Am I being really unreasonable re neighbours

[Mightymaniac1]

Sorry... it’s a neighbours one!

But I do really want some perspective on this situation as my partner and I are getting quite frustrated...

Recently bought new house on newly built road. It’s a road of only ten houses all privately built and we love the house and it has been very plain sailing so far. We get on well with the neighbours next door.

However there are lots of young children along the row of houses and as you can imagine with small new build newly sown grass their gardens are not giving them much entertainment during lockdown or even before then.

We have up to ten children scootering/cycling/roller blading up and down this private road, outside our front door etc. Quite noisy and a bit annoying but we aren’t heartless and know we cannot stop children playing outside our front door all day and all night.

However there is always a bike or a scooter (or tonight a helmet and a bucket) just left pretty much outside our front door.

Not sure we can do anything about it? But are we being un reasonable to be annoyed that we spend a great deal of time and money to make our house look nice but can not control a load of kids stuff being left by the front door. Or cannot reverse out of our space for fear we can run over several children flying around without any parental consideration.

Advice and opinions requested please!

I think you are being a little.bit unreasonable... But I can also understand that this is annoying.

There's quite an easy fix for the kids hanging around. A sensor activated sprinkler system for the grass..

Ohhhh you are absolutely not being unreasonable on this. We have a similar issue - and we are as child-friendly as possible, but when they're running between the cars swinging golf clubs and kicking balls at my front window... well, if their three-wheeled skateboard suddenly goes missing, I definitely don't know who put it in the grey bin on bin day. (note: I haven't done this but I have been very tempted. I have deflated/popped a football I found under my car cos it was a cheap one though.)

OBVIOUSLY please say something to them first - just politely, and if it doesn't stop them, speak to your neighbours. Just say "Oh I love how family-friendly our street is but I saw a delivery van drive straight over little Lucy's bike and I just really think it's important the kids put their stuff away when they aren't using it so nothing gets damaged"

Kids will stop leaving their stuff out if it starts going missing. Just hide it for a bit and return it a week or two later.

Here's a tip op. With a marker pen write your house number and postcode on your dc's stuff. Pram /bike /ball etc.
Dd's pram was often removed from our driveway and a good way to get it back peacefully!!

If you can't have a low picket fence around your front garden I would use those tall steel pegs and tape to mark it out whilst the grass is seeding and Young/new.

@ButOneMistressHere

• Think of it this way, OP. It's only for a few years and then they'll be teenagers coming home at all hours, making a noise in the night, driving and parking their new cars all along the street because the houses don't have drive space for a 3rd car.

Or at least, that's what has happened here*

Do you live in my cul-de-sac? The sooner I can decamp to the middle of nowhere the better 😬

I can never do the bold properly when c&p-ing

@Thisismytimetoshine sadly quite a few in our little newish build area, it is a mix of housing association rent (social housing) and shared ownership. The ones who live on the busy part of the street send them round to our part where it is a dead end and a larger safer area to bike round and play in, where they can't see or hear them at all. Some of them have been completely unsupervised from age 4 onwards and out til 9.30pm, we even had some climbing on cars - and one of the parents was letting them do it on their own car. Very strange behaviour in my book. One of the kids has parents that are drug users/ dealer so that explains that one.

Sorry it's hard to feel much sympathy as today my neighbours have dumped a fridge and six eggs on the pavement outside their house (I'm assuming they dropped the eggs out of their box as they got out of their van as none are smashed). They will never pick the eggs up, they will just be eaten by animals or washed away in the rain, it's grim. We have previously had a divan bed and a sofa to look at from our window. I would rather have kids leaving their bikes any day. It could always be worse, most neighbours are arseholes.

This thread isn’t really a competition of who can have a worse situation, im fully aware it could be worse was simply asking for opinions on it, which have been really helpful so far

It is a tricky one, possibly catch the culprits and politely point out that anything left on your drive may be accidentaly ran over. Happened to me once and we do not live on an estate. Son's friend came over and left his bike unbeknown to me on the floor right behind my car, you can quess what happened next...

OP I dont agree with alot of poster and thibj people should have respect for other peoples properties. Your front garden who ever small is your properties and they are technically trespassing and shouldnt be riding over people front gardens. Could you put some plant pots out front or a mini picket fence to prevent them?

Apologise for all the errors but my toddler is jumping all over me

How ever small is your property*

I don't think having litter left by your front door is ok nor them cycling over your new lawn. Kids playing in the street and cycling along it is ok as long as they don't do it for hours and hours and scream for hours. It's a difficult one as you don't want to upset your new neighbours but you really shouldn't have to put up with your new front lawn being cycled on and ruined nor litter dumped by your door. Do you have young children of are your children teenagers or grown up now? For the future, if you really want a quiet life maybe move to an area that has more older people living in it?

It’s lovely to see children playing out, I wish I’d brought my kids up in a road like yours.

@Woodmarsh

I don't think you're being unreasonable but you're asking on a parent forum and parents are likely to think that you are

Then those are ridiculous people.

I’m a parent

I don’t want other people’s stuff all over my space.

The notion that when you have children of your own you automatically turn into a sort of earth mother figure who loves all other children, just because they're children, really amuses me.

I’m a mum and I would hate it too. I wouldn’t allow my children to abandon their stuff along the street either.
If the items are on your drive I would have a word.

Yanbu. We played out as kids and it was a condition of that that we stayed out of non friends gardens and didn't leave our toys all over the place.

I would absolutely hate it too OP!
When we lived in a cul de sac I used to act like the Wicked Witch of the North! I hated the children running over our lawn. Why can't they stay on their own???
We moved when our DS was only a few months old - but to a property where this could not be an issue for us. We're still here!

You can’t stop kids playing, that’s life. However they shouldn’t be leaving stuff on your driveway and I would, extremely politely, ask them not to do it again - but I would probably suggest you have that word with their parents.

I'm a parent and dont agree with disrespectful behaviour like this. Parents to blame and for those posters agreeing they are obviously happy to have their children trample over other peoples gardens and goodness knows what else.