AIBU to think my neighbour’s cat care problem is not mine?

[Thepartwhereidrun]

My neighbour stopped my son on his way out last night to ask if he would look after her cat when she is away from tomorrow for 2 weeks, going in twice a day. He said sorry but he couldn’t.

I didn’t know she had spoken to him until she knocked our door and told us. Her cat sitter has let her down last minute and now she won’t be able to go on holiday unless she can find someone else. Nightmare for her, but her cat sitter is ill so it can’t be helped. I said I can’t help her but I text our dog sitter, who also does cat sitting to ask if she had availability and said I’d get back to her if she could do it.

She asked if I would also ask my son again, which I did when he got home, but he doesn’t want to do it. He has just finished his A levels and wants to be free to come and go as he pleases which is understandable. I said that if he has said no then that means he can’t.

Our dog sitter text me back to say she didn’t have any availability for the first week but could do the second week. I text my neighbour to let her know and to give her sitters contact details. She has just text back ‘no good, what am I meant to do for the first week?’

I haven’t replied as although I get she is probably feeling desperate, how the fuck is her cat my problem?

Really can't be bothered to argue. Saying you can't do something is not unambiguous. My boss put an important 9am meeting in my diary for Monday morning. We have flexible working. If I said "I can't do it" they would want some context before making an assessment on whether that no from me was reasonable or not. Can't do it because I've got a hospital appointment - reasonable. Can't do it because I prefer to use my flexible working hours to do a later start on a Monday morning and have coffee with my friend - not reasonable

I don't want to is not the same as I physically can't

If you think 'can't' isn't unambiguous, that's an argument for asking more questions before making an assumption. But you didn't do that. You told OP she could do it and it would take her 5 minutes. Apparently there was no need for context when it came to you telling someone else what they were available to do. So you're not even behaving like the people in your (bad) analogy!

Also, your boss is in charge of you at work. The neighbour isn't OPs boss. Perhaps you thinking those situations are analogous is the problem here.

OP and her son aren’t employees of the neighbour. At work, you may need to justify your time, it’s completely different. Saying ‘I can’t’ to a neighbour for a favour is enough. OP did explain to the neighbour why she and her son couldn’t help and she was still a rude bastard anyway.

If I told my boss I couldn’t make a meeting, he’d accept that I was capable of working out which had a higher priority though thinking about it, so if I said I couldn’t make it, he would know I had something else I couldn’t get out of more.

I hope OP has a good laugh at some of the ridiculous posters on the thread. I wonder if the thread will fill up before she has chance to respond because of all of the bickering and us all of us discussing it. 😂

Cf neighbour has made this into a Cat-tastrophe, and yet she was offered the purr-fect solution, but didn’t want to pay the £15 per day Tab-by so by the skin of her whiskers, she press-ganged neighbours without paying any Kitty.

"Can't" most definitely is unambiguous. The word has one clear meaning and the sentence containing it was simple and easy to understand. Nothing confusing about it whatsoever.

The fact you want to know the reasons why, so you can make a judgement about whether saying "can't" is reasonable or not in your opinion - well, that's a YOU problem. You have no rights to that information from OP, because you have no rights to pass judgement. People have personal autonomy and aren't required to justify themselves to others. Anyone who doesn't accept that has a problem with others being autonomous and holding their boundaries.

I swear half the people on this thread can't read properly. OP didn't ask if she was being unreasonable to not feed the cat, which would have required a judgement call on her reasons for not doing so. She asked if she's unreasonable for considering the neighbours cat care to be the neighbours problem. Because the bullying neighbour was batting the issue back to her over and over again no matter what suggestions OP or her DS made to help, as if solving the problem was OPs responsibility, which it obviously isn't.

The only people who would think someone else's cat was OPs responsibility are boundary stomping CFs. I expect they, like the neighbour, would try to dump their own pets on unwilling pet sitters roped into the job because they believe their friends/ family/ neighbours owe them pet care. Some people's minds work in a very strange way.

🤣🤣🤣😻

You have to answer to your boss, you do not have to answer to your neighbour. ‘Can’t’ was more than sufficient here.

Boss was just an example - substitute partner, mate, Joyce that lives next door - the point of the post wasn't "can't means can't" - the point of the post was "was my can't reasonable or not". And to answer that properly requires context

You're missing the point - which is nothing to do with boss versus neighbour, but all to do with the test of reasonableness associated with the response "I can't". Which was literally the whole point of asking the question on a thread called "AM I BEING UNREASONABLE"

1. You are taking things out of context in my post, and talking gobbledygook..

2. He said he can't. The end.

3. Whether he can't for whatever reason or just does not want to is irrelevant. He said he can't. No is a complete sentence, etc. The neighbour's lack of planning and/or user tendencies and her expectations of him are irrelevant. It is not his or anyone's job in life to be her on-tap manservant.

4. You really ought to admit defeat and let this go, as you are completely wrong.

No, it doesn’t.

The question was actually ‘AIBU to think neighbours cat care isn’t my problem?’

‘Can’t’ doesn’t need any context to a neighbour. It means you can’t. You accept that and be grateful if they offer any other help, which OP did.

This thread obviously has some people who are just like the OPs cheeky fucker neighbour to be arguing so much for her. You are not entitled to a neighbours time and it’s rude not to accept when they say that can’t help.

Op I can’t believe the stick you have got on here from other posters you and your son have bent over backwards to help and offer solutions to quite frankly a problem which isn’t yours to solve! Ignore all did twats on here. The cat owner is one cheeky fucker that’s for sure and a tight arsed one to boot

Hate this bullshit that an older person's (leisure) plans are automatically more important than a young person's. She can move HER holiday, for HER cat. You have no idea whether a young person is available to have fun for 12 weeks, most of them work. Really shitty and snide to say he has "no sense of community" because he won't prioritise someone else's emergency (lack of planning) over his own life. How is this woman their community, rudely demanding favours and refusing to take no for an answer on the basis of a mostly non-existent relationship? Community goes two ways; this is just a taker. Anyone who offers someone a pathetic 30 quid for that service (when she must have money for the cat sitter who got ill, right??) is someone disrespecting a person and treating their time with contempt just because they are a younger adult.

It won't hurt you son to feed your neighbour's cat for a week. Coming and going as one pleases is not a good reason not to help out a neighbour - and it will do him no harm to have a small responsibility. You might need her help one day and she'll remember this. Also, looking after a cat is not onerous. Feed it whenever it normally gets fed and make sure the litter tray is clean. Hardly the end of the world for you or your son.

Who is your neighbour? There is an answer to that question. I agree that raising a child to not help others because it inconveniences them is bad parenting. It's a cat. It literally needs popping into once a day!

You have misunderstood the topic of the thread. The OP didn't ask if she or DS were being unreasonable to say they couldn't. It was whether she's BU to think the cat care isn't her problem, in response to the neighbour having asked what she fuck she was meant to do now- ie OP judges the neighbour was trying to make it her problem. Those are not the same question, so you're just wrong.

I agree that this is nothing to do with boss v neighbour, but that's why it was a terrible analogy for you to introduce in the first place. A telling one, though.

And since you're still talking about the importance of context in other posts, that applies equally to you, and you didn't manage to apply any. You simply told OP she could do it in 5 minutes. Did you even notice that OP had said in the first post that neither of them could do it? Because there's no acknowledgment of that in your first reply at all, only a lecture and an incorrect claim that she could do it easily.

Neighbour is a Champion CF who thought she could manipulate free cat care.

I can't believe some if the posts on this thread.

OP and son said they could not do it. End of.

Neighbour should have paid for a cat and didn't. End of.

What Neighbour has now done, putting her elderly neighbours at risk and shutting her cat out of its house, is utterly selfish.

None of this is OP's or her son's fault, it is all on the CF neighbour.

Wow what miserable neighbours you are! god help you if you ever need help or a favour. I’d turn the other way and bloody ignore you! What miserable cows you are!

I am not a cat person, and she does sound a bit annoying, but I would probably say yes, especially for one week. The cat would have to broadly fit in round my schedule though. Not much skin off my nose to make someone happy.
OK, so have read some more posts...mine is way off...!

How sad that a request, yet again, is viewed by so many people as cheeky, rude, irresponsible, bullying, controlling.

How sad also that basic helpfulness is seen by so many as an infringement of rights, a threat to liberty, slaving to needs, giving up their life.

I'm not sure what happened to the human race, but this is someone in need asking for help from someone who can. It's basic kindness and it makes me sad that it's such a rare resource these days.

Have you actually read the Op’s posts @MrMucker??!!! Bizarre take if you have!