When you move to the “country,” the first thing you do is try and get a lay of the land, and that includes getting to know your neighbors. Coming from New York City, where I lived in a building of a few thousand people and only knew about two or three of them by name, it was a bit overwhelming to think about sharing property lines, garbage cans and mailbox rows with people I didn’t know. The prospect of knocking on a neighbor’s door to borrow a hammer or a cup of sugar was scary, but also comforting. What I didn’t realize is that I would be sharing a lot more than sugar!

As some of you may remember, I live with and love a gardener. Jim is not just any hobbyist; he is a serial gardener. He will propagate 100 plants a week when he has the time, and that means we have thousands of plants on a pretty small plot of land. Each plant is lovingly cared for. He usually starts by taking a clipping, then rooting it in a small basement grow tent. After getting love, light and fertilizer, and if it roots, Jim will plant it outdoors, to make room in the grow tent for more babies. Jim’s most special plants start from seeds. He sources them from groups like the American Rhododendron Society to get new species with different colors, seasonal blooms and foliage. This is a labor of great love: the small six-to-eight-inch azaleas and rhododendrons in the yard are the result of up to three years of work. They can be crushed and killed with one accidental trample. (Yes, I am guilty of this.) In a few years, with tons of compost and mulch and lots of love, our yard will probably become a magnificent showroom for a future nursery. We all can dream!

Our beautiful plants have created some serious neighborly tension, however. Allergies? Invasives? Unpleasant color schemes? Nope, it’s the neighbors’ cats. Their “rescue” cats, specifically. These are not one or two or even three or four little kitties. We have counted as many as 25 cats in about a half-acre of yard. They are “outdoor” cats, probably because their two-bedroom house would really only fit a couple of them.

The standard rule is one cat per bedroom. How bad could their prior life have been to end up “rescued” next door? Here, they are cold in winter, hot in summer, wet on rainy days. When they are sick, they look for little private areas to hide from predators and nurse their wounds. We watched one lay under the same tree for days, barely able to get up. A pregnant one hid in one of our flower beds for days before giving birth to stay out of trouble. They get fed, but we’ve seen them turned away by an angry racoon that got hold of their food. I’m not sure I would call this a sanctuary.

This kitty “rescue” yard is only a few feet away from our place. So, you may already begin to imagine some issues. On cold or wet days, they have snuck into our vehicles and shed, one got trapped in a car for days accidentally. The result is hairy smelly vehicles. (I am also allergic!). The cats have babies (even though there are attempts at catching and neutering them by a local non-profit). The babies explore, and find our rich soils, our mulch piles, and our fragrant plants as soon as they are old enough to venture across the driveway. Then they dig, scratch and poop all over. So, when we step out to smell the lilacs or if we’re digging up a new spot for the basil plants, instead of smelling soil, flowers and herbs, we get a whiff of and a handful of cat poop. When our dog sees them on our property from the window, he barks, interrupting my thoughts and Zoom calls.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, “Problems can arise when outdoor cats venture into a yard where they aren’t welcome. People can be upset when cats dig, urinate or defecate in their yard or garden, jump on their car, sleep (and shed their fur) on porch furniture, or agitate their pets. Others are concerned about wildlife the cats may prey on or about the health and welfare of cats they see outdoors.” Oh right, I have kitty prints all over my car and some scratches on the old stair railings. We can’t stand the situation, but we are sympathetic. The cats are not at fault. They share a small space and need to roam. The humans are at fault.

Getting upset with your neighbors over their cats is not unique to us. There are pages and pages online of people griping and complaining about neighbors’ cats and none of them solve the problem by talking to their neighbors. There is an entire industry of products that keep pesky neighbor cats off your yard. I have tried a few and decided to stop wasting my money, as they don’t work.

I asked Jim, as a country guy and expert on neighbor relations, why we can’t talk it out. “They know the cats are doing this, and they just don’t want to do anything about it.” He thinks talking won’t help. After all, we do rely on each other for some things. When the power is down, or when we suspect wrongdoing in the area, we check on each other. That doesn’t exactly fit the image of knocking on the door and borrowing a cup of sugar, but it has value, and rocking that boat doesn’t make sense.

In New York City, we have mediators. When my neighbor’s toilet leaked, keeping us up at night with a little trinkle, the superintendent went over there to check on it for me. He was polite and explained there was a water sound coming from the house he’d like to check on. This was so much better than me banging on the door. This same neighbor now checks on my elderly mom when she is sick. But out here, it seems there is no one to arbitrate and we suffer the consequences for our health, property, peace of mind and even animal rights. Perhaps more importantly, we lose touch with our civic responsibility.

Without rules, our human nature is to maximize our individual outcomes. In the past, there were unspoken rules and if people broke them, social systems kept them in check. “If you did something wrong as a kid, your parents would hear about it from all the neighbors,” Jim remembers.

But this has changed. People have moved here from other places, others have moved away, family structures have changed, we meet up fewer in common spaces like church, markets and town events, and we have become politically polarized, wearing our lawn signs as badges of identity that shut out anyone who disagrees with us. We have lost the values that held us together.

So, this city mouse wonders whether there is a role here for arbitrators (like my building superintendent), to come in and set some guidelines that will make sure we stick to some basic rules. Don’t hurt others, don’t damage their property, don’t harm animals, and for goodness sake, pay attention to the consequences of your actions.