Infringement of cat's liberty

July 21, 2020 9:57 AM

I'm looking for some advice on how to keep my cat safe and happy.

I live in quasi-semi-detached house in the UK. I share an entry with my neighbours - a passageway that goes from the front to the back.
Over all the years I have lived here I have had problems with them encroaching on my space and blocking me from using the entry. There is a gate at either end of the entry and then I have a gate to my garden. They don’t have a gate, one reason being they built a conservatory very close to the boundary line (This happened whilst I was in the process of purchasing this property).
My gate is a piece of metal grid, so not on hinges and can be moved. I cut a hole at the bottom of it to enable my cat to get in and out.
They have recently got a small dog. They have moved my gate, without asking, so there is no longer a hole for the cat to get in and out of. They have done this to stop their dog from getting out I am sure.
When I want to remove my gate and use the entry, their dog will have free run and could easily run into my garden, maybe even go for my cat. I am also going to have to ensure that any people visiting my property and gaining access to the back through the entry will have to close both the entry gates so that their dog doesn’t escape. This is because they have not fenced off an area for their dog, but are relying on the shared area gates and my gate to keep it in.
Would it be unreasonable of me to ask them to block off their garden and to stop moving my gate?

posted by charlen to Law & Government (7 answers total)

"Stop moving my gate" is reasonable, but I wonder if it's clear it's a gate, and not scrap metal. Is there a reason you don't install a standard gate with hinges?
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:38 AM on July 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

I can't quite picture this, but are you saying that you can't have your own locked gate because they have no other way to go in and out? And you can't fence off your part of the yard? It seems like a more fundamental solution that restores your property rights would be better, but if you want to continue sharing a gate, maybe you could install one that uses an electronic door that your cat could trigger with something on its collar (something like this).
posted by pinochiette at 11:17 AM on July 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

Can you get a proper gate on hinges? hey neighbors, just wanted to let you know that my gate is up and won't stop your dog getting out.
posted by theora55 at 11:48 AM on July 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

How tall is the gate? Any cat I've ever had could easily get over, under, or around any barrier I ever put up.
posted by trbrts at 12:09 PM on July 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

So you have a not-gate, a temporary barrier of sorts with a hole in it. Neighbors are like, “cool, if we move this not-gate so that the hole is blocked it can serve as a barrier for our dog, too.” This is a small dog, I’m gathering? Take the not-gate and throw it away. Have your neighbors collaborate with you to do a proper gate because dog in your yard would be annoying. The cat can get in and out without a cat hole for sure. But it’s really important to keep their dog out so focus on that.
posted by amanda at 1:44 PM on July 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

Pre-dog, what purpose did your gate serve? It let your cat through, but no gate at all would do that just as well, so there must be some other reason you had your makeshift gate. It would be helpful to know what that reason is, because any new barrier you put in (to stop the dog) will still need to do whatever task your older makeshift gate was doing.
posted by nat at 1:14 PM on July 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also having a little trouble picturing the situation. Something like this, where both houses' front doors open into the passageway, you don't have a door from the house directly into the garden, and the space by the conservatory is too tight for a gate opening inward, so there's just an awkward gap?

--------------------- ==== ---------------------
                    |      |
      Your          |      |   Their
     house          \      /   house
                    |      |
                    |      |
---------------------      ----------------------
      Your          |      ||    Their     |
     garden         |      || conservatory |
                    \       \______________/
                    |      |
                    |      |    Their
                    |      |   garden
                    |      |
                    |      |
                    |      |
--------------------- ==== ---------------------

Given that you now both have pets that like to spend time outdoors, it's probably worth a chat about how that's working. Even without the issue of garden access, I wouldn't want to be barked at the moment I set foot outside my own front door, and neither would I want to risk stepping in something nasty before I even made it to the public street, or have responsibility for keeping someone else's dog from escaping through the main gate. They may have similar thoughts about the cat. (Granted, in my experience cats will go wherever they want, irrespective of fences and gates, but I'd still feel pretty terrible if I opened a gate onto the street and my neighbour's cat shot through it.)

They may also be assuming, based on the fact that you're comfortable with your own pet roaming freely, that it won't bother you for the dog to be doing the same as long as it doesn't go into your garden - which they make sure it won't by moving your not-gate, yay, everyone's happy! ... Oh. That hole was there for a reason? And this goes double if they have direct access from their house to their garden (through the conservatory?), and you don't have the same.

FWIW it seems very reasonable to me that they should make their garden secure if their dog is spending time in it unsupervised, and I'd be feeling wound up by the situation too - but only they know why they haven't done that, and approaching it as a conversation rather than just asking them to do it might leave you both feeling better about it all.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:06 AM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]