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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

...to think this woman is being unbelievably precious about her grass?

205 replies

Jaylabelle · 21/04/2018 18:22

Bought my ds a rather expensive football for his birthday - it was his main present. On Friday he and his friends were kicking it about as they walked home from school. They walk along a winding road with lots of big houses with big gardens, and they accidentally kicked it someone’s garden.

He rang the doorbell, but no-one answered, so we went round this morning to ask for it back.

A woman answered the door, we asked her, and she said she had seen the football at the end of the garden, but she couldn’t get it back as they’ve just had their lawn relaid and can’t walk on it for 3 weeks!?!

Is it just me who thinks she’s being incredibly precious over some grass? I can’t believe we’re going to have to wait 3 weeks to get back Ds’s football - he’s so upset. Her walking quickly to get it wouldn’t do any harm. I offered to send ds as he’s very small and light but she refused to let him.

OP posts:
T1M2N3T4 · 21/04/2018 18:23

She probably thinks you're being precious over a ball Hmm

CockOffPostmanPat · 21/04/2018 18:24

Frustrating though it is, it's her garden and her grass. If she doesn't want to talk on it then she's under no obligation to.

CockOffPostmanPat · 21/04/2018 18:24

*walk

Smeddum · 21/04/2018 18:24

If I’d just paid a fortune to have the grass relaid and been told not to walk on it for 3 weeks (they do tell you that) there’s no chance I’d risk it to retrieve a ball that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Kicking a ball walking home is stupid and dangerous to drivers incidentally. So maybe next time your DS and his friends will be a bit more careful with the expensive (but less expensive than a new lawn) football?

AssassinatedBeauty · 21/04/2018 18:26

Buy him another cheaper football? It's her lawn, she can be as precious as she likes.

If it's an expensive special football then maybe this is a good lesson about being careful where it ends up!

BreakfastAtSquiffanys · 21/04/2018 18:26

Lawnzilla is in the right.
Your son shouldn't be kicking a ball along a winding road anyway. I assume Road means cars use it?

Eifla · 21/04/2018 18:27

Whilst walking down a road, your son kicked the ball so hard that it went over someone’s fence and to the BACK of their garden? You say these are large houses so gardens are presumably not the size of a postage stamp?

Maybe in these three weeks he can think of places better suiting to booting a ball about Hmm

OohMavis · 21/04/2018 18:27

That's ridiculous. They mean walking consistently on the grass, five or six steps across it won't kill it.

How does she think the turf-layers exited her garden - via jetpack?

But it's her garden. What can you do.

Bumshkawahwah · 21/04/2018 18:29

It doesnt really matter if she's being as mad as a brush, she can say or do what she likes with her own garden, and that includes refusing to let someone walk on it for 3 weeks (god knows if that's a real thing...I'm not clued up about grass), then that's up to her. It's not really your plac and to decide what she's entitled to do with or believe about her own garden, nuts or not.

I guess in future your son will be more careful about kicking his ball near other people's gardens.

GoodMorning1 · 21/04/2018 18:29

I had my lawn relaid last year. Cost a lot of my hard earned money. No way would I have walked on it to retrieve a football.

Original poster
Jaylabelle · 21/04/2018 18:29

@Eifla

The garden runs parallel to the road as the house is one of four that you have to turn off the road to get to. So as they were standing on the pavement near the end of the garden, that’s where the ball ended up.

OP posts:
incogKNEEto · 21/04/2018 18:30

I agree with her, we are just about to lay a new lawn and we have been told we cannot walk on it for three weeks, we will be keeping all people (and the dog!) off it until it won’t damage it to walk on it - it is costing a lot of money...your ds will just have to wait to get his ball back...and maybe in future he will play with it in a more considerate manner, on a pitch, not beside a road (dangerous) or by kicking it into peoples’ gardens (inconsiderate)...

Pengggwn · 21/04/2018 18:30

I didn't walk on my grass when I laid it, because I would have ruined it, even though I wanted to. Why should I do that for someone else?

Namechangetempissue · 21/04/2018 18:31

YABU. Newly laid lawn shouldn't be walked on for weeks. Like fuck would I risk ruining my newly laid lawn because some kid booted their football over while kicking it along a road (not in the park or in his own garden). I speak as someone who has got a whacking great dent in my car bonnet after a secondary school kid hammered it into the road from the bus stop outside of a school last week. School have been informed.

Sparklingbrook · 21/04/2018 18:34

I don't know the rules when you have a lawn laid. I certainly didn't know you can't walk on it for 3 weeks. Shock

Sounds like the sort of thing my Dad might say. He's quite precious about his lawns. He won't let people walk on them when it's wet.

fontofnoknowledge · 21/04/2018 18:34

Ffs. Really??? I completely despair of humanity when retrieving a bloody football for a child is toooooo much trouble .

We go on and on about how they're addicted to screens yet when someone accidentally kicks a ball into a garden has a fucking turn about walking on some bloody grass.
I'm a gardener and landscaper . I can assure you that there is no grass known to man that will suffer any sodding damage if a small child (as offered by the OP) walked up the end of the garden to retrieve it unless it was being watered by unicorn tears and inlaid with diamonds.

So much emphasis on material goods in this world now. With little thought for the people you have to live with in it.. and children sharing it with you.

I will now sit back and await the onslaught of people who think my rant is unreasonable because 'she doesn't have to give it back' 'it's not your garden' blah blah blah ... how about it would just be the decent thing to do !

flopsyrabbit1 · 21/04/2018 18:35

shes being a twat,walking on it to get the ball will not matter

she is just trying to make a point that the ball should not be there

some people just love being akward

Namechangetempissue · 21/04/2018 18:36

The roots need time to take hold and bed in properly. This does take up to three weeks.

Smeddum · 21/04/2018 18:36

So much emphasis on material goods in this world now. With little thought for the people you have to live with in it.

Much like OP getting uppity about an expensive football and her son who wasn’t particularly careful with said ball or considerate. Lesson learned, no?

Pengggwn · 21/04/2018 18:37

fontofnoknowledge

Usually I wouldn't have any problem with it, so I don't think it's that anyone thinks it's too much trouble. But we laid a piece of our garden to lawn that was just brambles when we moved in, and the new grass was indeed very delicate for a couple of weeks. I wouldn't have walked on it.

AssassinatedBeauty · 21/04/2018 18:37

Do you think he should have been kicking his ball along a pavement with his mates? That's not sensible in itself, and punting it into someone's back garden is always going to come with the risk that the person who lives there says no to retrieving it.

hedgebackwards · 21/04/2018 18:38

OohMavis The turf or seed layers wouldn't have needed a jetpack to get out of the garden. They start in the furthest corner, like people varnishing a wooden floor would do. Otherwise you paint yourself into a corner.

Lockheart · 21/04/2018 18:39

Just wait 3 weeks - it won’t kill him. She is NBU to refuse to walk on a newly laid lawn - a) she’s correct you can’t walk on it for a while and b) they’re bloody expensive and you don’t want to fuck it up.

Go round in 3 weeks and get it back then - no drama needed. If anything it might teach DS to have more care when playing with it in future.

Namechangetempissue · 21/04/2018 18:40

The jetpack comment did make laugh. They don't walk on it! They work from corner back to front.

Sparklingbrook · 21/04/2018 18:40

It's really annoying because with my two DSs if they took a cheapy football out it would always come home intact but spend £30 or something and that ball would alwaysbe the one that something happened to.

DS2 had a fancy one for Christmas and it was burst by a dog off the lead on Boxing Day as the owners looked on and said nothing.Angry

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