Kids in street making our lives a nightmare

[Bluemooninmyeyes1]

We moved into our house a year ago. We love the house itself and have spend a lot of time and money doing it up the way we want it. The problem lies with the kids in the street.

A big group of them (aged about 11 or 12) have started climbing on top of our garage and other neighbours garages, which are separate from the houses. Our garage roof is not the sturdiest and we have tried to ask them nicely to stop but it has continued. Today, they were up on the roof again and even climbed across the neighbours fence into our garden! My partner and I went out and shouted at them as we’re both at the end of our tether but they just swore and hurled a load of abuse at us.

Does anyone have any suggestions about ways to tackle this or security we can put in place? I hate being so stressed in my own house

Call the police every time
Video for evidence
It’s harassment

Take photos and upload to fbook as a pp said
Call police and show them the photos

Ridiculous

To avoid getting sued when the little oiks get injured - don’t film how they get on the garage for a start! If you did film this, you’d be liable as you then knew it was a likely entrance to your property if you place injury causing security there. For normal people, they’d use the gates - so if you don’t clearly know that they entered in another way, not your issue. Make sure you put signs up saying you have these measures up in visible places, and check if your home insurance covers injuries from it. They often do.

It only takes one little sod with an A&E visit for the rest of them to think twice. Good luck.

Anyone you know got a big dog op? borrow that for a few days or turn the hose pipe on them ...you need to get really mean here! horrible littl eshits have no right what so ever being there so get em shifted.

"I would take a picture stick it on Facebook and ask who their parents are. That usually works in my area"

If you do that in my area it always kicks off. You may be better videoing and then saying on the local page you have the video and if it happens again you will be calling the police.

Smart water in addition to anti vandal paint.

Throw some nettles up on the roof.

OP this sounds horrible. Having similar problems too. In our case, the local kids play by our house because we are by the public footpath and they throw rocks and vandalise the property. We have installed CCTV, kept calling police when something happened and got them to speak to parents. Not much has happened if honest to improve the situation. Parents of such kids don't care, that's why they are allowed to roam free. It has taken the joy out of the house and contributed to us feeling like we have no option but to sell and move, which we need to plan carefully after covid. It doesn't help that we are immigrants and have also encountered racial abuse and slurs from the little shits. I fully empathise and would suggest you think of moving. These situations rarely get resolved and they tend to escalate. Don't underestimate how much toil this will have on your mental health. The moment I hear a noise, my heart races nowdays. I am scared the whole time.

We had this problem in our last house and eventually moved (sorry). Anti vandal paint did help to an extent, and I rang the non emergency police number each time there was an issue (daily at one stage). Our added problem was that the garage block the kids climbed on from which to throw things at our house was council-owned, so it took a LOT of persuasion to get the council to put the anti vandal paint on it. It wore me down so much, esp when DS was a baby, that we moved.

We moved in February but the kids in our last street were younger than this but still antisocial little bastards who screamed and shouted all day and night, trashed people’s gardens and generally made life awful there. One woman went out to ask them to stop breaking her fence(!) and a few minutes later one of their mums arrived and screamed at the woman. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are talking to my child, they can do what they like in their own street’ blah blah blah. The kids then spent the afternoon gleefully chanting ‘We own the street! We own the street!’ while throwing things at the poor woman’s windows.

So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend trying to speak with the parents as you’re probably not going to have the most receptive audience. I’d just phone the police every time they do it.

At Croydon bus station they stop teenagers from loitering by playing classical music. I would suggest that but your neighbours might not like it!

Call the police on the little shits. Chavs really do ruin this country

@Immigrantsong sorry for what you’ve been through. I can totally relate to the noise thing, I can hear them outside at the moment and my heart is racing, feel like I have to constantly be on guard.

Thank you all for the suggestions, think we’re going to try and put up higher fencing and look into the anti vandal paint. Hopefully things might improve.

Get a camera.

I'd definitely paint the roof with some sort of burglar grease. When they go home with that shit all over their clothes they'll pack it in.

Dog shit AND nettles on the roof ;)

There’s also an alarm you can have that’s supposed to deter children.

Apparently adults can’t hear it, but children/teenagers can and they move on as it’s annoying.

I second the paint, dog shit all round the roof, grease, sticky tar, anything that they will hate to be covered in. As someone else said the deterrent you can get people under 25 i think can only hear it it’s like a high pitches noise and they’ll go away.

Call 101 and report it and wrote down every time it happens, time how many description, what direction they come from, as much detail as possible

Grow some pyracantha climbing plants around the spot where they're climbing up. Hypodermically sharp thorns should put them off. Might take a couple of years so in the meantime, anti-vandal paint.

Can you electrify the garage roof and your fence? Would solve the issue.

Apparently adults can’t hear it, but children/teenagers can and they move on as it’s annoying.

I’m 30 and I can hear those alarms, it’s at a brain-melting pitch. DH is the same age and can’t hear it, so I guess I’m the weird one!

They are cat alarms, my kids can hear our neighbors 3 doors down and hate it...No way would they hang out near it.

@hettie yup, that’s it. I didn’t realise it was for cats

There’s also an alarm you can have that’s supposed to deter children

Apparently adults can’t hear it, but children/teenagers can and they move on as it’s annoying

The mosquito. I'm 45 and can absolutely hear them. What it does to your head is something else.