More of a WWYD...balls going over fence

[Psipsina]

I'm feeling a bit pissed off but maybe unjustly...our toddler managed to throw a ball off the balcony, and it bounced off and went into next door's garden. It was there for about a day, still there this morning, and I assumed they would throw it back - we could have asked for it but I didn't like to bother them - but when we went into the garden this afternoon they told ds1 that their dog had attacked it and it was no more.

If their son's ball had come over into our garden, and one of our pets had destroyed it I would offer to replace it. But maybe I'm being daft?

Ds3 just woke up crying about his ball, it was his favourite and he is only 2

We have got him two more similar ones but I just thought it was a bit unkind to leave it there till their dog got it then not even really give a stuff.

They seem like very nice people normally. Maybe they are pissed off that it went over but our balls very rarely do as I don't let the older ones play with them in the garden for this very reason.

Trampoline Tent but trampoline sold seperately.

YABU btw for not asking. You can't presume he would know to look out for the ball. The difference is, his dog broke it whereas when I was young, the old grumpy neighbour took great pleasure taking his fishing knife out and ripping the balls slowly apart in front of us....

I think what I'd rather is that my neighbours never, ever move. They are lovely and easy going. I may even start checking and removing any for sale signs after dark. It sounds complicated to be neighbours with someone like you!

Cheers Lunar.

Thanks CSI, I've been googling and found tents, I was thinking more of a netting cover? But maybe they don't exist!

I think I'll confiscate all the balls until we can find something suitable to contain them.

Yes, maybe you are over-analysing it, but I can kind of see your point. Why wouldn't you return a ball that had accidently fallen into your garden??

We have a similar situation in our street. We have a communal grassy area where the kids play with a ball a lot. Sometimes it gets kicked too high and goes into a garden that looks onto the street. I can appreciate that after a while it could be annoying, a ball coming over the fence. However, this man comes out shouting & swearing at the kids, bursts the ball with a knife, then throws the burst ball back over! I find it really sad that someone could behave like that towards children.

www.atlantictrampolines.co.uk/roof-tents?shopstyl=m

There you go

I'm afraid you have yo understand that balls just get lost. You will have a heck of a lot more. Our son was hopeless. And I used to go round straight away because it's not great having balls arrive.

I'm now in your neighbour's position, and it's worse having a ball arrive. If I notice I'll do something about it, but to be honest it's not my responsibility. We try to get there before the dog, but some of the balls do get punctured. And I would not replace it nor even think if doing so. Your ball, you failed to keep it safe. And I didn't expect them to when we were the ball heaving side.

Sorry if that sounds tough and unsympathetic, just saying.

I would prefer you to come and ask for the ball rather than expecting me to see the thing and throw it back over and then getting an attitude because I don't do it within your timescale and/or my dog, in his own garden, eats the ball. I'd also expect you to apologise. Which you don't seem to have done.
Balls coming over the fences happens to me all the time, with neighbours on three sides with kids. I've told all of them they can come around and get the ball back without having to knock at the door, but at least one of my friends likes her DDs to as for it first and say sorry for the ball coming over in the first place. I'm not bothered about it at all, because children must be able to play in their own gardens but they can damage plants. Which is why you should be apologising to your neighbour.
If I'm out in my garden and I see a ball, of course I chuck it back over. But it is your expectation that the neighbour SHOULD have seen the ball that is strange. Somehow you seem to think you are the aggrieved party when your neighbour has done nothing wrong and it is your lack of action that's caused the whole situation.

If a ball comes over my fence and no-one comes to ask for it...I wouldn't notice it until after my dog brought it to me.

That's how he gets all his footballs in fact

Sorry but yabu. My neighbours kids throw or kick balls over our fence all the time. I happily throw them back but I don't always throw them back immediately. I usually do it at the end of the day but sometimes it might be a day later. M glad they don't ask for them back immediately. If the balls got damaged in our garden it wouldn't cross my mind to replace them.

Your neighbour hasn't done anything wrong.

Do you ever have problems with parcels?

Can't you see you over-reaction? You will take away balls until they can't possibly be lost again! I think you would be better off realising that sometimes things get lost/broken. You really need to teach your children that it is a normal part of life or they will really be heading for heartache.

Girl next door is always throwing ball over fence. She either comes around to get it or I throw it back. No big deal.

I'm not sure what your AIBU / WWYD is really.

Accidents happen occasionally. Your toddler didn't meant to throw the ball over, you try to prevent your older children doing it.

You didn't ask for the ball back, they didn't throw it back.

They may not have noticed it in the garden before the dog got it. They might have thought you'd come and ask, or send one of the older children, and they were going to let you go and get it when you did.

They might not have thought the dog would get the ball.

They might not have been sure which garden it came from.

I don't think anybody was being unreasonable really. Although if it was a favourite toy I might have made the point of going to get it rather than wait for them to throw it back.

We used to live in a house with a garden that backed onto someone with three children.

Lots of things used to come over the fence. We used to drop them back over as soon as we saw them. But more and more stuff used to come over, sometimes we'd just drop it back and it was thrown over again on purpose like a game. We started to leave it to the end of the day and drop everything over in one go once they were inside.

By the end of the next day it was all back over with more added.

We spoke to the parents when I was hit by a metal car that cut my shoulder as I put the washing out.

They refused to do anything to stop it.

Then they started to throw stones and bits of concrete over. These were newish built houses so there was a lot of rubble about in some of the gardens around the edges of the fences.

We spoke to them again and they didn't care.

So we stopped returning the things that came over.

Eventually, when we had three pairs of shoes, the TV remote, a handbag, a large pile of concrete, a set of hair straighteners, a radio, and a set of car keys, along with most of their toys and some of their clothes, the man came to ask for it all back.

We told him to speak to the estate manager (armed forces married quarters) as we'd dropped it all off with him earlier that day.

Not one thing ever came over that fence again.

If your children were doing that I think they'd have good grounds to let the dog eat it, but as a one off I think it wouldn't have hurt to ask for it back/throw it back over if they knew where it came from.

But I don't think anyone was especially unreasonable in this case.

Thank you for the link, Neouf.

I think I was just sad about it tbh. And worried in case the bloke was being unkind deliberately. If so then that's just the case and we'll have to get used to it.

Hopefully he wasn't and it was just an accident, and yes, it was my fault it went over, and I am confiscating because Ds3 doesn't understand and has since thrown another ball over quite deliberately according to Ds1 which the neighbour handed back as he was out in the garden. That was when he showed Ds1 the first ball.

I don't think he was being mean, really. He probably just didn't go out of his way to prevent the dog getting it.

I will be more careful now I know Ds3 has a thing about chucking balls over the fence. He will grow out of it I'm sure.

Seeing a little kid upset about his favourite thing makes me sad, and I suppose that's why I posted, but in the end yes it's just a ball and he likes his new ones and we'll get over it.

I hope our chickens don't ever get above fence height as dogger will not hesitate to swallow them whole. I know this as we have already spoken about it.

Cheers all

Alice - they sound appalling! Poor you.

I don't understand why you didn't just pop round and ask. My DS is 2 and once threw one of his toy airplanes into the air in the garden. A stein gust took it over fence and understandably he was upset. We popped to get it and then explained to him that if it happens again he would lose it.

Psipsina are you the only neighbour to the one next door? If not, then maybe he didn't know who the ball belonged to didn't want to risk throwing it over into the wrong garden.

I found a toy in my garden a few weeks ago but have no idea where it came from. So I've put it aside and will wait until someone knocks for it. If I chucked it over next door and it's not theirs they might have the same dilemma...it'll get chucked over fences until someone keeps it!

We get loads of balls from next door. If I'm in the garden I'll chuck them back but if I'm busy I'll just think that I'll throw it back when I have time. If they need it quickly they'll come and knock.

We get balls in our garden from various neighbours. I expect the child to knock at our door, at which point I will open the garden gate for them and they can retrieve their ball.

Your neighbours don't know or care about your son's favourite toys. They are not mindful of him every waking moment of their day. Their dog probably saw the ball before they even knew it was there. Suggesting that they ought to offer to replace it is absurd.

If the neighbour was being mean and unkind for not spotting a random ball in his garden before his dog played with it, what does that make someone who wouldn't go and ask for her DSs favourite ball when it had been thrown into the garden?

Not following your tenuous analogy there Soup.

I really don't mean to sound horrible, but why would your neighbour care about your sons favourite ball?
How would he even know it was your sons?
Tbh, it seems as though you think your neighbours should be enamoured with your son or something, and know all his likes and dislikes?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if you were that bothered, you should've gone and knocked.

Nooo... no of course I don't think that. I was having trouble distinguishing between my sadness about it and potential neighbour issues which his behaviour has hinted at in the past.

I still don't really know what they guy's motives were but am going to cautiously assume the best and hope that nothing else happens to make me think he is actually unkind.

I thought he was trying to teach us a lesson, that's all. He might not have been and what he did could have been totally innocent, so I'm going to let it lie and keep Ds3 away from the balls.

Thanks again for bearing with me.

Let it lie? Really?
he did nothing wrong.
You didn't bother to go around and apologise for the ball coming over into his garden.
Not his problem.
Why do you even think he had "motives"?
You are making a huge issue out of the fact you have an expectation that your neighbour should notice the ball, should realise it is the all-time favourite ball of your DS who will be distraught, should then go out into his garden and throw the ball back over.
When the normal thing to do would be for you to go around, say how sorry you are that the ball has come over and ask for it back.
Of course you are sad, because you realise that you could easily have prevented the situation. But if your DS was really that attached to the ball why were both you and him quite content to leave it in your next door neighbours garden for at least a day?
be a good neighbour and act pre-emptively when your DCs toys go over the fence - go around, apologise and ask for them back. With good grace.