To think that if you kick a ball into someone else's garden, you should ask for it back?

[lovehatelove]

Next door have 2 children, not sure how old but I think the older boy is about 6/7 and the younger boy is about 3/4.

They play football in their garden a lot which is fine and doesn't bother me at all. But they manage to kick balls over the 8ft hedge on a regular basis, but never come and ask for them back or shout over the hedge.
They never mention them. A few months ago I found 7 different balls in the back of my flower bed!

We were out yesterday and have come home to three balls on our lawn.

When I was a kid and I did the same, my parents took me round and I had to politely ask for them back, which was fine.
But the assumption here is that we'll just throw them all back every time.

I'm tempted to start binning them.

AIBU to expect them to just come and ask for the balls back?

You could go one further and put a knife through them like my NDN does whenever a ball lands in her crappy garden. She then throws them back in our garden to purposely upset DC and myself. However, DC don't play ball games in the garden. These balls clearly belong to the kids on the other side of her. Our old Lab loves all these gifts.

God I hate fussy people.

Child's ball comes over fence. Are both your arms broken? No? Throw it back. One of life's most minuscule problems solved.

I just throw them back every few days, if I happen to be in the garden, I don't go out specifically to deal with them.

I'd hate it if they knocked on everyone it happened. I'm just grateful they have loads of balls!

If I walk into my garden and find balls, I simply throw them over the fence again.

If I'm in the garden when the ball flies over, I throw the ball back straight away if it's the first occurrence that day.

Further instances of carelessness in the same day result in much slower responses. Sometimes minutes, sometimes up to an hour... Enough to inconvenience the children a bit, as they sometimes take it for granted that the ball will come straight back to them (I've witnessed some incredibly poor attempts at 'control' if they know I'm there).

I'm always happy for the children to shout over the fence/knock on the door and ask for the ball back (this usually means it's the last time a lost ball happens that day - funnily enough - as the inconvenience of doing this puts them off!). Luckily their parents are lovely and encourage the children to a) try not to lose the balls in the first place and b) ask for the ball back politely while reminding them to be more careful/not to annoy us too much.

Hmm if it is that many balls it would start to irritate me a bit. Effectively you're having to tidy up after someone else's kid every day even if it is only a couple of mins.

Parents have obviously bought loads of balls in the knowledge that their kids are careless with them, which perpetuates a throw away society.

I'd probably go down the route of bagging them up and putting them on the doorstep with a friendly note about trying to be a bit more careful with the number of balls coming over.

My brother is 11, generally speaking when his ball goes over the gene he is told that he just has to wait until it gets thrown back. He is allowed to go ask for it maybe a couple times a week but 9 times out of 10 the neighbours aren't in when he ties to ask so it is usually just wait until they are thrown back. As others have said it is so he isn't disturbing neighbours constantly for his football.

Bin them. Of course they should politely ask for them back. We would never have known where they had come from anyway unless the owner had knocked. Not my fucking responsibility to throw them back.

We had this situation in our last house, small garden boy with 2 goal posts one each end of the garden, Dad said on the "rare" occasion the balls come over did I want him to knock, I worked nights so said he could come and get them, had years and years of my garden being smashed to bits by the balls, and him climbing over to collect them, One time it was a rugby ball was cleaning windows upstairs saw the friend kick the ball up in the air, it landed on my patio so hard it broke a 2 feet square slate paving slab and a pto, she promised to pay for them, having said it wasnt her son anyway that did it, he broke panes in our greenhouse, again promise to pay never happened, unfortunately, if you move the all it counts as theft, ridiculous I know. We had a big park in the next road.

Just throw them back when you find them. My neighbours kick their ball over at least once a day, we just throw it back.

When my kids accidently kick a ball over our other neighbours we don’t get it back because their dogs get it first lol. My kids have been warned about this and try to be careful. Its life.

I'd much rather lob them back than be bothered 7 times a day by small children knocking on the door myself!

Have a ball sale at the end of each month?

Oh gosh we are those annoying neighbours! My son (8) is football mad and spends all day playing football if I let him. He manages to kick 2/3 balls over in a day sometimes, in the old house our neighbour was lovely and used to say just go in and grab it himself as she didn't use the garden much. In the new house one lady is 102 years old (still very mobile) however DS knows no way is he to knock on her door, she quite often pops out to the garden anyway when she hears the children as she loves a chat and thinks they are lovely and will throw it over if she spots one but DS knows not to expect them back! The other side also have a young child and we get an occasional ball too, they generally throw them back when they see it but our gardens are quite long so DS will occasionally go and knock however we don't everytime as very aware it would get annoying, he never seems to mind and DS is always polite, he would never barge in! If anything he is nervous to go and ask but I stand and watch and the neighbour is always fine!

I love the idea of sending over a bottle! I might do that for next door neighbours with a thank you card for putting up with throwing them back!

I think that you should just go round and be very polite about it and say that you’re very sorry but you are utterly sick to the back teeth of having to empty your garden of footballs for the past four years and from now on they will be deflated and put in the bin. They are taking the piss not being careful because they know you’ll find and return them for them, so why should they?

That many balls coming over would piss me off to be honest. One once in a while, not an issue, and I would be happy to throw it back. The kids need to be more careful - if they cause damage to the garden or plants that you've spent hard earned money on, then it's not on. I had to go and ask for the ball back when I was a kid but then my parents would also give me a flea in my ear when it did go over so I tried to be careful