MINI WARS AND RELUCTANT ALLIES

Hi all

It's been a while and I do try and keep up, but time keeps flying by so quickly and we have been having a mini war here.

I must explain to those that do not know I have the strangest shaped garden in Medway (I've looked on maps and it is pretty unique). It is L Shaped! I've been told by various sources that the house once belonged to a fireman in Victorian times and he used to keep horses in the back; hence the side alleyway which is soley for our use. I've also been told that the land which now houses the 3 houses to our left (as you face the front of our house) also belonged to the house we now own. When the owner decided to sell the land he didn't want to lose all of it, so only sold off half the length which resulted in our property having an L shaped garden. It is approx 80' long from house to rear fence, in old money, and at about 40' up it stretches across the next 3 gardens by about 55' making it a pretty reasonable size garden and the main reason we bought it. It does mean, however, that we have 9 garden neighbours instead of the normal 3!

Which brings me onto my mini war. When we first moved in, Oct 08, the rear fence which separated us from 4 of our garden neighbours in King Street was pretty poor. One had done a reasonable fence under the 'tree house', one had a ramshackle shed (it had the front, but no sides or back) so they didn't go near the back and the other two where just metal fencing, corregated rusty sheeting, paving slabs and oven grills. We intended to replace the rear fence but wasn't entirely sure if it was ours, theirs or joint responsibility and we weren't too concerned. However, one of the houses had a Staffordshire Terrier that insisted on coming into our garden every time their children went in and forgot to take it with them! It was a sweet little thing and very friendly but also rather annoying as Phil and Callum aren't keen on Staffs and I was wary as we have a black Labrador and having known people with Staffs am aware that they usually don't get on well with other dogs! We managed to scrape together enough cash by the springtime to erect a 6.5' fence all the way along the inner perimeter of the rear boundary and the problem was solved!

However, over the winter of 09/10 the family had decided that having a Staff (and losing two other Staffs who had got out and ran away) wasn't enough and they got a Mastiff! All was not too bad until they decided to throw out a mattress which they propped up against the back fence (the garden is full of rubbish). The Mastiff, only a year old I might add, heard our dog in our garden one afternoon, raced up the mattress and jumped the fence! Callum was absolutely terrified and I was a little uncertain as the Mastiff was obviously nervous (realising it was in a strange place with strange people and no way home I couldn't exactly blame it). I love dogs, am not particular scared of them (I've beaten off a huge white Boxer before that attacked my Lab when it was a puppy, while the Boxer's owner stood by sweetly calling "get off boy and come here" - like it was going to pay any attention), but I do know that dogs when nervous can be a bit, how shall we say, snappy!!

Anyway, luckily the owner came to the fence, apologised profusely and came round to get it! While here he proudly showed that the Mastiff had lost one of it's toes as it had got too close to the Staff who'd had pups!! But then went on to reassure me that it/they were perfectly lovely dog/s who wouldn't harm anyone and who were brilliant with his kids! I nodded in all the right places but firmly asked him to remove the mattress so that it couldn't happen again!! All the time thinking they it may be fine with his kids, but I wasn't entirely convinced that it/they would be fine with mine and that he wasn't really taking into account that I also had a dog who was likely to want to protect its own territory and protect my child and, as his dog was the intruder, all hell could break loose!! Obviously a very sweet guy, but a bit thick shall we say!

Well the dog didn't manage to get over again as he did remove the mattress, but, of course, now their dog knew about our dog and so every time we went into our garden it would launch itself at the fence barking like crazy! Over the past couple of months it has been left in the garden more and more (I think it's getting a bit big for them to handle to be honest and it still has at least another years growth to go) and it has been barking pretty consistently and launching itself at the fence. It got to the point that Callum wouldn't go out into his own garden because he was terrified! I'd gone out a couple of times to hang washing out and it had gone berserk barking and now growling, so I could totally appreciate why C wouldn't want to go out there. To make matters worse the children began climbing onto the fence (up the rusty old one by the way) and being nosey and when I'd asked them to get down I'd had 'language' from the boy! I must point out at this time of the story that the eldest, a girl, is approx 6/7 and the language expert boy was about 4!!! I decided to call our local Civic Warden for advice which was that I should go and speak to the parents about the kids and the dog!! Great!! I also rang the local community police office and got pretty much the same advice.

This went on for about another week until one Thursday after trampolining we had a few of the kids back to our house. The weather was lovely and they went outside to use the trampoline and have some fun. Up came the kids, bang goes the dog against the fence and the barking/growling ensued! I asked the kids to get down, but the girl said she was stuck!! She asked her brother to go get dad about 1/2doz times, but no dad appeared! Ok, time to go round! So off I hobbled, knocked on the door, explained that their daughter was stuck and asked them to try and keep the kids off the fence as it made their dog worse at launching itself at the fence and was terrifying my son! They apologised and 'dad' was sent out to get kids down. On the way back I was caught up with by a guy who said they were the neighbours from hell and proceeded to tell me horror stories about the kids, noise, etc to the point where his son had moved out of his house next door! Sorry, that isn't going to happen to me!! I thanked him for his information and told him to keep in touch. On entering the house I discovered that the dad had come outside and got the kids down, but they had promptly climbed back up again once dad had gone and had started giving Callum abuse over the fence!! Time, I thought, to ring the coppers again, however, no-one available so left a message!!!!

Since that day I've been in touch with the Council again and relayed information to the Civic Warden, got a noise nuisance diary and been keeping notes of all incidents. Then wonders of wonders I heard voices in the garden last Wednesday and it sounded like someone giving advice. It turns out that my friendly PC had been on holiday and on his return had taken it upon himself (armed with all the information I'd given him previously) to go visit the house! He advised them that the children climbing on the fence could be seen as criminal at best and welfare at worst (apparently both younger children (they have 3, I thought it was only 2) were running around completely naked both inside and outside the house. The garden was full of wood, rubbish, bits of furniture, dog faeces, broken toys and mud (no grass). He suggested that they remove the rubbish and do something about keeping the dog under control! Wow, I love him!!!

As a result, the very next day (I was out) the neighbour had called Phil from over the fence when he'd got home and asked if he could use some of our old trellising to higher our fence which Phil helped him do. Has cleared half the garden of rubbish and built another 5' fence half way down his garden so that the dog can't even reach our fence and the rest of the rubbish is contained. Phil has offered to help him clear anything he can't get rid of as that's what he does!

So far then I think the war is over! I know that some of you will probably say we should have just offered to help in the first place and maybe we should have, but Phil isn't the sort of person to confront people and so wouldn't have gone round. Plus when I have spoken re the dogs before they have dealt with the immediate problem, but have done nothing to stop it long term. I think having someone officially visit has made them realise that it isn't just us moaning and that they must take some responsibility for their own dogs and children. The only downside so far has been that I've now had their neighbours ringing me expecting me to help them with their problems. They seem to think I've set up a petition to get them evicted and that they can just come round and sign it! Unfortunately, that was not my intention unless the problems escalated and, as my own issue is only with the dog and children in the garden and that has been resolved, it isn't my place to start getting involved with issues such as night disturbances. They have been given all the information that I have and I've pointed them all in the direction of the Council, but I feel slightly aggrieved as they knew the problems I was having and had my number (I'd given it to the guy I'd met to forward on), but didn't bother ringing me until they realised that I'd got somewhere! Sorry mates, you're on your own! It's a bit like the Americans isn't it? They were asked to join the war, but refused until they got bombed themselves. I've reached a truce in my battle so far and I'm not going to reactivate any more gunfire. Fight your own war!!

So I have had a week of no fence launching, only one incident of children climbing on fence and although the dog is still barking, it isn't so often and isn't for so long! I'm still going to send in the noise diary, but will add a covering letter to say that I want no further action taken, but could they ensure it is kept on record so if the problem does rear it's ugly head again (after all the dog IS going to get bigger and stronger, so whether the secondary fence will hold it forever I do not know) the records are there!

PS: I apologise to any Americans reading this and I, by no means, hold any grudges towards you personally!! It's just a metaphore.