Balls in the garden...

[VelvetSpoon]

I don't get on with my neighbours. I find them and their DC noisy and irritating and I shall be bloody glad when they move (hopefully soon as they are very overcrowded in their current house).

Anyway their DC are always playing ball in the back garden. The balls often end up in my garden (they have loads). I've thrown about 4-5 over weekly when gardening.

The other week I caught one of them twice letting himself into my garden to get his ball. The second time I asked him to leave my garden.

Since then they've been knocking on my door daily for their balls back. Normally about 10 mins after I get in when I've got better things to do with my time!

Today (after they woke me up by all screaming in the garden at 730am) I've just seen there are again 5 balls in the garden.

I am fed up of giving them back time and again. Tempted to chuck them in the bin, or prickly them with something sharp. WIBU?

I do understand balls go over fence having had 2 children myself but mine managed 1 ball a month over at absolute most not 5 daily!

We have same problem. Last week we were in garden seeing to our rabbits. The first ball over hit my husband, the second one nearly dislocated my shoulder. We lost our shit, told NDNs teenage son to fuck the fuck off and DH marched to their door and gave his mother and earful. We apologised for swearing at kids, we are the adults! They apologised for kicking ball over. No balls since, tho they do knock out door to ask! Drives us potty, especially as we live right next to a park!

I find all of this so sad... its kids playing outside, its a ball not a bag of rubbish... fgs just let the kids come in and get their ball back !

Funnily enough I have had a similar issue today!

I found a load of half-eaten pizza in my garden that the neighbours children had obviously thought it hilarious to chuck over yesterday evening.

I waited until Mrs Next Door was having a sunbathing session this afternoon to start the throwing back process.

I'm sure the children will not be throwing food in my garden again. Little shits.

I feel you pain OP.

NDN's garden really isn't big enough for football and balls kicked into our garden used to be a regular occurrence.

Then a string of visits to retrieve said ball which were bloody annoying.

I'm not against kids playing outside, but there's a huge playing field less than 2 mins away where all the local kids - including my own even though our garden is much much bigger - go for a kick about (and the NDN kids are age appropriate for this).

I lost my shit big time when on one occasion DH and I were sat drinking a glass of wine next to our pond. A ball landed right in the middle and pond water splashed all over us. Then 20 mins later another ball come and lands on the table, smashing our glasses full of delicious, cold and bloody expensive Sancerre.

I went round next door and told them I'd had enough and that any more balls in my garden would be sold as a job lot on eBay to start to recompense me for the broken glasses and wine --which admittedly would take about 10 years.

To be fair NDN DH came round the next day with a replacement bottle of wine, apologised and agreed the boys were getting too big for garden kickabouts and since then we've not had an issue .

Obviously they still play in the garden - which is fine, the football has just stopped.

I've thrown about 4-5 over weekly when gardening.

Wow, that sounds really tough, OP. Must take you all of 20 seconds.

I used to put all alien toys in a bucket in the garden as I found them. When it was convenient to me or full I used to empty it back over the fence. Sometimes if it had been raining a few days before there would be some stagnant water as well which was my gift to them.

So the odd ball or garden toy item is one thing and if it was just that maybe couple times a wk I'd say your ott but god they sounds like a bloody nightmare! And with very rude parents! I'd struggle to not make a point and go round burst every ball and tell them to get stuffed. Might get your point across and teach them a lesson.
Give them an allowance of say 1 ball twice a week. Any more than that they've lost it. It might make them pay a bit of care and attention to how they play!

Millipede. Why the fuck do you think OP should just suck it up? So it's ok to be constantly inconvenienced and have your privacy interrupted because 'aww, it's just little children'.

If I wanted to spend my time throwing balls back every day, I'd invite some children into MY garden. I used to get get all sorts of crap thrown into my garden and eventually started binning it. Strangely less items ended up in my garden. However fuckface father from next door is throwing his chewing gum onto my roof and front garden. Unfortunately, for him, he will be getting it all back as a job lot when I have enough gathered up it the nice bucket I bought for the job. 😈

@MikeUniformMike: "OH once peed on a tennis ball before throwing it back. "
I've heard some people pay good money for that!

OP: Quick solution: Return balls by throwing them back into wrong garden. Neighbours will soon band together against common enemy.

Neighbours kids used to kick balls over, if they knocked I'd gladly throw back, it only takes a minute and not a huge inconvenience. They ask nicely, I said no bother and threw back, everyone happy. You either choose to think it only takes a minute no big deal for a neighbour, or you choose to get wound up about something minor.

Their kids are all grown up now and they are happily returning ds and his friends balls.

Peeing on a child's ball? Not something to be proud of.

It doesn't take long to throw them back over, just do it next time you are in the garden.

AS for weeing on them, that is revolting.

After a ndn's child was booting his football against the side of my car, I confiscated it and said he can send his dad round for it. Needless to say I still have it.
I would suggest that you say the parents need to come round for the stuff. Will probably happen a lot less if they're being sent round every 5 minutes.

I really can't bear the 'oh they're only kids playing' stuff.

Yes they are only kids. But that doesn't make them more important than me, or that their inability to keep the ball in their own garden means I should be inconvenienced.

This morning there were 2 balls again in the garden. I chucked them back. Less than 2 mins later one of the kids had knocked it over again. I've realised what they do is kick the ball right up in the air. Inevitably when they do that a fair percentage of the time it sails over my fence.

I've not chucked it back yet.

I did however when clearing the beds at the side of the garden find several plastic cups, toy cars and figures (about 15-20 items in total). Which serves to remind me how little respect they have and that whilst the balls are often kicked over by accident (although if they were my kids I'd be telling them to keep the ball near the floor while they were playing) they do also deliberately chuck over lots of other stuff.

When we were kids the next door neighbours on one side would either throw it back at their convenience or we'd knock and they let us collect it.

On the other side they would not return it and not answer the door.

We learnt to (a) be more careful, (b) accept that if a ball did end up in the 'wrong' garden it was lost forever and (c) that it was the neighbour's prerogative to deal with it as they wished, we had no say and our parents left us to it.

So, if you really want to put a stop to it just bin anything lands in your garden or, a more moderate response, return once a week only on a Sunday night.

find all of this so sad... its kids playing outside, its a ball not a bag of rubbish... fgs just let the kids come in and get their ball back !
I have animals in my garden, i would be pissed if i had crap flying over the fence! They certainly would not get it back

Yanbu op. How dare they come into your garden!
If i lost something in mnd garden i knew it was there till they threw it back, it was my fault.
If they threw it back that day, great if they threw it back days later then too bad.

Haha: balls.

livefornaps

Bin them or puncture them before you return them at your convenience. If they ring the doorbell your conversation should go as follows:
"Can we have our ball back?"
"No"
Door closes.

I only have a tiny yard at the back of my house since my bathroom was an extension built on that takes up most of the former space, so my DD plays out in the back street with all the other kids.

They still always managed to kick balls over the 7ft walls into our yard on regular occasions - if DD was with them she'd be dispatched to come and get them otherwise they'd let themselves into our yard. I put a stop to them letting themselves in with a yale lock and bolt on the gate and I also limited how many times DD was banging in and out of the yard but I'd still get multiple balls over my wall regiularly.

What stopped it was that last summer DD was with her dad for 4 weeks and I was working away so other than my brother popping in to collect the post, there was nobody home for a month ... I came home in the middle of August to about 15 footballs, half a dozen tennis balls, a couple of frisbees and a few other random toys in my tiny yard. The kids had obviously lost them over our wall during the last 4 weeks but because there was nobody to let them in and the wall was too high to climb they had to leave them. I ended up putting them in a big box and leaving them outside my gate for them to collect but since then I've only had a ball come over a couple of times.

I have this problem. I'm a private person living alone and I would like to be able to enjoy my garden. The neighbours ball will regularly come over 6 times in 10 minutes. I don't mind throwing the odd one over but I have done my years of running around after children. I live in a town house and don't want to have to go downstairs to answer the door. I did try speaking to them about the sheer amount and was told that he sees it as a game and throws them over as a previous child would throw them back. Now I don't want to throw them back as I don't want to encourage it. Thing is it puts me on edge as I'm sat there chilling and multiple calls are coming over. It's just not fair. I have seen people call others miserable and I cannot for the life of me understand how wanting to enjoy your own space can be labelled as miserable. I don't want to do anything horrible to the balls or fall out with my neighbours, but I can't see another way to be honest as they don't seem to see things from any other perspective than their own.

There is a crime about trespass in an enclosed space, something like that, where trespass is actually a police matter. Might be worth making them aware of.

OP's neighbours may well have grown out of it or moved on in the nearly 3 years since posting.

ZOMBIE THREAD

Urinating on a child’s ball before returning it to them is depraved beyond fucking measure. It’s really disturbed me. What kind of sick fuck would do something like that?!