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Part of being a successful Landlord is picking your battles.
Whenever a question of neighbor law is involved... I always encourage the aggrieved party to make a police report. The police are trained to deal with these situations and if warranted, the incident will get kicked up to the DA or other Enforcement Agencies.
In the past... there was an old sweet "CAT" lady... she had no children and 5 cats... they were her life... her cats started to take a liking to the tenants garden.
I checked with the city to see if I was allowed to put up a hot wire on my side of the fence... city said yes.
A hot wire sends an electric pulse along a wire to deter livestock and the one I bought has a small solar panel to keep the battery charged.
The next weekend I spent $65 and put up the wire... never saw or had a complaint about cats in the yard again.
As a side note... I typically find renters do not as much tolerance as home owners because the nature of a tenancy is temporary...
Two home owners will often make allowances because both have substantial investments in their homes...
Nobody knows who shot the cats. The neighbor is blaming the tenant. There is no proof. What if someone 5 doors down did this? Maybe the person 5 doors down never complained but took matters into their own hands. No fair to automatically blame the tenant.
Thank goodness our court system doesn't make someone guilty automatically without witnesses, without investigation, only using the word of one person that is placing blame without having witnessed anything. Just because the one person being blamed has a motive. To be honest, anyone that lives near the cats has motive if the cats are spraying on their property.
Just because the OP isn't privy to someone complaining in 20 years - this does NOT mean that other neighbors don't have issues with the cats. The OP's parents had issues, but chose to remain silent to avoid trouble.
Maybe someone shot the cats that has NO motive, but just had a gun and wanted to shoot something that moved. This does occur.
Maybe the cats were NOT shot - maybe they were killed by a predator and maybe to cat owner assumed they were shot. In my area, several dead and bloodied cats were showing up on a golf course. Authorities were assuming it was a person killing these cats and it was the news stories for weeks and months - each time a new dead cat appeared. Their investigation revealed an animal predator had done the killing.
I agree with you that is why I said: the OP needs to look into this and IF he/she is using a weapon or poison to kill them. IMO, ifyour tenant is that violent you need to remove him/her from the property immediately.
Of course someone else could have done harm or shot one of the cats I agree that is highly possible. The fact is the owner of the cats made the claim about the OP's tenants not other neighbors. That in of itself is reason for the LL to look into these claims. The OP LL needs to know if their tenant is that violent if they did break any laws. You probably don't know this but the LL can be sued if he/she doesn't do anything for keeping a tenant who does commit a crime on a neighbo or their pets especially after being informed of the suspicion and claims made about their tenant. This is also why I said: IMO, if your tenant is that violent you need to remove him/her from the property immediately. There's no excuse for violence like that if the claim is true. So you see no one said anything about the OP's tenant automatically being guilty. The LL has no other choice but to get involved and this not wanting to find another tenant is baloney. Yes it's a pain to go through re-renting but it is better in the long run if (notice the if) the tenant is guilty of something that is criminal with the neighbors. LOL I bet you are a Law & Order fan.
Last edited by Lolipopbubbles; 01-30-2012 at 06:18 AM..
For the past 2 years we have been renting out our parents home to finance their nursing home bills. The nextdoor Neighbor (who is wheelchair bound) has been a friend of our parents since moving there 25+ years ago.
The Neighbor has cats. A lot of them. My parents never complained because they didnt want to cause problems. However, the Tenant (our 2nd) has complained since moving in about the urine smell from the cats. We have done everything we can think of to deter the cats from coming into our yard with no success. The Tenants declined the offer of humane traps.
A call was received from Neighbor. Allegedly, Tenant shot and killed 2 of the Neighbor's cats. Only hearsay as to who pulled the trigger - but judging from the number of complaints from Tenant, not unlikely it was them. Other neighbors have been there 20+ years with no issues w/the cats. When I tried to suggest that possibly there are too many cats in the neighborhood, nextdoor Neighbor got very upset.
Neither party has 'clean hands' in this. Neighbor is a cat hoarder and the cats come onto our rental property and spray. Tenant is tired of it. If I call the humane society (I am a former employee!) they will come and take Neighbors animals and possibly condem their home. If we evict the Tenants we wont have the funds for parents nursing home.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Call. The first rule of thumb is to protect your assets and I would keep the funds coming in.
I agree with you that is why I said: the OP needs to look into this and IF he/she is using a weapon or poison to kill them. IMO, ifyour tenant is that violent you need to remove him/her from the property immediately.
Of course someone else could have done harm or shot one of the cats I agree that is highly possible. The fact is the owner of the cats made the claim about the OP's tenants not other neighbors. That in of itself is reason for the LL to look into these claims. The OP LL needs to know if their tenant is that violent if they did break any laws. You probably don't know this but the LL can be sued if he/she doesn't do anything for keeping a tenant who does commit a crime on a neighbo or their pets especially after being informed of the suspicion and claims made about their tenant. This is also why I said: IMO, if your tenant is that violent you need to remove him/her from the property immediately. There's no excuse for violence like that if the claim is true. So you see no one said anything about the OP's tenant automatically being guilty. The LL has no other choice but to get involved and this not wanting to find another tenant is baloney. Yes it's a pain to go through re-renting but it is better in the long run if (notice the if) the tenant is guilty of something that is criminal with the neighbors. LOL I bet you are a Law & Order fan.
I apologize...I know that you have your IFs in your statement.
I didn't say anything about re-renting, so not sure where that is coming from. Have never seen an episode of Law & Order. Don't even know if this is a TV show from 20 years ago or if it still on the air. Actually, I never have seen any of those crime shows.
Owner is not the cops here. If a crime was committed, then the cops need to investigate, not the landlord acting like a cop/judge/jury. If tenant ends up being convicted of a violent crime, then landlord can treat tenant like a criminal. For now, it's a he-said, she-said between someone with cats that is letting them roam and a neighbor that doesn't want the cats roaming and spraying.
It seems very strange to me that the owner of the cats would call the LL of the people they suspected of shooting and killing their cats and not the police. That does not sound like a rational response.
I apologize...I know that you have your IFs in your statement.
I didn't say anything about re-renting, so not sure where that is coming from. Have never seen an episode of Law & Order. Don't even know if this is a TV show from 20 years ago or if it still on the air. Actually, I never have seen any of those crime shows.
Owner is not the cops here. If a crime was committed, then the cops need to investigate, not the landlord acting like a cop/judge/jury. If tenant ends up being convicted of a violent crime, then landlord can treat tenant like a criminal. For now, it's a he-said, she-said between someone with cats that is letting them roam and a neighbor that doesn't want the cats roaming and spraying.
Oh yes I see what you mean. I wasn't implying that the LL should assume the tenant is guilty or anyone else but the LL does have to look into it and get everything straight before going to the Police. Actually I would write down everything the neighbor said then let the autorities handle it. If it turns out it was the OP's tenant that did commit a crime, if one has even been committed, then that's when the LL has to decide if they want to evict or whatever is necessary to do to remove them from the situation. Oh and I brought up about re-renting because the OP brought up something about not being able to rent again. That's not necessarily true. If this present tenant leaves they can always find someone else so to me it's a lame excuse to favor one over the other regardless of the reason, which is being the cats bothering the tenant. The LL is responsible for the grounds and apartment not what the neighbor does. I make an exception if there is suspected anial hoarding and neglect.
Either way, crime or no, it's not fair to the cats to allow them to keep reproducing and not have medical care which I assume is what's happening.
What I said about Law and Order was j/k because you were sounding like I was saying the tenant was automatically guilty and they way it was put you reminded me of that show and you sounded like you watched that show LOL. It just cracked me up a bit.
I agree with a lot others here too. What I wonder about with the accuzation of a cat being shot is why no mention of the neighbor calling the Police? It could be either the neighbors is hoarding cats, in and or outside their home or it's all a lie.
I agree with a lot others here too. What I wonder about with the accuzation of a cat being shot is why no mention of the neighbor calling the Police? It could be either the neighbors is hoarding cats, in and or outside their home or it's all a lie.
That is an excellent point. Not calling the police because they know if the cops show up and see 50 cats and the smell of pee that would cause them issues. Of course we don't know if that is true or not, but it is certainly a plausible explanation.
I bet that probably the neighbor, who lived next door to the OP's parents for 25yrs, picked up the phone, and called him because he's "little Jimmy/Suzy" who lived there all their life. He probably said something like "Jimmy, you need to get those awful people out of your parents house -- they shot my cat!". Dealing with an elderly person, especially one you have no doubt known for your whole life, can be really hard emotionally. However, that doesn't mean that the OP should not have some authority look into the situation. This is life, and things change.
Good luck to the OP
The cats should be removed from the property. I wouldn't put up with it.
The process for removal is highly dependant on code enforcement and can be drawn out if there are hearings and appeals.
Many jurisdictions have few restrictions on cat ownership... at least this has been my experience.
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