To keep hold of footballs until they're collected

If was ever thus. I remember 35 years ago I had one 'nice' neighbour who would lob the ball back over and one 'grumpy' neighbour who wouldn't and acted scary if I asked. I just worked around it as I'm sure the kids of today do too. I don't think anything has changed - kids will kick balls, neighbours will get pissed off, it's just part of living near other people.

This is a good tactic 😉

I was going to say I think you’re being petty. Then I read that they kick the balls against your shared fence and I changed my mind. That would do my tits in. They can come round and ask nicely for their balls back.

There is a big difference between having a kickabout in the garden (no problem with that) and repeatedly kicking a ball into a fence as hard as possible, especially when doing the latter they also manage to put it into other peoples gardens multiple times.

I have children who love to play football. Ive said from the off “do not kick the ball against the fence” and “if the ball goes over, thats it you wont get it back”. They are super careful not to do this

i would hang onto them if i was you. Like others have said, your not 100% sure whose they are!

youve asked nicely, its now time to play them at their own game ⚽️

I think by this point I would just stab and bin them then deny all knowledge. After all, you have asked them to stop, perhaps the balls travelled to further gardens or magically disappeared.

The options aren't be on screens or constantly kick footballs into or over your neighbours fence. Same goes for screaming/shouting in the garden.

Both my neighbours have kids, but thankfully my neighbours don't let them do whatever they want with no supervision.

Kids can't win
Why are they on screens all the time? So they go outside.
Then it's why are kids outside so early? Why are they making noises? Why are they playing with football?
Perhaps it's not the kids who are the problem.
Just for the record my teenagers don't really use our garden and 4 year old is non verbal and doesn't play with balls or the trampoline but next door do and I can't see the problem.

Well, you can’t keep them hidden or locked away. They are legally the ndn property. That would be theft. It’s your land so they need to come and remove. You are under no obligation to throw them back. They should ask if they can get their ball, you can’t refuse to give it back but you can refuse to let them in your garden and just hand it over to them.
or just carry on your life and know this won’t be forever. Listen to music you like in the garden or just ignore it. Kids will be kids. It’s pretty poor the adults don’t enforce your wishes which are not unreasonable but hey.

My grandsons can get a bit enthusiastic when they stay and lots of things from frisbees to footballs end up in next door's garden. Their reply - 'gate's always open, feel free to come in and and get them whenever you want'.

Speak to the parents again and tell them that you have had enough of the balls being kicked into your garden. Moving forwards you will not return balls and she will have to knock and collect. And any damage to your garden will have to be paid for. As it’s a communal fence you own part of it so they need to stop kicking balls at it or she will have to replace the damage. Yes you know they are kids but most gardens are far too small for that sort of ball play and she needs to take them to a park.

Unless you have experienced this you really can’t understand how awful it is…

She's spoken to the parents to no avail.

The kids could kick the balls against their own house but choose not to.

It's not just a ball now and then, it's a regular occurrence and the parents are doing nothing about the situation despite OP making them aware

But yes, let's just have kids damaging property and having no natural consequences.

There is nothing stopping the kids asking for their ball back but they haven't.

@harmfulsweeties

-they just put on a whiny voice and say, "He's just a child!" Like, yeah, I know that, that's why I'm asking you, the adult, and not him, the child, to put a stop to it.

I love this response and it's one I shall be using from now on in multiple "weak-parenting" situations.

Yes 'kids are kids and we were all one once..', but our job as parents is to teach them that this is NOT CONSIDERATE BEHAVIOUR!! If your kids are at home, and you're with them, then take them to the park to kick the ball, don't expect your neighbours to put up with the annoyance and damage it can cause, why should they, because you're a lazy fucker who can't be bothered to parent your kids?

Alternatively, don't buy them balls, or confiscate them until you can take the kids to the park. If they're bigger kids, and you're not at home, and can't trust them to take the ball to the park, then put the balls in the boot of your car, and take them with you. Do you need any more advice on how to stop your kids acting like animals?

We used to be the neighbours who lost balls over the fence all the time. My son loved playing football in the garden, he never meant for any balls to go over the fence but it still happened all the time. However, he understood he had to knock on the door and politely ask for it back. Also, he wasn't allowed to kick the ball at any fences and especially not anybody else's fence. We had a goal and he had to kick down the garden and there was nobody living on the other side. But as I said, the balls went astray constantly and were forever ending up in the wrong place.

I loved my son playing football in the garden instead of sitting on a computer game. But I completely understand that it is annoying and that fences cannot be broken.

Maybe you need to show the Mum how annoying / inconvenient it is ... start randomly lobbing items over their fence (Womans Weekly, a slipper, some clothes pegs etc). then keep going round and ringing the doorbell and asking her to fetch them for you from her garden :)

Ah I have a football mad 7 year old who (almost) obsessively plays football come rain or shine.

But I've bought him a football waist trainer and a big net for the garden. Yes it looks ugly but it stops the ball hitting the fence or damaging the bushes. He has lost 1 ball over a fence and I made him apologise to the neighbour when we went to collect it. If it happened twice in one day I would ban football from the garden for at least the rest of that day. If it became a regular thing then it would be banned all together from the garden.

Had a similar problem years ago, not in their garden though, on a grassed area by the road. It did have trees and a no ball games sign on but the trees were damaged in bad weather and I presume the sign went the same way. These children (all boys) lived in houses on the estate which all had gardens and there is a grassed area 5 minutes walk away on a disused quarry area where people walk their dogs where you can play ball games - not near houses. Yet they played on this area constantly. These were mostly boys in their mid teens, so they could really welly the ball and as I live in the corner house it was constantly in my garden.

At first I was understanding, I had slightly older boys myself but they had never played on that area and weren't much interested in football anyway, but I remember thinking ah well they aren't doing any harm, just playing sports - that's a good thing isn't it. Then I'm afraid all my good will was eroded by the constant, rude interruptions. Knocking on my door literally (and I mean literally) every 5 minutes and just demanding the ball. If I just didn't answer because I was working they would climb over my fence (NOT a shared fence of course) and then I was faced with strange teen boys nosying in the windows and I noticed the fence was getting damaged. So I used to go out and tell them they were trespassing, but of course they would then complain that i hadn't come to the door - as if I had to be at their beck and call.

I asked why they didn't play on another stretch of grass which was next to their own houses. They said their parents didn't like them playing there. I just bet they didn't! So I thought I would inconvenience their parents a bit and I told them I would only hand their ball back to parents. Well, that backfired as they just brought a different parent every time who didn't see the problem with me giving the ball back once or twice a day - yeah right, once times twenty perhaps.

One time they decided to play rugby and I was on my drive getting something out of the car when the ball just whacked my arm - if it had been my frail, elderly Dad on the drive I'm sure it would have knocked him over. I did go round to the boy's house in that instance to ask them to ask him not to do this near cars and people and, well, the dad was very ungracious. I also asked why they didn't play outside his house and he said there wasn't room - there was of course.

I was tearing my hair out but then a new neighbour moved in. He was an ex policeman and he knew exactly which buttons to press. He wrote letters and got us to go to meetings, and eventually the no ball games sign was reinstated and the community police (who had been singularly unhelpful and uninterested when I phoned them for advice) took to patrolling by and telling them to play on the recreation ground five minutes away. So eventually they either did that or grew out of ball games on the street thank god.

Wow sorry this is so long - but it was such a horrible time for me especially being recently divorced too, and it seemed to go on for ever, but I suppose it was 2-3 years tops.

I've had this issue with my NDN.

The noise is grating, and he's constantly kicking his ball into any neighbouring gardens. I'm sick of seeing it bounce off my fence. The thing that annoys me the most is that he climbs over into my garden (without permission) to get the ball and when the parents are asked to not allow him to do this-they just put on a whiny voice and say, "He's just a child!"

Like, yeah, I know that, that's why I'm asking you, the adult, and not him, the child, to put a stop to it. If he wants the ball back, someone can knock on my door and ask for it.

I also find that people who don't teach their kids to be considerate of their neighbours are often unlikely to take responsibility for any damage their kid's cause.

The most puzzling thing-is that there's a field right opposite their home that he could kick about in and the parents could still see it from their front window. Yet, they insist that he has to play in his small back garden and constantly be zooming balls into other people's gardens. Odd.

My neighbours are small children who have kicked a ball with enough force to ruin a number of plants. Both of my peonies most annoyingly. It does not need to break a greenhouse to be destructive.

I can't throw them back until the kids knock round here - our house borders onto about 4 gardens (some of them are quite triangular and come to a point bordering our garden) - cos I don't know which house they belong to until the kids come and ask!

I only ever minded with one group who were part of a family of utter knobs and who would just climb up fences and yell until you returned the ball (we had a dog so they didn't dare come down from the fence) - not only were they foul, but their aim was absolutely shit.

Yes she's tried to talking to the parents. The problem is that the mother is the kind of limp lettuce mum who is so bad at being a parent she repeatedly lets her child thump a fence with a ball.

It's antisocial behaviour to make loud repeated noise, like banging continually against a fence or leaving trampolines in oiled and letting them bounce for hours. Only chavs allow it.

Which is completely different from laughing, singing, talking , playing kind of noise.

One can always tell the parents who let their sprogs run riot and don't care about others, especially now that the free child minding is closed for a few weeks and they're stuck with them!

A ball coming over a fence will easily break greenhouse glass as it is not toughened (ask me how I know).

Near us they alternate between kicking the ball against the fence and kicking it up onto the roof.
The "game" seems to be to let it roll down the tiles, bounce off the gutter and then to belt it when it lands on the floor (hence it clearing an 8ft hedge easily & regularly).
Needless to say that said gutter leaks like a sieve due to a football bouncing off it, great big water stain down the brickwork when it rains.

Exactly what I was going to write!