them indoors. They are offered a litter box (also outside), but they obviously prefer not to use it. I also can’t imagine it was our cats in this specific case. The area in front of their door and next to the cars is covered with gravel and is right next to the street. Cats don’t usually behave that way, do they? Our cats have always preferred to do their business somewhere secluded where they can bury it in soil or gardens. The neighbor claims to have seen our cats doing it. I have received no proof of this. Even if it were our cats, I believe legally this wouldn’t be relevant.
Now, to make matters worse, they have dumped a large amount of feces directly in front of our garage on the driveway. We are really upset about this. First of all, there is no evidence that it was our cats. What is on the board there, in my opinion, doesn’t even look like cat feces, at least not like those of our cats. It’s far too much, the color is wrong, and it looks too large. I also find it really disrespectful to take such a passive-aggressive measure based on pure assumptions.
The legal situation seems pretty clear here. We live in a rural area; various cats roam freely in this neighborhood (including on our property) and defecate wherever they want. There are numerous court rulings stating that this kind of behavior must be tolerated in rural areas. I believe this applies up to two cats per property.
I have now asked them to stop dumping feces of unknown origin on our property in the future. Of course, if it happens again, I could potentially take legal action with a cease-and-desist letter. However, that would certainly not be good for the neighborly relationship. Unfortunately, we have had problems with this party before. Back then, we decided to let it go for the sake of peace. They complained that our construction workers had blocked their parking. I passed this on to my site manager, who was very upset since it apparently was an exaggeration—I wasn’t present that day. Anyway, this was stopped, and the issue ended there. What I found interesting even then was that shortly after their complaint about the one-time parking incident, they placed a pallet on our property without asking, which stayed there for several weeks. I said nothing—I didn’t want to cause trouble with them—but given their own petty complaint, I found that quite cheeky. I thought that was behind us and that we would always greet each other politely. Then today this complaint about the cats arrived. How would you handle this?
Edit: Here is a photo – Exhibit A:
What I do not want:
- Them to continue dumping feces of unknown origin on our property
- To destroy the neighborly relationship
- To have to keep or give away my cats
We received a complaint from a neighboring party that our cats are defecating on their property—directly in front of their front door and next to their car. They say there is now a constant smell of feces, which wasn’t the case before we moved here.
I actually like these people, but in this situation, I don’t know what to do. We have been asked to stop this or take action against it. However, I don’t know what I could do about it. The cats (two of them) have been outdoor cats for over 10 years, and I can’t suddenly keep them indoors. They are offered a litter box (also outside), but they obviously prefer not to use it. I also can’t imagine it was our cats in this specific case. The area in front of their door and next to the cars is covered with gravel and is right next to the street. Cats don’t usually behave that way, do they? Our cats have always preferred to do their business somewhere secluded where they can bury it in soil or gardens. The neighbor claims to have seen our cats doing it. I have received no proof of this. Even if it were our cats, I believe legally this wouldn’t be relevant.
Now, to make matters worse, they have dumped a large amount of feces directly in front of our garage on the driveway. We are really upset about this. First of all, there is no evidence that it was our cats. What is on the board there, in my opinion, doesn’t even look like cat feces, at least not like those of our cats. It’s far too much, the color is wrong, and it looks too large. I also find it really disrespectful to take such a passive-aggressive measure based on pure assumptions.
The legal situation seems pretty clear here. We live in a rural area; various cats roam freely in this neighborhood (including on our property) and defecate wherever they want. There are numerous court rulings stating that this kind of behavior must be tolerated in rural areas. I believe this applies up to two cats per property.
I have now asked them to stop dumping feces of unknown origin on our property in the future. Of course, if it happens again, I could potentially take legal action with a cease-and-desist letter. However, that would certainly not be good for the neighborly relationship. Unfortunately, we have had problems with this party before. Back then, we decided to let it go for the sake of peace. They complained that our construction workers had blocked their parking. I passed this on to my site manager, who was very upset since it apparently was an exaggeration—I wasn’t present that day. Anyway, this was stopped, and the issue ended there. What I found interesting even then was that shortly after their complaint about the one-time parking incident, they placed a pallet on our property without asking, which stayed there for several weeks. I said nothing—I didn’t want to cause trouble with them—but given their own petty complaint, I found that quite cheeky. I thought that was behind us and that we would always greet each other politely. Then today this complaint about the cats arrived. How would you handle this?
Edit: Here is a photo – Exhibit A:
What I do not want:
- Them to continue dumping feces of unknown origin on our property
- To destroy the neighborly relationship
- To have to keep or give away my cats
F
Fuchsbau359 Oct 2023 21:05kati1337 schrieb:
But wild cats don’t just dart home quickly to rappel down somewhere.Objection, Your Honor! Our first cat, who even came to us on her own, was extremely home-loving!
Fuchsbau35 schrieb:
Objection, your honor! Our first cat, which actually came to us, was definitely a total homebody!There are also some cats who like to bathe, but that’s more the exception than the rule, at least as far as I know. Our cats aren’t particularly interested in their outdoor litter box anyway.X
xMisterDx16 Oct 2023 09:40If you weren’t so picky about everything else, I might have understood that. But now that it’s about your cats, suddenly other people are expected to just accept everything with the excuse of "Well, they’re just cats, not my problem..."
That’s quite interesting.
That’s quite interesting.