To let my boys play football/basketball in my garden?

[mrsh1807]

My neighbours have sent me a couple of very unpleasant text messages telling me to stop my boys playing football in our garden as they don’t want to hear it.

I don’t know what to do. I’m feeling really anxious to be honest. They’ve never raised it as a concern before the messages, and the tone was intimidating.

I replied to the first one suggesting we reach an agreement where we can all enjoy our gardens, and this was responded to by them telling, not asking, me to send them to the park down the road. Those were their words, telling not asking. They’re in their early 50s.

Boys are 11 and 15. We have a decent sized garden.

I’m a single parent so feel I’m an easy target.

Do I have any options other than moving house?!

Thanks.

Aren't you a treasure

Kids are allowed to play in the garden but, unless you have a very big one, a garden is not really big enough for 11 and 15 year olds to play football in. I would be encouraging them to play in the park anyway.

Your neighbours, however, sound like dicks.

Amazing how these threads always get out of hand.

A family area doesn't mean all get disturbed by selfish, don't give a shit family.
But OP isn’t a “don’t give a shit” family. She has stated she goes mad at the kids if they’re kicking the ball off the fence / walls. The boys are playing on grass not pavement which is louder. She has also tried to be considerate by offering to reach a compromise with her neighbours, offered to curtail hours the boys are outside etc but this has been met with entitled “my way or the high way” attitude from her neighbours.

You simply don’t live in a residential built up area and expect total silence, and bully people into abiding by your arbitrary rules. At the end of the day, kids with raised voices and a ball banging for a few hours a day is completely within the boundaries of acceptable, normal, household noise. I have sensory issues with noises and live in an family area, noise from balls, music, power tools etc all absolutely set my teeth on edge and I feel like tearing my skin off. I pop on some
sound cancelling earphone and white noise and get on with it, becsuse it’s reasonable and expected noise. What I don’t do, is act like an entitled prick and try to dictate how (perfectly nice and reasonably) families live day to day.

OP, you’ve tried to compromise with these awful people and at the end of the day, they don’t make the rules. Direct them to the noise complaints department of your council and let them crack on. They’ll be laughed at.

OP your garden looks lovely and I think it is reasonable for your sons to play in it as long as it is not very early/late or all day every day.

It is not reasonable for your neighbours to expect no noise at all from youngsters.

I would start complaining to them about the noise from their parties - much more annoying !

Provided that they are not doing it at an antisocial time of day, that they're not using bad language or sending the ball into the neighbour's garden or battering their fence, they aren't really doing much wrong. The same could apply to any child's game in a garden.

Teens/kids really can't win. People say they're stuck indoors playing PlayStation too much but when they're in THEIR own garden they're too noisy.

As long as it’s not really early in the morning or late at night then I would continue to let your kids play in the garden, that’s what gardens are for when you have kids.

my son plays football and basketball also in our garden, I pay for my garden and no one is going to tell me how to use it. We are respectful of what hours he plays etc and are good neighbours.

Do they have children? If so I bet they let them play in the garden when they were younger.

I would leave his number blocked for good and continue as you are.

We live next to a school playing field not a a school, the kids are bussed here and oh my they can be loud but we knew when we moved in and didn't expect to work from home so just get on with it! you are not in the wrong, your boys are allowed to play in your own garden, your neighbours sounds like a real misery party

@BoredatHome321 -my thanks exactly.

God, neighbour should come and live on my estate. There aren’t gardens so the kids play football in the road, so you get the delightful noise of the ball bouncing off things for hours but with the added thrill of the threat of property damage. There have been two smashed car windows and one broken letterbox so far but parents don’t care - when you point it out to them they just tell you to fuck off. My NDN whose car window it was told the kids off and the dad went around and shouted at her for ten minutes.

There’s a park not 5 minutes away but that would involve the parents doing some parenting rather than throwing their feral children out at 9am.

I do suspect it’s louder and longer than you’ve said OP and I have sympathy for the neighbours because of my experience but they’re being unreasonable to talk to you like that. I’d maybe ask the kids to go to the park a little more but otherwise I don’t see what more you can do.

I do suspect it’s louder and longer than you’ve said OP and I have sympathy for the neighbours because of my experience but they’re being unreasonable to talk to you like that.*

The OP hasn't copied the text message here. She's just said she has interpreted it as 'rude' but someone else might interpret it differently as an exasperated request.

The same neighbours have a hot tub room and loud parties???? Then they can feck off with their rude texts!! Bloody cheeky.

I’m struggling to understand why this has got you so upset - can you post what the neighbour actually said?

YANBU though. I would have text back that no, I wouldn’t stop my kids enjoying their garden especially when asked so rudely.

And seeing the pic of your garden it’s not like they can throw a bucket of water at them is it?

Op, I can’t believe some of the replies here, utter madness.
Your sons are playing in their own garden on a Summer’s evening, they are absolutely within their rights to be doing this.
Your neighbour is a selfish idiot, do not bend on this or it will open the floodgates for all types of petty and trivial complaints.
It’s normal household noise, they’ll just have to deal with it.
Just politely say they the boys will be playing football in their garden within normal hours. They don’t get to dictate what happens in your garden.
If my neighbour did this to me I’d be livid… bloody cheek of them.

I’m struggling to understand why this has got you so upset - can you post what the neighbour actually said?

So we can see if the texts were rude and unreasonable.

They aren't little tots though. Big boys of secondary school age tend to be very loud. Send them to the park.

I just can't help feeling there is a lot more to this. OP said:

my heart sinks when coming home when I can see they’re home

There's history here I think. And how did they get hold of your number to text?

They aren't doing anything wrong. If people have an issue it is for them to resolve
Of course it is! Common response from selfish people who can't be bothered to consider others.

I've got to be honest, I am always really surprised by just how many people seem to be annoyed by normal living noise!
It all comes down to what is considered normal. Kids playing, laughing, a slight raise of voice arguing for a few minutes, all that is fine and pleasant.

Repetitive noise of football being kicked, basketballs bouncing, kids screaming, fighting, screeching, shouting insults is unbearable when it's all the time and sadly, for some family, it is just their normal way to communicate.

But OP isn’t a “don’t give a shit” family. She has stated she goes mad at the kids if they’re kicking the ball off the fence / walls
It is, she's made it clear. She goes mad, so probably shouting, causing yet more disturbance and the boys clearly ignoring her and continuing and I'm still to meet 11 and 15 year olds who play football quietly. The fun is to quick as hard as they can with the goalie screaming and shouting when the ball pass them or even more when they stop it.

OP doesn't care one bit about compromising because there is one very simple solution: sending her kids to the park. Why isn't she doing this?

This is what’s actually the most important thing to remember

in a very short time they won’t be playing out at all, and that part of being a parent will go.

let them play in your (lovely) garden

tell the neighbours that it’s part and parcel of a neighbourhood and you get disturbed by them, and other neighbours all the time. Kids play in gardens. It’s not shrieking little girls on trampolines, it’s a couple of boys with a ball. Every so often.

say that you’re not going to pay any more attention to their rude and threatening messages, and if they carry on, you’ll buy matching drum kits be taking advice from local police

He said:

Hi can you ask your children to stop kicking and bouncing that bloody ball it's constant all through holidays etc there's a park down the road they are old enough to go down to park show some respect for your neighbours I work like a dog all week and want some peace and quiet thanks.

They had been out for half an hour, we'd been out all day prior to that.

This was the very first time I had been made aware of any problems.

My reply was:

Hi thanks for your message. Of course I can ask them to stop playing but can we agree some reasonable conditions? They have a right to enjoy their garden too.

So please let me know what you think? It's the summer and actually today they've only been out here a short while as everyone's been out all day.

I appreciate you would like some peace but the boys have equal rights too.

Don't want to fall out over this.

The final message was:

It's not a fall out, I'm telling you not asking you that there's a park down the road where their dad can meet them and have a kick about etc for them it's not fair on me and (other names I don't actually know who he is referring to) having to listen to that all of the time plus the damage the ball causes when it comes over the fence and hits the plants we have spent hundreds on when we were kids we respected our neighbours and went to the pack thats the trouble with society nowadays no respect.

I haven't replied since that message.

So, for context as I have mentioned, the boys are with their dad every other weekend. Holidays they spend literally half their time with their dad too.

They do not play all the time. I know some people have said I may not realise how much they play, but I also know they they spend a lot of time on devices, they see friends, they do stuff with me. Until recently my youngest was playing football both days at the weekend as he's in a club, they've only just stopped for the summer.

Some days they will be out there longer than others. Some days not at all.

I guess as I know this guy I am perhaps reading a threat into his words that as I type them now may not be there. His words did upset me, maybe I just need to toughen up.

I will from now on insist they do not play before 10am or after 8pm. I will also (and have already done this) ask them not to kick the ball high or hard, frankly it makes me cross when the ball lands on my plants too. I've made it clear not to expect their ball back ever again if it does go over!

The point of asking this question was to gauge whether I should allow them to continue to play or not. We do have a large green and leafy garden. I really genuinely had no idea they were causing so much upset, and do not want to be at war with my neighbours. Before I lived here I was surrounded by older children in gardens and I never minded the noise of the kids playing. Quite like it, but perhaps I can tune it out better than others can.

It's been helpful to hear all points of view, I'm taking it on board, and will monitor their playing more.

For what it's worth, I don't chuck them outside and disappear for peace elsewhere in the house, it's almost impossible to be in a room in my house and not see the garden due to it's layout. I like to think I'm a responsible mum and do my best not to cause offence; if I didn't care this wouldn't have upset me and I wouldn't have asked the question :)

I think I just hate conflict to be honest. It's my way. There's no particular history, they've always been friendly enough before now.

The guy did a couple of pieces of work for me in my garden as he's a fencer by trade, that's how he had my number.

Basketball is probably the most annoying from a neighbours perspective, if it's 30 mins 3 times a week then that's fine, if they are playing outside for an hour or more most evenings it will begin to grate. We have kids around us and parents are very good at asking (we hear them) their kids to keep voices down and not to repeatedly bounce the ball

I don't think I could say anything to change your impression of me, so will leave you to your imaginings!

Sorry you clearly have had such terrible neighbours in the past :)