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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Kids scootering in the road making a racket

193 replies

HushingDusk · 12/06/2021 19:32

They are from a small block of new build flats nearby (flats are visible from our upstairs windows, I’ve seen the kids go in and out). I get it’s annoying not to have a garden but they’re using the road and pavements instead, no adults in sight!

Aged about 10 to 5, a group of 6 or 7 children. The youngest was riding his scooter up and down the middle of the road for an hour, wearing nothing but boxers, being chased by an older girl on a bike! Then 2 boys fighting and hitting each other over the head with branches.

They hang around on the pavement right next to our garden wall, screeching, shouting and bickering all day.

Should I suck it up or send a letter to the flats asking them to keep a closer eye on their children and reduce the noise?

It’s a quiet, peaceful rural area apart from these kids treating the road and pavement like a park.

There’s a proper park less than 10 minutes walk away.

I was tempted to go out and speak to them (especially when they were fighting with branches!)

The only time I’ve seen adults around is in the mornings, they stand in the car park by the flats in their dressing gowns chatting and smoking.

WWYD?

OP posts:
Original poster
HushingDusk · 13/06/2021 21:43

I think the noise of dc playing is a normal noise of daily life

I agree. Mine aren’t silent in the garden either. But there’s a big difference between kids playing and kids shrieking, shouting and screeching at each other.

OP posts:
user1471538283 · 13/06/2021 21:43

Anything could happen to these children. I would report it to the community police.

turtlesanddragons · 13/06/2021 21:45

I think it's great there playing out. very lucky they can. maybe there parents are watching but you can't see them?

Nohugstoday25 · 13/06/2021 21:46

The cliche of this thread is hilarious

Estate kids / noisy / parents smoking in dressing gowns 🤨

GintyMcGinty · 13/06/2021 21:48

It's the summertime.

It's their childhood.

It's what they are meant to be doing.

lydia93 · 13/06/2021 21:49

I had a large garden as a child. I still preferred to play out in the street lol

GintyMcGinty · 13/06/2021 21:55

The snails thing - awful behaviour.

GintyMcGinty · 13/06/2021 21:58

Anything could happen to these children. I would report it to the community police.

I've heard it all now 😂😂😂 call the police for children playing out. 🙄

MrsTerryPratchett · 13/06/2021 22:24

But wasn’t that more kids exploring the local area or playing in the fields, building dens, looking for sticklebacks? Not screeching up and down a residential street on scooters and bikes all day.

And lashings of ginger beer.

I screeched up and down residential streets on a bike as a child in the 70s and my mum wouldn't have been caught dead in a dressing gown outside. Or in a Famous Five book.

Indiana2021 · 13/06/2021 22:26

You were judging them for standing outside chatting and smoking in their dressing gowns

What an odd comment. I often put the bins out in my dressing gown and slippers, stop to chat to a neighbour (also in her dressing gown). I wouldn’t judge her for smoking!
It’s the only time I’ve seen adults outside the building, so it’s not like I can approach them for a friendly word.

It's really not an odd comment.

You chose to mention the detail of them smoking outside wearing dressing gowns which had no relevance to your complaint, so it's really odd that you mentioned it at all.

Unless of course you were actually judging them and wanted us to visualise a negative picture of the parents of these children?

Perhaps you should change your user name to Hyacinth Bucket Wink

Blueeyedgirl21 · 13/06/2021 22:50

Your mum sounds awful.

You sound very smug that you’ve got your children to play quietly in the garden with no loud noises, but I think that sounds really sad. How stifling for them. I bet their on edge half the time.

copperpotsalot · 13/06/2021 23:01

@HushingDusk

The parents are probably keeping an eye out from the window now and again. It's hot and kids want to play out, that's life

Good point. And I guess they don’t want them playing and scootering in the carpark in case they damage someone’s car.

every time they are in your part of street play some loud ish classical/opera music... should send them on their way nicely

That’s a good idea 😂

Must admit my mum’s had a nice half hour picking snails off our clematis and hurling them over the wall in the direction of the racket (wall is about 12 feet so can’t see over). It’s gone a bit quieter now so perhaps they got the message!

That's actually the most shocking thing about the whole situation. Hurling snails? Live ones? What a cruel, nasty, childish thing to do. Poor snails.
LakieLady · 13/06/2021 23:10

[quote MrsTerryPratchett]@SofiaMichelle feel free to assume I'm lying.

People who don't work in housing would be stunned at the level of random unreasonableness there is.

My job's never boring though. I'd love to write a book but never would.[/quote]
I once had a client whose neighbour complained about him pissing in his toilet at night. Not the flushing noise, the actual sound of him peeing.

Wtf was he supposed to do, get a catheter fitted?

MrsTerryPratchett · 13/06/2021 23:22

I once had a client whose neighbour complained about him pissing in his toilet at night. Not the flushing noise, the actual sound of him peeing.

Sounds all too familiar.

I have to say, I say at least once a month, "looking at people isn't a breach of tenancy or illegal. Yes, even if you don't like it". I've had the police and lawyers involved for 'looking at people'. Police more than once.

Some of the worst noise issues though are people with competing traumas. Often woman leaving abusive relationship who can't stand noise and man above who has PTSD and doesn't sleep. If I had a magic wand, I'd make soundproofing MUCH better. Architects and builders don't tend to live in cheap flats so they don't understand. Those ones I have a great deal of empathy.

Blueeyedgirl21 · 13/06/2021 23:38

@MrsTerryPratchett. Woman I know and have on Facebook complains constantly about her neighbours - sometimes it’s that they’re making noise late at night which is fair ish but then if she’s in in the day, she complains she’s trying to have a nice day off and they’re using their washing machine or something equally ridiculous. This week we have had complaints that DIY was being done at 8.30am, and she goes to bed late so needs a lie in. Maybe her neighbours get up at a normal hour! I really do think she would be better going for a small house or something she would get something cheap enough if she looked.

Lilibet2022 · 13/06/2021 23:41

about him pissing in his toilet at night. Not the flushing noise, the actual sound of him peeing.

I once lived in a gff. I could hear everything the elderly neighbour did upstairs including getting up for a wee in the middle of the night. Never once bothered me.
And I can believe the pettiness of some because the same CFer who keeps everyone awake with her weekly parties is the same CFer who complained when I closed the bin too loudly when she was nursing a hangover on bin day once. I still have no idea how quiet I was supposed to close a bin. Confused

NiceGerbil · 13/06/2021 23:43

Sounds like brilliant fun!

I grew up when kids played out and I think it's a real shame it's gone.

Your idea involves them staying indoors with parents who you think are crap? Yay ?

Moonlaserbearwolf · 13/06/2021 23:46

YABU and a bit quick to complain if this is the first weekend the children have been playing outside.
Snail-gate reminds me of one of my neighbours years ago who also didn’t like the noise of children playing. He would fire a water pistol at us occasionally (which he kept for shooting at cats - which he also hated). A real life Mr Gum figure. Don’t get a reputation for being the miserly neighbour OP.

lakesummer · 14/06/2021 00:11

people should be able to chat in their gardens without a group of kids fighting and screaming the other side of the wall.

Or

Children should be able to play outside on scooters without having a grown adult throwing snails at them.

I feel a bit sorry for you, if you have been raised by someone who thinks that throwing something living as a missile is ever okay.

It is the most classless thing on the thread.

NiceGerbil · 14/06/2021 00:12

Not RTFT

'. I get it’s annoying not to have a garden but they’re using the road and pavements instead,'

OP. You're genuinely horrible.

You say you think their parents are shit but somehow expect the parents to arrange a rota for park visits?

Yep. Horrible.

thelongwayhome · 14/06/2021 00:24

Throwing snails? How nasty and immature Hmm

TheKeatingFive · 14/06/2021 00:27

Wow, what disgusting behaviour from your mother.

Maggiesfarm · 14/06/2021 02:08

I can't imagine throwing snails. That is just so cruel.

spanielstail · 14/06/2021 07:09

The problem with sticking a block of flats in a nice area. The two worlds collide and it doesn't end well. It's quite normal in working class areas for kids to play out in the street like this and much less so in nicer areas. It would drive me mad having them outside the house but I know people that let the children do it will always say it's "kids being kids" as that's their normal.

Homeontherangeuk · 14/06/2021 07:18

I don't think yabu... Our road is similar, from about 9 am on weekend mornings our doorbell is ringing for the dc to go out... They used play out but now I'm noticing some antisocial behaviour from other kids & I've stopped them going out much...