Apparently pregnancy hormones make me a wee bit evil sometimes. Or maybe I’m just blaming the hormones to seem less bitchy to all of you.
I’ve complained about our neighbors before. Their four kids see no boundaries between their house and ours. They leave their bikes in our driveway, our side yard is their play area, they pee on our fence, and they sometimes come up to peer into our house.
Right now the neighbor kids are using our side yard to play baseball. They have put down planks of wood on our grass, and in the space between the two houses (where we can’t see them, because there are no windows there), they are tossing a large bouncy ball, hitting it with a plastic bat, and running the “bases”. I occasionally hear a loud thump as the ball hits our house, or the fence that they’re playing up against.
I’m really getting sick of this. While I’m sorry these kids have nowhere to play (they have a backyard, but it’s full of dog poop, so they won’t play there), it is our yard they’re playing in, and our house that is getting hit. A few weeks ago I went outside and politely asked the kids not to hit our house or climb our fence, which resulted in them telling their mother that I yelled at them.
From inside my house, I could hear their mom yelling every obscenity she could think of about me and my family, all because I had the nerve to ask her kids to mind the rules of my property. It eventually forced me to go outside and explain that I didn’t yell at them – I simply asked them to please be more careful and to ask us if they needed inside our fence to get the ball instead of climbing it instead. She calmed down, but complained that there was nowhere in the neighborhood for them to play. Trying to keep the neighborly peace, I told her I understood, but I didn’t want our stuff destroyed or them to get hurt by climbing our (not-all-that-stable) fence.
She yelled at her kids, but of course it did little good. They’re still out doing the same things every night, and she’s fully aware of it, because she can see them out the window. She says she doesn’t want them playing in the street – well, that’s great, but is tearing up our property a better option?
What I wanted to tell her at the time was if they wanted more room to play, they should have picked a bigger lot in the neighborhood – we specifically picked our lot because it gave us a huge amount of yard. It’s our yard, that we’re mowing and paying for, that they’re tearing up. But because the neighbors have a hair-trigger explosive temper, I admit I’m a little afraid of telling it like it is.
Today, though, hearing them constantly abusing our house has made me devise the evil passive-aggressive plan that I will put in place after this baby is born: it’s time to do some creative landscaping, I think.
First, along the outside of the fence on the side yard I’m going to plant rose bushes: rose bushes with lots of big thorns. Next, I’m going to extend the landscaping out from our porch to provide less open space between houses.
And finally, I’m going to add some decorative landscape edging:
It will go around everything, including our poor baby oak tree in the front yard that they’ve nearly hacked to death. I may not go with this particular edging, but you can bet it will be pointy on top. Oh yes, it will be pointy.
Basically, I plan to make our front and side yards as unfriendly to playtime as possible. One fall on something thorny or pointy will make them think twice about playing on someone else’s property. It’s not like we let Cordy play out there, anyway – that’s why we have the gigantic fenced in back yard, full of child-friendly activities.
I don’t want to see these kids get hurt, but hopefully putting out a few more dangerous items in will discourage them from using our yard. If I could throw in a few roving porcupines, I would, but I doubt the city ordinances allow that.
The good news is that the neighbors tell us they’ll be moving out in a few months. They say they’ve got a house they’re moving to, and will let this one be foreclosed on. Of course, they’ve made that promise before, but failed to make good on it. Maybe it’ll happen this time.
Roses are good. Flowering Quince is thorny too. So is Barberry – too bad it’s usually ugly.
Good luck – it can be really hard to have neighbors.
I live behind a gate (a klassy chain-link one) so no kids come in here. But at my parents’ house, where I visit every day, I am the mean lady who yells at the kids to get off the lawn. I stand there and say “Off the lawn.” No please, no “can you play somewhere else” just “off the lawn.” I don’t care if their irresponsible parents say I yelled at them. I DID yell at them. Because it is not their property and they need to learn to stay off something that is not theirs and where they have not been invited.
Wow. Foreclosure? I can’t imagine that… Just allowing it. In addition to my kids running amock and having to be told MORE than once to stay off of a certain neighbor’s yard.
Ooh, that is evilly passive-aggressive. I like it!
Hey you tried being direct, maybe this will get the job done
Oui.. your a better neighbor then I, I would hsve already threatened the little rugrats with something horrible. I would also have told the Mom to clean up the poop and keep her kids caged. Then again, I have the worlds most ghettofied neighbors who I am always fighting with to get my own kids stuff back when their kids steal it. Then they wonder why my kids aren’t allowed to play with theirs.
Passive Aggressive works too, I just don’t have the patience for it, that and screaming at them to get the heck off my property feels soooo much better. Whether their Mom likes it or not. Although, watching the monsters in my neighborhood get poked with a few dozen thorns might even be worth all the patience.
AACK … neighborhood kids drive me nuts …
Currently 35 weeks preggo and can’t tolerate them running through my yard while I am actually napping … not as if I get any sleep at night …
good luck!
Don’t blame you at all. Good ridd- I mean, good luck to your neighbours. Hope the next house they allow foreclosure on is just lovely.
You aren’t mean mommy. I CAN’T BELIEVE YOUR NEIGHBORS. Lucky for them, they don’t live next to ME. 😉
Our neighbor’s kids do the same things. In fact, his mom has encouraged him to just jump our fence to get the ball. The best part is the gate is on that side so they could just come through. I’m thinking of covering the top of the fence in WD40. Mayb that will stop them from climbing your fence.
I like your evil side. And will do a moving dance on your behalf so they’ll be gone before you even have to plant your even thorny roses.
I think you’re doing the right thing, but it sucks the kids’ mom isn’t respecting your wishes. I’d hate to see the kids get hurt in this “sue-happy” world. You should tell her you don’t have insurance so if the kids get hurt it’s her ass. Then again, she’d probably encourage them to get hurt just to have a lawsuit. I can’t stand people like that.
I wish there was a way to report things like this so that in the event something bad happens you’ve got documentation of all the times you asked them not to tresspass.
Sweetie,
I hope to not appear rude, but in your story you did not say that you actually had a conversation with your adult neighbor. You let the children do the dirty work for you, putting them in the middle of adult business and offered them up as scape goats.
There is no reason to be uncivil. Different people have different ideas about appropriate behavior for children! She probably believes that it is normal and acceptable for her children to run the neighborhood. Takes a village, and all that.
There is no reason for them to buy a different house, as it sounds like a quick backyard clean-up would go a long way in solving the problem.
There is absolutely no reason to sue at this point!!! Would you really rather take up the court’s time and pay $$$, just to avoid confronting your neighbor with your ideals and expectations for treatment of your property?
Take 5, collect yourself so that you are not a raving lunatic, then tell her your understanding of the good neighbor policy, along with the fact that you are willing to make her life uncomfortable and to expect a visit from you every time her children misbehave.
When the neighbor kids are abusing your property, take them to their own front door, and when mom answers say, “I’m sorry to have to bother you this, but Billy was throwing his ball against my house again.” If mom does not have the courtesy to ask the child to apologize, then just give Billy to his mother, and walk away! Mom will not want the constant interruption and Billy will want to avoid getting in trouble. They will learn to stop messing with you, and you will have behaved with dignity.
There is no reason to be passive OR aggressive!!! But there is every reason to behave in a mature and reasonable way.