Fur flying in Bangor neighbors’ dispute

BANGOR – A simmering dispute between neighbors on Pearl Street has turned into a real cat fight.

Saying he’s tired of neighborhood felines using his property as their litter box, 34-year-old Brandon Tolman has set a baited live-capture trap in his front yard.

If his cat-loving neighbors are unwilling or unable to keep their pets off his property, he said Thursday, he will capture the furry trespassers and take them to the Bangor Humane Society shelter on Mount Hope Avenue.

His neighbors say that while Tolman may be within his rights to protect his property, he doesn’t have a right to trap cats and leave them untended in the cagelike trap during the day while he’s away at work.

And, they point out, there’s no law against letting cats roam outside, and no way to make independent felines understand that a particular property is off-limits.

“This neighborhood is infested with cats,” Tolman said Thursday. Though they are household pets, they roam the narrow streets and grassy yards at will, he added. But the primary offenders, he said, are his across-the-street neighbors, Peter and Jennifer Brown, who have four wandering cats.

“They crap all over my property,” he said. “I used to think it was a little dog, but it’s the cats.”

Tolman, who owns a landscaping business, added that the cats leave muddy footprints on his new truck. There’s nothing to prevent them from climbing inside his Jeep and shredding the cushions, he said.

Efforts to resolve the situation with the Browns have been fruitless, and a recent altercation with the Browns’ children brought things to a head.

“[Peter Brown] didn’t like it that I swore around his kids, so he called the cops. If they’d come over here and asked for an apology, that would have been fine. But they called the cops. That’s the kind of people they are,” Tolman said.

The trap went out the next day.

Tolman, who’s lived in his home for 4 1/2 years, said he’s been assured by the city’s animal control officer, Pat Pinkham of the Bangor Police Department, that trapping the cats on his own property is legal.

Across the street, Jennifer Brown, 37, took issue with Tolman’s action.

‘”Legal’ and ‘right’ are two different things,” she said. Brown said she worries that cats in the trap will go without food, water or shelter until Tolman gets home from work.

“There was a cat in there this morning,” she said, adding that it was not one of her own. “I went over and let it out.”

Brown said it’s “impossible” to keep her four active cats indoors.

“I’ve tried,” she said. “One of them just about killed me trying to get out the door.”

Peter Brown said there’s no reason to even try to keep cats inside when the law allows them to roam.

“I’ve lived in this house on and off since I was 8,” he said, “and there’s never been any kind of problem with the cats.”

Officer Pinkham could not be reached Thursday for comment. But Bangor City Counselor Patricia Blanchette was happy to weigh in on the matter. A cat fancier herself, Blanchette said she is nonetheless sympathetic to Tolman’s plight.

“I don’t blame him,” she said. “It’s an issue that needs to be addressed.”

She was quick to note, however, that the Bangor Human Society is already “overflowing” with animals and should not be expected to take on more pets due to a neighborhood dispute.

Blanchette has explored the possibility of requiring cat owners in Bangor to license their pets. But by state law, she said, cats are considered “free-roamers” and municipalities cannot force owners to license or restrain them.

Her own pampered pets are neutered, declawed and kept inside except for rare outings on a leash.

“I don’t want them to go out and wander,” she said. “I don’t want them to get run over or to associate with the riff-raff” – meaning, she said, other cats who might be unhealthy or aggressive.

Blanchette said people might take better care of their cats, including supervising their whereabouts, if they had to spend the money to license them.

And, she said, licensed cats might be more likely to be “bailed out” of the shelter than unlicensed ones. But until the state law changes, she said, people will have to come up with their own solutions.