Shutterstock

Imagine living in an apartment that allows dogs as long as they don’t bark. What would you do if a neighbor kept scaring your dog, which caused the dog to bark?

In this story, one woman is in this situation. The neighbor is a little girl, so she doesn’t entirely blame the child. However, she needs the kid to leave her dog alone and quit scaring it as if it’s a game.

She’s thinking about talking to the landlord, but she’s not sure if that’s the right thing to do.

Keep reading for all the details because the little girl’s parents have been pestering the dog owner for awhile now.

WIBTA if I (28f) complain to the landlord about my neighbor’s kid (5ishf)?

So, background info: our apartment complex is really strict about no dogs barking in the complex.

Our upstairs neighbors left a threatening note on our door last winter about how they were gonna get the local shelter to take our dog away because apparently he was barking really bad while we were gone.

We weren’t aware of this issue but we got a video camera to watch him while we were away and they were right, it was bad.

So we took immediate action, took him to training school, turned out he had severe anxiety so we got him a prescription for that, got him a dog treadmill and started training him and exercising him more.

But the landlord threatened to evict them.

Five days after we got the scary note, landlord gave us a ten day cure notice to get rid of the dog or find someone to be with him.

I had to quit my job to stay home with him so we didn’t get evicted.

Scary stuff but I’m doing everything in my power so we don’t have to rehome our boy since he’s a rescue and clearly traumatized from the experience.

Aaanyway, so problem solved right?

The barking is better, but there’s still a problem.

He still barks once in a while when the neighbors shout or when someone rings the doorbell, but it’s so much better now and I have him trained enough that he barks once, I command him to stop and he does.

Except the neighbor girl likes to rile him up.

His anxiety is especially triggered by young kids and girls, and this little girl who I think is 5 or 6 thinks it’s funny to make him bark.

This is awful!

So nearly every day she comes to our window and presses her face against it, or even knocks on it, or if it’s open she talks to him or barks at him.

And it scares the sense out of him and he goes crazy barking and I have to calm him down.

She gets the other kids in the complex to do it with her, and now multiple kids are coming to the window to knock on it and scare our dog.

Obviously she’s a child and not to be blamed for her behavior, and I think her parents told her it’s funny because her dad used to bark at our dog to get him going too.

The poor dog must be traumatized.

But it’s hard to make progress with desensitization training and helping him with his severe anxiety when even at home is not a safe space for him, because this girl is always coming up to our window which any anxious animal would see as a threat.

Would I be a jerk if I made a complaint and asked the landlord to get them to stop?

If her parents seemed like rational people I would talk to them first, but the fact that they left the scary note, and that I can hear them screaming bloody murder at each other and at their child, makes that not feel like a safe option.

But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to want to have a day undisturbed in my own home without kids staring into my window, disrupting my privacy and triggering my anxious pet who is enough to deal with on his own.

I feel so bad for the dog. I think the little girl is being encouraged to make the dog bark because her parents want the OP to get evicted or to be forced to rehome the dog. Either way, they sound awful.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person thinks it seems suspicious, and I agree.

Here’s an interesting idea.

Here’s a suggestion to move.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who stops helping his neighbors out with his snowplow after they complain about his farm.

If she doesn’t want to move, proof might help.

Moving really might be the best option. It sounds like a miserable place to live.

I understand not wanting to live next to a barking dog, but the fact that the neighbor girl is intentionally trying to make the dog bark seems like a setup to get her evicted.

It might be better to move before the eviction notice is taped to the door.