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Original poster

Neighbours being rude to my 3YO

125 replies

craftymammaoftwo · 13/05/2019 17:31

Okay so long story short we fell out with one set of neighbours almost 2 years before my first was born, they were in the wrong but after 4 years of constant niggling on their part I escalated an argument which ended in us not speaking ever since.

They can do and say what they like to me - my kids are another story!

I have taught my boys to be polite and kind to people and I think that they are.
My neighbours on the other hand are not polite and/or kind to them.

Occasionally (not very often as I police the kids tightly on ball games because of the neighbours) a ball might go over the fence, IF they send it back over it's usually two to three days later either completely flat or punctured where they've let their dog play with it first.
If they send it right over (usually when their daughter visits I think it's her that throws it back) my eldest 3 YO shouts Thankyou, and gets ignored.

My kids will say hello to the neighbours (they do to anyone who walks past the house if we're playing out front or getting into the car) - they get ignored.

Tonight they were playing with helicopters outside (the kind you pull a string on to make it fly) and of course it went over. The lady was playing outside with one of her grandchildren and couldn't have missed it as it landed in the middle of their garden, I told my son, ask nicely can she Thow it back. Which he did - for 10 whole minutes of asking - again was ignored! On the last "can we have the toy back pleeeaase" on the verge of tears I was about to step in when she said "FFS I don't even know what you've sent over" then immediately flung it back. Which said to me she already had it in her hand.

Now I was fuming, shaking but I said calmly but Loudly "there's no need to speak to Children" like that. I was ignored, I said loudly by calmly "he asked VERY politely and VERY nicely there was no need to talk to him like that.
She went in the house and closed the door.

I don't know what to do! We want to live here forever and I don't get involved as I really don't like confrontation but feel like I don't want to be here because of the way she (and her husband) are! This is the tip of the iceberg They've caused so much trouble for me and my husband since we moved here but like I say it's the way they react to my kids that's got under my skin.

I don't want to tell my kids to be rude or disrespectful to anyone but I don't want them disrespected in the process!!

Any ideas how to handle this?

OP posts:
TokyoSushi · 13/05/2019 17:35

I would completely disengage from speaking to them and absolutely make sure that nothing goes over the fence. We had similar neighbours, it can be done!

ambereeree · 13/05/2019 17:35

I would have sent them inside and given her what for.

mimibunz · 13/05/2019 17:37

They shouldn’t be rude to children but it’s got to be annoying for them to be constantly having to throw balls and toys back over the fence. That gets rude after a while.

ScreamingValenta · 13/05/2019 17:37

It's not an excuse for being rude to your children, but she's probably at the end of her tether with balls landing in her garden. I'd suggest taking your children to a park or somewhere public to play ball games, then the situation won't arise again.

Coolegary1 · 13/05/2019 17:38

Put up a higher fence.
They are not going to change and neither are you. Very childish on their part over a toy but you are responsible for your lo and therefore the toy landing in their garden. If it's only every now and again then I don't see the harm but if it's more often than that then really I think you should secure the back garden some more.

Sirzy · 13/05/2019 17:38

Maybe she is fed up of things “occasionally” going over her fence because it doesn’t sound that occasional.

Just go back to ignoring each other and be careful with your toys

Goldmandra · 13/05/2019 17:38

I would make sure that any toys that might go over the fence are played with somewhere else. Either that or you just accept that anything that goes over is lost for good and never ask for things back.

Iltavilli · 13/05/2019 17:40

Agree with PPs. However polite your son was, the issue from their perspective is items landing in their garden.

To be fair, if a small child spent 10 minutes whinging / pleading with me as you’ve described I wouldn’t have returned the item at all. You allowing that was unreasonable

LaurieFairyCake · 13/05/2019 17:40

Stop letting your kids get things in their garden - either higher fence or netting over a six foot fence across garden so the children play under that.

It's REALLY annoying having the get up and throw stuff back.

Didntwanttochangemyname · 13/05/2019 17:40

You need to stop letting stuff go over the fence. I know in a normal situation it's ok, but it's clearly not in this situation. Take the kids out to play, do you have a park nearby?
Also, just give up. They don't want to be your friends, so stop trying to keep things pleasant, just disengage and stop expecting them to have the same morals as you when it comes to talking to children, they clearly don't.

Celebelly · 13/05/2019 17:40

She was obviously rude but maybe she was irritated by 10 mins of being incessantly asked about something when she was trying to spend time with her grandchildren and was maybe in the middle of doing something?

MarieG10 · 13/05/2019 17:41

Either ignore them or start looking at planing fast growing conifers that will go to 10 metres high and block all their sunlight Grin

EffYouSeeKaye · 13/05/2019 17:44

A higher fence or take your ball games etc to the park.

However, if (just if) you are feeling tense every time you step outside the door because of this situation, then I would move. I don’t think it’s worth it.

flissfloss65 · 13/05/2019 17:44

As you want to live there a long time I would invest in tall shrubs to prevent things going over.

LaraLily90 · 13/05/2019 17:46

That’s so vile!

DrinkFeckArseGirls · 13/05/2019 17:48

Stop throwing stuff into her garden Confused

dirtystinkyrats · 13/05/2019 17:48

I don't think you are being very reasonable sorry.
If your child throws something over the fence, they need to understand they may not get it back and if it comes back it probably won't be straight away.
If you want to live in this house for the long term and not have a dispute with your neighbours, start being more considerate.

Usernumbers1234 · 13/05/2019 17:52

Yeah this is on you OP. You seem very quick to make assumptions that suit you “which said to me she had it in her hand” but a little slow to make more reasonable assumptions like your neighbour might not want to leap up and fetch something the second it lands in the garden.

You can’t expect someone to send something back immediately. We have a great relationship with our neighbours, and we just throw things back when we happen to be in the garden and see them. If a ball goes over next door and hasn’t come back for a few days I might mention it to them when I see them next. I wouldn’t allow my kids to holler over the fence for ten minutes

Not only is it being respectful of your neighbours, but the kids soon figure out how to keep things in the garden when they lose them for a while

lemonsandlimes123 · 13/05/2019 17:53

You probably think your children playing in the garden is charming, but the noise of children playing can be extremely wearing after a while and having to endlessly throw things back over the fence is very irritating. The lesson you should have taught your child was that if something goes over the fence then we have to play something else until the neighbours choose to send it back not we nag them continually for 10 minutes until we get what we want.

cornflakemilk · 13/05/2019 17:53

Ten minutes ShockConfused😂

TreadingThePrimrosePath · 13/05/2019 17:54

They dislike being your neighbours intensely. Work out ways of minimising contact, including getting your children to stop engaging with them. Either put up a fence to stop stuff going over, or have a cheapo version of garden poles and netting, I used 7’ ones to stop my son annoying next door.
They seem to find your children very annoying, possibly because of your prior history, and that’s unlikely to change.

Missingstreetlife · 13/05/2019 18:02

So she sent the thing back, you got what you wanted, and you had a go, not v bright.
Dc should have said thank you. Ignore them and their nonsense, unless you think there is any mileage in mediation.

Justaboy · 13/05/2019 18:02

If it were me..

I'd ask them if we could have a meeting to talk about it all, it might be a waste of time OTOH it might not.

Its very easy to start the war but a lot more difficult to win the peace.

As old Winston Churchilll said;

It's better to Jaw Jaw than to War war..

NailsNeedDoing · 13/05/2019 18:03

You need to stop allowing things to go in their garden, it's annoying enough with neighbours you do get on with, never mind ones you don't speak to.

You really shouldn't allow your child to whine at the moment for ten minutes, and it will have been whining after half that amount of time, why didn't you distract your child onto something else?

Not really fair to blame them for the balls being damaged either, they shouldn't have been there in the first place, and you can't expect them to go checking for balls every time they let the dog out the back door. They are probably destroyed by the dog before the neighbours have even seen them. Sorry OP!

sparepantsandtoothbrush · 13/05/2019 18:03

If my DC kick balls into neighbouring gardens from ours I make them go and knock on the door to ask for them back rather than hanging/yelling over the fence for 10 minutes. Nine times out of ten they get the ball straight back that way

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