AIBU new house neighbour dilemma

[Tinkerbell1989]

Just bought a lovely new house had been and checked it out lots as have a bit of grass in front of it and was worried we would have groups of people hanging around. All seemed good until the weekend we moved in and the people opposite have erected a goal post where their kids and all their friends play right in front of our kitchen/diner window. There is a large park to the left of us - no more than 100 metres- why can’t they play there?! AIBU do I say something - it’s been 3 weeks and they are out there every day and the dad is now joining in!

I think it makes a difference if there is large gap, pavement, access road between you and the grass. If the grass right up to your window and they are actually up against your house. Your diagram makes it look like you have no street or paths. So I'll reserve judgement.

Have you got a fence or anything in front of your house? There must be some kind of divide between the grass and your property?

I think we need a more detailed diagram!

Can you ask for the goal to be moved so there's less chance of balls hitting your house? I'd prefer kids playing to many other activities you could get in an open area. Our local park will be covered in litter this morning, the local PSCO's walk past totally oblivious (on their way to M&S for the evening margins), makes me very mad.

We have our drive way that leads to the person next to us but we don’t have front gardens which I think is part of the problem it just feels so close to our cars and our house - there is a small single pathway up the middle that’s gravel to access the park. I agree with the points about there could be worse things! I don’t think I’d ever say anything because I hate any confrontation. And I know what you are saying about knowing with the grass in front of the house but I presumed with the park literally being one house away with loads of open space and fields that is for the estate that they would use that and I think that’s the frustrating bit if they went a few metres down they’d be in the park - surely with kids it made their house an ideal plot for them to play football?

Just a single wooden beam running along the one car road that’s the width of a car If that makes sense

If they're shooting towards your house, I'd have a word with the Dad and ask if they can turn it around to shoot towards their house instead.

If it's your own grass, put a low fence around it, or plant some fence-like shrubs. If not, I don't know - except move. I'm afraid people who do this will take no notice of,polite requests - I speak from experience.

It's all very well for people to say 'it's nice', but this sort of thing can be incredibly noisy and intrusive (she said with feeling) when you have balls endlessly kicked against your wall or window, and kids peering in when they retrieve them.

We used to have this sort of thing going on virtually every evening in summer for years. It drove me mad. They were also playing in the garage block very close by, and the endless banging of balls on metal garage doors - when you wanted your windows open in summer - was enough to make me feel murderous, and poor dd who was trying to revise for A levels could never concentrate in her bedroom because of the noise.
And like the OP, we have a huge park a very short walk away.
Thank God the football players have largely either grown up or moved away - but I dread a return.

Blimey on the one where op had her goalposts and her kids on the green but the neighbours didn't like it everyone was saying SHE was the CF!

Does it get removed when they've finished or permanently there? If the latter, which it sounds like, pretty sure it's not allowable on communal grass, is that area owned by the council or shared land?!

We had this. We have a huge communal green. The clue being communal. For everyone. Till one cheeky fucker moved in and decided her two boys needed full size metal goalposts and overnight turned the green into a 'pitch'. No more green for the smallys to play. No more green for throwing the ball. No More green for the picnics with dolls the 2 girls in another house used to have. Within weeks it was destroyed and swamp of dead grass and mud. The destroyed a large tree also.
She then called to the neighbours asking for money to get a gardener in to fix the green. As she stated she really wasn't happy that no one was maintaining it and did we have to wait till she moved in to organise it.

She made it to 3 houses. The next morning her goalposts were removed.
Cheeky fuckery at its finest.

I don’t think it would bother me, but I’ve never lived anywhere but estates, so children playing on patches of grass, the middle of the road etc, is pretty much the norm.

If the ball is getting a bit close to your window, then just ask them to be careful. They’re just kids, if you’re friendly and don’t scream and shout at them (which I’m sure you wouldn’t dream of doing) then they’ll be friendly back and take more care.

As an Australian I find this really weird and uncouth. Children should play eother in their own gardens or in appropriate areas (I.e. parks). But the British seem to let their children play anywhere they please and take over public walkways, roads, patches of grass that are definitely not for playing on etc. I think YABU. The grass isn’t yours and it’s part of British culture to behave this way. You should have expected this to happen sooner or later.

I’d wait till it was dark and throw them in front of their houses.

Where is the road / garage / driveway for the houses or do you literally live on either side of a grassy strip .? FWIW it would piss me off if they left the goalposts out .

We have a huge communal green. The clue being communal. For everyone.

I was just coming on to say this. It's a communal green so everyone should be able to use it- which clearly they can't because it's been taken over. So for that reason OP I don't think URBU.

Maybe take out some freezies or drinks for all the kids on a hot day and get chatting to the Dad to if the goalposts can be turned around away from your window.
If that doesn’t work go and join in, being all over competitive until they feel uncomfortable and move to the park

Is it your grass? Do you own it? You have dodged this question thus far. If you own it, no yanbu if you don’t, you have.m no say whatsoever

BogglesGoggles Thanks you for answering for all Aussies. No Really Thanks for that.

I think it’s funny how on the post from the mum who had put a goal post on the communal grass everyone told her house unreasonable that was and how disrespectful to the neighbours, but on this post a neighbour of exactly the same thing is told that she’s being unreasonable for not liking it lol

It’s almost as if people enjoy telling posters that they are unreasonable no matter what the situation is 🤔

Maybe take out some freezies or drinks for all the kids on a hot day and get chatting to the Dad to if the goalposts can be turned around away from your window.

Or maybe if its communal grass go and set up a picnic in the middle of the football pitch. After all, you have as much right to use it as they do.

SnOtnose I'd like to think you're right, but years of experience tells me otherwise. We live in a 'nice' area, but no amount of polite requests ever made the slightest difference. Still the balls would come hurtling up to our front window, hitting or breaking plants on the way, and kids constantly running into our front garden and peering in the window to see whether we'd noticed.

I don't know whether it made a difference that the kids mostly lived in rented houses - there's a German school not far away and the kids were nearly all German or Austrian. None of their (all professional) parents - who were asked very politely - gave a flying fuck about the noise and nuisance their kids were causing, since they weren't causing noise or nuisance outside their own homes - only to those of us who lived close to each 'goal'.
Should add that we never had the slightest objection to the ordinary noise of children's playing out - only to the effects of football..

I'd ask them to remove it, its communal space, they will destroy the grass and it will be a mud patch, then you will be getting muddy footballs up at the window. What a bloody cheek. Do they not have a back garden? They probably don't want to wreck that.

I'd ask the dad nicely to turn the goalpost around so that balls don't hit the house, or to move it slightly up the road into the park. It's nice for kids to play, but not if only one lot can play out because they're monopolising. If you're nice about it then he'll probably be nice too.

It’s a pita now but you’ll be grateful if you have kids that age that there’s a space for them to play where you can keep an eye on them.
I let DD(9) play out the front with the neighbourhood kids because I can see her from my window. I wouldn’t let her play down the park without me though however close because I can’t keep an eye on her.