More neighbour hassles - please can I have your help

Yet more from the darling neighbours

This time I have to appear in court on a 'Civic government (scotland) act 1982 section 49
apparently something about if a 'creature' in the vicinity gives reasonable cause for annoyance they can make a order requiring the person keeping the 'creature' to take withing such period as may be specified in the order such steps to prevent the continuation of the annoyance as may be so specified

??!?!

and thier complaint
'The dogs both bark and howl continuously for prolonged periods throughout the day and night
depite the involvment of multiple agencies including the police, ASIST, noise enforcement for the council who provided noise monotering (which I was informed was below the permitted levels) and an attempt at mediation instigated by them (which I went along to then they stopped it before we had a face to face), the problem has not been resolved or addressed at all by the respondaent and continues to greatly cause annoyance and disturbs the peacful enjoyment of our property


I have to apparently attend the court with evidence - guilty untill proved innocent eh??

I have contacted all the hotels we have stayed in with the dogs to get letters to say there were no complaints when we stayed
I am going to get statments from the dog walkers around here

I was also wondering if dogsey members can help me out by helping to define what is reasonable barking and what is excessive
Please can you post saying what situations you would consider it to be normal and natural for a dog to bark

visitors, going for a walk, food, playing, postman, window cleaner, people in your garden, people outside close by, dogs/people outside your door when you open the door, being left alone - settling down??? any more?? (mine dont do all in that list by a long shot - was just wondering what was considered normal

I am so at my wits end, I have no money for legal help!
- and for the whole of today my dogs have given a total of 3 barks - just to give you an idea of how out of control their barking is!

Justice for dogs should be able to help.

http://www.collienet.com/justicefordogs.htm

rune

Ah thankyou!! I was trying to remember who they were!!
Will give them a phone in the morning - thankyou!

Teagan barks when she goes in the garden and hears something (i.e neighbours/next doors dogs/kids in field behind)
She barks if people walk past the front window (not for ages, just a few deep woofs)
If someone knocks at the door she goes mental for a jinute or so.

I asked my [nice] neighbours on Saturday if they heard her barking ever, and above is what they listed, but said it is not a problem.
They said if they are in their garden, they say "shut up Teagan" and she shuts up!

They also said they dont mind her barking if people are outside, as it alerts them to possible problems etc.

Whereas my other side neighbours have 4 large dogs, only 1 barks - but he barks the whole time Teagan or I are in the garden, he also barks for at least an hour, starting at about 10pm - I would call this excessive, and my nice neighbours also hear him, and they say it's excessive too.

Hope this helps a little, and good luck!

Ollie barks at people or dogs walking past our fence at the side of house, people near the front garden if he is out the front which isn't often and always supervised, people knocking at the door. Our neighbor next door says he does sometimes cry for a short period when we go out but not for long and luckily they are doggy people and also have a dog.

So far neither of us have received complaints from other neighbors, who are not doggy people.

Good luck with it all it must be so stressful for you.

This sounds like an horrendous situation and I'm so sorry you're having to go through it. I'm lucky as I only have a close neighbour on one side and he says he feels safer having our dogs around and their barking alerts him as well as us (plus he's a bit deaf and we've never complained about how loud he plays his radio sometimes so it's live and let live).

I would say all dogs bark to some extent. With mine it's the same as others, people passing the gate (which is why they aren't allowed in the garden on their own) and someone knocking on the door are main triggers. I generally stop the barking as soon as it starts as I suspect most people do so I would suggest that 'excessive' barking could be described as 'continuous' barking. Ie. it goes on, unstopped, for a long period of time (and in my book 15 and more minutes is too long for a dog to be barking continuously as it generally means it's in distress of some sort).

Goodluck with this xxxxxxxxx

UK law specifies certain defences for claims of 'annoyance interupting the general living of a persons day-to-day life'.
The main one i see with your case would be the sensitivity of the claimant. If it can be shown that the 'reasonable man' would not have his 'day-to-day living of life' interupted by what the claimant deems to be an 'annoyance', then the courts can subjectively hold the claimant as being 'sensitive outside of the boundaries of the reasonable man'.
Your tests that show that the noise levels do not breach the accepted norms should push this defence through without any problems whatsoever.
If the claimant has provoked or provided an intentional 'annoyance' back to yourself, the case swings around to make the claimant answerable for his/her actions.
Unfortunately in some cases in UK law, the defendant is guilty first, thus breaching Article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 - right to a fair trial - innocent until proven guilty, yet this is tolerable as the burden of proof in some circumtances does shift from the claimant to the defendant.
You have a civil case, go to the citizens advice bureau and they should give you some free legal advice, and possibly point you in the right direction to getting some free legal representation.

Hope this helps.

Paul

EDIT: PS: it's all covered under the Tort of Nuisance if you wanted to have a look for yourself
PPS: it's 'Private' Nuisance and not 'Public' Nuisance

Don't foret Ben McF is in Scotland. Tort is known as Delict up here, though the principles should be broadly the same, certainly the advice about citizen's advice is good.

You may also be entitled to legal aid.

I would class excessive barking as, barking for prolonged periods, and barking through the night. My BMD barks at anyone who walks past the house, comes in the gate, and if its a visitor he doesnt know, he will continue to bark and bark. He's also going deaf so now barks at the slightest noise as he doesnt know what it is, even though I dont get on particularly well with my neightbours, they have never complained, but then they argue and swear at each other ALOT so they'd have no grounds to complain over noise

Unfortunately, your neighbours have probably nothing better to do, do they dislike dogs do you know? It must be an awful situation to be in, I hope everything is okay.
Can you not start playing loud music to distract them away from the dog barking?