Venting

We seem to be terribly unlucky with neighbours in our building. The apartment similar to ours, but at the back of the building, was bought by a person who rents it out. The first lot were a couple of teenagers with a baby. They had horrible fights and all the screaming, shouting and throwing of stuff terrified the baby (and us). I had promised myself that I would call the gendarmes if it happened again, when the girl informed me that they were moving.

Then came the nice ones, a middle aged couple, friendly and considerate. They were here for about six months. We miss them...

The latest tenants are the neighbours from hell. It's a couple around 20 years old, with one of those ferocious dogs. We can tell that it's not a pet, it's an attack dog. It belongs to the girl, who we assume made the guy get rid of his own generic (but nice) mongrel in favour of the beast.

The dog looks like this one

The dog is left alone in the apartment all day, howling and banging against the door. When the guy comes back from work, we suspect he gets furious about the destruction (and perhaps some fouling) and all hell breaks loose. The other day he shut our access door, meaning that our cats couldn't come and go. I opened it and saw Pirouette sitting by the door with her hairs all fluffed up, so I took a peek outside and the dog was sitting at the bottom of the stairs (they're outside the building), foaming at the mouth. He had fouled the road just outside the building and had puked in front of the first step.

I saw red and went to knock on their door (being careful to shut their access door behind me, as I didn't want to become a dog snack). I gave the guy a piece of my mind, said they're too lazy to own a dog, don't take him for walks and don't clean the mess he makes. He apologised, took the dog back in, left it there, then went out with the girlfriend somewhere. I had to leave them a note about cleaning the sh*t and the vomit. They half cleaned it and were lucky we had that storm the next day, because it finished washing the mess away.

This morning I woke up to incessant barking that didn't appear to come from their apartment. I went downstairs to investigate and found the dog shut in the cellar! It's that same cellar where Madame Precious had stashed all her rubbish, which she then proceeded to padlock. It's a common area housing the water meters and all residents may need to access it at any time. The girl came back after a while and took the dog upstairs to their apartment. I went down to see if the dog had fouled the cellar. I'm not sure if he did sh*t anywhere, but he ripped all the expensive insulation Peter and I had put on the door.

I've been reading about the laws regarding dogs in France, dangerous ones in particular. This afternoon we're going to the mairie (mayor's office) to ask a few questions and might end up having a chat with the gendarmes. As far as I could gather, if this dog is not pure bred, but a cross of any of the attack dogs, they've been banned since 2010. People who owned one before then need to apply for a special permit and abide by some very strict rules. As the girl is barely 20, she would have been a minor in 2010 and not allowed to own this kind of dog. Whether it's cross-bred or not, this young couple have broken a number of rules and are not responsible dog owners. Even if they had a little poodle, they would still have to clean after it!

I'm also going to talk to Madame Mim and to Dominique, who still owns her apartment, so we can call a meeting of all the owners and vote on banning this kind of dog from the building. The guy who rents the apartment out would have to vet his prospective tenants and make it clear what the rules are.

Enough is enough.

END NOTE:

I had finished the post and gone downstairs for lunch when the girl came out with the dog. I thought she was taking him for a walk... but no, she shut him in the cellar again and went out on her bike!