Releasing Gremlins into Neighbor's Town?

I can't delete friends who haven't logged in for a while at the moment. I have a few spaces and lots of requests but I've had problems before when at the max friend limit so like to stick to 80ish
Anyone else not able to delete friends?
Also it's telling me I have 11 friends without tapped out which must be wrong as they are recent additions.
I'm trying to resist the speed up donut cost so apologies to friends who aren't finding anything spooky in my town yet!