VikashLurker
Well-Known Member
Okay so this is a bit of a twist from the regular barking dogs complaints. We are the owners of dogs that bark excessively according to our neighbour. In our opinion, the dogs do bark, but nowhere nearly as excessive as she claims. The dogs will bark when people walk past walking their dogs, or the estate guards walk past, or if the opposite neighbour's dog barks. We are not deaf, if the dogs bark, it annoys us as well, and if this goes on for over a 1 minute, I quickly put a stop to it.
Now before you sjambok me on how we are being inconsiderate pet owners etc. Please allow me to furnish you with the background of this complaint.
We have been staying at our place for the past 4 years. Last year, our neighbour started a school transport business using her existing H1 bus. It was the perfect arrangement as she was a female driver, living in the estate and was known to us. I am extremely paranoid when it comes to who transports my 7 year old girls. Up until this point, I was taking my lunch hour to ferry them. So I agreed to her transporting the kids, and this worked for the entire year. Come November, she told us that she was going to outsource the driving to male friend that was close to her. At this point, I thanked her for her services, but declined to renew the contract for the year of 2017, as I explained my nervousness regarding a male driver. We shook on it, and everyone was happy. Or so I thought.
Since December 2016, the bodycorp started contacting us regarding complaints about the dogs barking. I acknowledged the complaints and chatted to our domestic to ensure that if the dogs were to bark, she was to go outside and shut them up! They generally stop if you scold them. When I say they bark, I mean like for between 20-40 secs, this is while somebody walks past the house. (This might happen around 6 times for the entire day.) However, I can understand that this can be annoying.
But the complaints still continued, and I could not understand why or how. In fact there were occasions where my wife or myself would be working from home, and we would receive complaints. And we can easily hear when the dogs bark. So I started questioning the motives regarding this. Even the bodycorp would come over when they receive the complaints, only to find the dogs passed out in the back yard. So they kind of agreed with us, however they had to follow up on the complaints. They had the SPCA come over to inspect the dogs, and they also could not find any issues. I explained the whole transport thing and the guy said that the most common complaint about dogs stemmed from neighbor disputes rather than animal issues.
We were called in for a meeting between neighbour and estate management. And we were more that willing to come to some sort of amicable arrangement. I requested that she whatsapp us at any point when the dogs were being a nuisance, and we could act immediately. I only asked this, as nobody else was hearing the excessive barking like this women. Not me, my wife, the helper, I even asked our surrounding neighbours. To this date, we have not received a single whatsapp message, however, estate management have advised us that the complaints have doubled.
Today, I received an email from centre management that they would like to arrange a meeting with the police and the estate security and the 2 home owners concerned.
What is my recourse here as I feel that we are being harassed and she is using the dogs as an excuse. Can we not record the dogs for a period and prove that they are not barking excessively?
TLDR;
Neighbour claims that my dogs are barking excessively, I say that she is pissed off since we cancelled a business arrangement. It has escalated to the point of involving the police. What are my legal rights.
Now before you sjambok me on how we are being inconsiderate pet owners etc. Please allow me to furnish you with the background of this complaint.
We have been staying at our place for the past 4 years. Last year, our neighbour started a school transport business using her existing H1 bus. It was the perfect arrangement as she was a female driver, living in the estate and was known to us. I am extremely paranoid when it comes to who transports my 7 year old girls. Up until this point, I was taking my lunch hour to ferry them. So I agreed to her transporting the kids, and this worked for the entire year. Come November, she told us that she was going to outsource the driving to male friend that was close to her. At this point, I thanked her for her services, but declined to renew the contract for the year of 2017, as I explained my nervousness regarding a male driver. We shook on it, and everyone was happy. Or so I thought.
Since December 2016, the bodycorp started contacting us regarding complaints about the dogs barking. I acknowledged the complaints and chatted to our domestic to ensure that if the dogs were to bark, she was to go outside and shut them up! They generally stop if you scold them. When I say they bark, I mean like for between 20-40 secs, this is while somebody walks past the house. (This might happen around 6 times for the entire day.) However, I can understand that this can be annoying.
But the complaints still continued, and I could not understand why or how. In fact there were occasions where my wife or myself would be working from home, and we would receive complaints. And we can easily hear when the dogs bark. So I started questioning the motives regarding this. Even the bodycorp would come over when they receive the complaints, only to find the dogs passed out in the back yard. So they kind of agreed with us, however they had to follow up on the complaints. They had the SPCA come over to inspect the dogs, and they also could not find any issues. I explained the whole transport thing and the guy said that the most common complaint about dogs stemmed from neighbor disputes rather than animal issues.
We were called in for a meeting between neighbour and estate management. And we were more that willing to come to some sort of amicable arrangement. I requested that she whatsapp us at any point when the dogs were being a nuisance, and we could act immediately. I only asked this, as nobody else was hearing the excessive barking like this women. Not me, my wife, the helper, I even asked our surrounding neighbours. To this date, we have not received a single whatsapp message, however, estate management have advised us that the complaints have doubled.
Today, I received an email from centre management that they would like to arrange a meeting with the police and the estate security and the 2 home owners concerned.
What is my recourse here as I feel that we are being harassed and she is using the dogs as an excuse. Can we not record the dogs for a period and prove that they are not barking excessively?
TLDR;
Neighbour claims that my dogs are barking excessively, I say that she is pissed off since we cancelled a business arrangement. It has escalated to the point of involving the police. What are my legal rights.
