Sell My House and Move Back Into My Rental Condo

[Chris Mercer]

Hi There, 

I live in Denver and own a rental condo in Littleton.  The lease on the condo is up later this year.  The current renovations on my house are just about complete.  My agent ran comps for me on the house and I can pull some pretty good equity out of it.  I like the house.  It needs some more work to make it "pretty", but I don't think the extra investment will buy me much, given my diverse neighborhood.

My hangup is that i live next door to the cat lady.  Dozens of feral cats.  They use my yard as their bathroom.  They spray my house, porch, truck, fence...everything.  My dogs eat their poop, then get sick.  I've tried many different agencies and self-mitigation, to no avail.  I like that i can let the dogs out before and after work and don't have to walk them all the time (time is very important to me). But the cats....

My condo pulls good rental income. The mortgage is super cheap, as i got a great deal on it.  

I have to weigh the balance of no longer having to deal with the cats vs having to walk the dogs all the time again (and the fact that the house will continue to rise in value in the coming years...do I want to miss out on that).

Thoughts? 

Thanks! 

Chris

[Bill S.]

@Chris Mercer where I grew up in Wyoming, you wouldn't even have posted this. The rule of the land is, you keep your critters on your property or they disappear. While growing up a neighbors dog kept coming into our calving pasture during calving season. My father left the carcass where it fell in the middle of an open field. It was easily visible from the county road. To my knowledge, no one said a thing.

The way I understand the law is that you can trap an animal that comes onto your property and turn them into the local pound. If they are unlicensed then the owner would face a fine. If they are licensed then the owner would be contacted and they would have to pay to have the cat released from Kitty jail. 

Personally I would deal directly with the Cat Lady. I would have a nice discussion with her. I would be nice and tell her that her cats are messing with my life by coming onto my property. It would a nice verbal warning. If it continued, then a written letter with a picture of one of the cats doing it's business on my property. After that, the traps would go out. In summary, she can keep her cats at home or find them at the pound. How she does that is her business. It's even fair game to bait the trap.

You could also offer to purchase her property. Maybe that's a new item for driving for dollars, the property with lots of cats gets a door knock or a direct mail piece.