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Pissed off: How to respond to neighbor asking my dog to not pee?

  • My neighbor is hassling me about my dog very occasionally peeing/sniffing/rolling on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. This is totally legal, but what can I do to get her to piss off? Yellow snow inside. I own my home in the city. A family who is renting moved in across the street in September last year. I walk my dog by their house 4-6 times a day, every day (and have for the last eleven years.) Last October, the lady of the house asked that my dog "not urine" on their yard. I have since obliged by loitering along my yard until nature calls to my dog and then walking her across the street along the sidewalk that goes in front of the neighbor's yard. Just to be clear, the neighbor doesn't own this property, and neither does her landlord. The little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street is owned by the city. I know because I pay a ridiculous amount in property taxes, and we had considerable (not optional) assessments when they ripped up the whole kit and caboodle a few years ago to redo the sewers, which I will be paying off for the next 30 years. This morning, my dog did pee on that little strip. I am guessing it's the second or third time in nine months since unfriendly neighbor asked me to oblige her. My dog did this piece of business on our way out, and when we returned 40 minutes later, the neighbor lady sent her teenage daughter out to confront me. I told her I was doing my best to accommodate her, but then the mother appeared and started yelling at me, and daughter and mother accused me, saying my dog peed on their yard yesterday, which she did not. What my dog was doing is sniffing and kind of rolling her face on the grass, and just generally being a dog. (Although I do try to just stay away altogether, I certainly remember what she did and didn't do, knowing that they seem to think my dog is somehow contaminating their grass.) I am extremely angry about this. I checked the city dog ordinance and we're completely in accordance. I'll do what I can, but I pay a lot to live here, and a main reason why I chose to move here is so I can walk the dog. I could purposefully avoid that 5' stretch of sidewalk in front of her house, but I don't see why I should have to. My dog isn't hurting anything, we are obeying the law, and it's her crazy. She said the reason she doesn't want my dog to pee is because she is out there working with her bare hands. My neighborhood has a bajillion dogs, a bunch of outdoor cats and bunnies that poop like there's no tomorrow, squirrels, raccoons, field mice, birds, and who knows what else. Even if my dog is taken out of the equation, she'd still likely want to wash her hands after working in the yard. And/or she could wear gloves. When the landlord bought the property last summer, he pointedly told me and a few other neighbors to call him if there was any trouble with the renters. I normally would not think of involving him (I rented for a long time) but now I'm wondering if I should. I am really incensed and don't want to be hounded (no pun intended) and harassed when I walk my dog by, which I do every day. If it makes any difference, probably 95% of people in this neighborhood have dogs. I walk mine more than many because I don't have a fenced in yard. However, I have never heard of someone taking issue with a dog peeing on a walk. Should I confront her? Should I call the city? Should I slip a copy of the dog ordinance under her door? Should I call her landlord? Or should I just ignore it? I am a little worried that she could retaliate against me or my dog. I am pretty doubtful that would happen, but if anything happened to my dog I don't know what I would do. What should I do?

  • Answer:

    This seems like a situation where avoiding the property is easy and doesn't cause you any negative consequences. Just avoid The Crazy. It's better for your blood pressure (and probably your dog's stress levels, too).

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Sorry, but you do not have a god-given right to leave dog urine anywhere you like in public. In most jurisdictions, even if the curb strip is public, the adjacent property owner is responsible for its maintenance. This neighbor does not want you leaving your dog urine in front of her house. Don't be a jerk.

JackFlash

Sorry, I kind of side with her. Not the crazy way she approached you, but she made a fairly reasonable request last October. Sure, you don't legally have to accommodate her, but is that necessarily the point? She's probably assuming this is happening every time you walk your dog, and if you are walking your dog 4-6 times a day, well, I'd be annoyed to. I would feel like you should use the strip in front of your own yard as the dog's bathroom. Or, at least mix up your route a bit. I know you say it's a rare occurrence, but from her perspective, she just sees you ignore her request. She has to maintain the strip, and it sounds like she's doing so. She probably doesn't want to have to deal with the smell and generally unpleasantness. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. You legally can, just like you can legally play music all night one decibel below city ordinance. She does sound crazy, so maybe nothing would satisfy her. But your refusal to change anything about the way you do your walks sounds antagonistic. Of course you can change up your route. Of course you can avoid her yard.

spaltavian

Personally I'd just avoid her bit of sidewalk because she sounds unhinged and I have a very low unhinged-people-threshold. But if you can't, I think it's fine if you call the landlord and ask him if he could please explain the law to her, because you tried but she didn't seem to understand. (This has the added benefit of letting him know you know she is unhinged.) But also, lighten up on the "I pay my taxes!!" attitude. Renters pay taxes to live there too; they pay them through their rent. And what you both own doesn't really matter, since the dispute is over land neither of you own.

DestinationUnknown

You are 100% in the right. You can choose between: (a) fighting her, getting pissed off when she doesn't listen, getting annoyed when you walk by the place even if she does listen, because you'll remember her not listening in the past, and staying wrapped in righteous indignation every time you take out your sweet, gentle dog, or (b) avoiding her property entirely, letting go of the resentment and fighting because life's too short, perhaps taking pleasure in how delusional the neighbor is to think that your ability to extricate yourself from the situation means that she "won," and paying attention to your sweet, gentle dog. I think you need to reframe the situation from "Battle about who's right" to "Not getting sucked into the neighbor's hostility and craziness." In the second scenario, you win by not playing.

jaguar

"This is not your yard, this is public property and I'm breaking no laws. Stop harassing me." And then ignore her. If she continues, contact the landlord and let him know the tenant is harassing neighbours for using public property outside his house.

DarlingBri

I guess I don't understand why you won't stay on the opposite side of the road until you've passed her property, and then cross. Or else, yank her on when she stops at that particular 5-foot patch. It's not hard (I've done it often), and it doesn't hurt the dog. Sorry, but I think you're being petty. Forget owners vs renters and who owns the strip, etc. Fact is, it's in front of her house and she gardens there. Be polite.

Salamander

You don't have to change where you walk. You just need to curb your dog. It's 5 feet of devilstrip, just keep the leash short for those 5 feet. I don't understand why this is a problem.

headnsouth

If you can easily accommodate a neighbour's request to reduce the amount of waste deposited in her space, why not do so? It's only 5' as you said. Are there not hundreds of feet of space nearby where dog pee is not found objectionable? I think her yelling is over the top. But I also think that not acceding to what seems like a perfectly reasonable request is also over the top. Part of living in a city is making accommodations for each other's wishes even if the letter of the law says you don't have to. Building the social fabric and all that.

seanmpuckett

I agree: you are legally and ethically in the right. But so what? Your neighbour isn't going to stop being crazy at you just because you logic at her. So you can keep doing what you're doing and ignore her and hope it stops (probably it won't). Or you can just change your route and not walk in front of her house. You don't have the option of continuing to walk in front of her house and having her be okay with this because she's not okay with it. It's not fair, perhaps, but that's what it is.

jeather

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