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OT: Tenement greens & dogs

(12 posts)
  • Started 10 years ago by neddie
  • Latest reply from gkgk
  • This topic is not resolved

  1. neddie
    Member

    Hi,

    One of our neighbours allows his dog to foul our tenement shared back green. He mostly picks up near his own back door, but more times than not there is mess to be found especially further back in the green.

    Sadly this means we cannot allow our young children to use the green (as they wish to dig in the soil etc.) We feel the risk is too high from the Toxocariosis parasite which in extreme cases can cause blindness.

    Does anyone know:

    Is it legal to allow dogs out in a tenement shared back green? (I've heard that there are bylaws against it)

    Is it legal to leave dog mess in the green and not pick it up immediately?

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  2. Kenny
    Member

    Alas, I cannot answer your questions, but I thought it worthwhile to let you know that I agree with your risk assessment, I don't think you're being overly paranoid re: not letting your kids play in the green. Hope you can get it sorted out somehow.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  3. Kenny
    Member

    Have you come across this in your investigations so far?

    http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/2194749/47514

    Posted 10 years ago #

  4. gembo
    Member

    Some quite entrenched opinions on this around thennternet. Some recommend you pick the stuff up and give it back to your neighbour as it is his/her property. You may get some response from the dog warden? Renfrewshire council seem to feel not allowed in communal garden but others feel no crime?

    Posted 10 years ago #

  5. SRD
    Moderator

    It probably depends in what your property docs say about uses of back green.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  6. Snowy
    Member

    Deeds vary but ours say that the back green is for the purpose of drying clothes and that no structures are to be erected. I haven't yet seen any that have mentioned pets.

    In a more modern interpretation, if it's a communal space then the dog owner has a duty not to leave dog mess lying around, for the same reasons as per public spaces.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  7. PS
    Member

    If it's a communal space then the dog owner has a duty not to leave dog mess lying around out of basic human decency, I'd say.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  8. Instography
    Member

    You probably want the Dog Fouling Scotland Act 2003 which makes it an offence to allow a dog to foul in any public open space, which includes

    any common passage, close, court, stair, back green, garden, yard or other similar common area.

    and which allows conviction with one witness.

    I wouldn't even bother with warnings or politeness, which seems unlikely to be received well or reciprocated.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  9. neddie
    Member

    Thanks for all the replies so far :-)

    Posted 10 years ago #

  10. kaputnik
    Moderator

    There's a Mexican standoff in our new stair just now between the older and long-established residents and some new renters above us. There's a long-standing (and well advertised) "no dogs in the back green" policy in the stair, but upstairs have deciided to get a puppy which isn't yet house-trained. While they are not taking it into the green to do its business (apparently), they are taking it down once every hour which we are told is part of the training process.

    There's enough weight of eagle-eyed, lace-curtain-twitching pensioner power who don't seem afraid to challenge the dog owners in the stair that we've decided we don't need to get involved.

    Anyway, to summarise, I agree entirely with you edd1e_h - communal gardens are for gardening, relaxing, playing in and drying the washing in. Not for use as an animal toilet (the very idea probably never entered the lawyers heads when they were drawing up the deeds over 100 years ago).

    Posted 10 years ago #

  11. Bhachgen
    Member

    Pick it up (carefully) and post it back through the owners door. Perhaps on the 1st occasion inside a small plastic bag. Any repeat offences, without the bag. That should sort it.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  12. gkgk
    Member

    The zoo used to sell lion poo for scaring away other people's small pets from your territory.

    Posted 10 years ago #

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