She Works Hard to Keep Her Dog From Bothering Her Upstairs Neighbor. He Lets His Dog Pee on the Shared Stairs
Canva
If you choose to have a pet, you do so whilst accepting being inconvenienced every once in a while. And if that pet is a dog, then the inconvenience is even more intense. Because you might not be feeling great, but that dog is relying on you to take him for a walk. And since you agreed to get a dog, that is your responsibility. Same goes for feeding your dog, and ensuring that he is properly trained. But no matter how hard you work on the training front, you have to accept that sometimes – just occasionally – that dog might have a little accident in the house, and that accident is your responsibility to clean up.
The person in this story, a dog owner themselves, gets that. Because they work hard to care for their dog and keep him under control. But the same cannot be said for their neighbour, whose dog not only has a violent past, but also made a mess in their shared hallway. And the worst part is that the neighbour can’t even be bothered to clean up after it properly.
Read on to find out more.
AITA for asking my neighbour to clean up dog pee outside our door, even though my dog barks sometimes?
I live in a house that is split into two apartments. Me and my family live on the ground floor, and my neighbor lives upstairs.
We share a small indoor entryway before entering our respective apartments.
I have a dog, my neighbor has a dog, and he frequently has guests over who also bring their dogs.
When my dog was younger (she is now two years and three months old), my neighbour’s dog bit her. He promised to make it right, so we gave him the vet receipts, but he never paid us back.
Let’s see how this person and their dog are affected by this.
Ever since the attack, my dog has become reactive toward other dogs. Because of this and my anxiety, I try to live as quietly as possible, not to disturb others.
If she barks it’s during the day if because she’s outside in the yard and someone walks by, or if someone comes through the door and during walks sometimes.
I immediately work to quiet her down when it happens.
Read on to find out where this drama started.
Yesterday, my brothers and I came home from grocery shopping. My neighbor had a friend over, and the friend was standing outside with her dog.
I noticed fluid running down the stairs. When I opened the door to the shared entryway, the floor was covered in toilet paper and stank heavily of urine.
Shortly after we went inside, I heard the neighbor leave. I looked out the window and saw him walking away with his friend and kid. I thought it was strange, so my family checked the entryway to see if it had been cleaned.
It turned out he had just picked up the soaked toilet paper and tossed the pile into a box right there in the shared space. It still smelled intensely of urine, and the stench was leaking into our private hallway even with our door shut.
Yikes! Let’s see what they decided to do about this.
My mom initially texted our landlord to report it, but I suggested it might be better to speak with him directly first.
When the neighbor returned, my mom knocked on his door and said, “A dog peed out here. I need you to clean it up properly, it stinks.”
He acted completely clueless and claimed his dog didn’t do it. My mom, understandably annoyed, replied, “Well, one of the dogs here did it, and it stinks.”
The neighbor got angry and snapped that he would fix it, but then deflected by complaining that my dog barks at “everything and everyone,” specifically around 6:00 to 7:00am.
Now, this person is feeling even more anxious.
This morning when I left for work, the mess still hadn’t been properly cleaned or sanitized, and it still smelled awful.
I am now terrified that he is going to retaliate, make false complaints to the landlord or confront us with yelling.
Should we have just kept our mouths shut and cleaned it ourselves? Were we wrong for confronting him about the pee?
AITA?
In one word, nope.
It’s gross to leave any space stinking like urine, not to mention the health risks of it not being properly cleaned up.
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
They both have dogs. Both dogs bark. But only one dog owner is leaving urine unsanitized in a public area.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.
This person thought that the only person in the wrong here was the neighbour.
While others thought they were right to report him to the landlord.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who calls on dozens of whirlygigs to combat the neighbor’s complaints about the fence.
Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that they should consider protection in case he did retaliate.
It sounds like this neighbour is not only a bad neighbour, he also refuses to take responsibility for his actions too. He knew that the urine hadn’t been cleaned up properly, but he just threw some toilet paper over it and then tossed that soiled toilet paper in a box. That’s disgusting and neglectful, and says a lot about him as a person. Because this isn’t even his home, it’s a common area in an apartment building, and the fact that he had the audacity and utter disrespect for his neighbours to leave it stinky and unsanitary is horrifying.
But the fact that he turned their complaint back on them and suggested it’s okay for him to leave dog urine everywhere because their dog barks sometimes is pathetic. This is a man who refuses to take responsibility for his negligence, and everyone else is suffering as a result. And it’s easy to feel empathy for this already anxious person who is now fearing for the safety and welfare of their family and their pet, because when someone gets angry and defensive like this, there’s no telling what they’ll do.
Enjoyed this story?
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
