Next door neighbour's child

[scorpiogirly]

This is driving me mad!

My next door neighbours children (about 4 of them) are always in the garden which is fine. Problem is they keep kicking their ball over my garden. Also fine, I throw them back over when I see them, although it was a problem qhwn my daughter was very little as I didn't want a ball flying over and hitting her in the nogging. Lately, one of the children keeps coming to knock on my door for the ball. This has really ramped up in recent weeks and happens most days. Trouble is, he doesn't knock once and go away if he doesn't get an answer. He stands there banging shit out of the door. Im getting pissed off with it so I've started to ignore him. I work from home and yesterday he was banging and banging for ages, I was in a meeting on laptop. It sets the dog off too which doesn't help when I am trying to work.

Today same thing happened and I was also on a call with my manager going through work. I timed it the second time he did it today and it lasted for over 3 minutes! And then, he looked through the living room window! My daughter has been ill from nursery the last 2 days asleep on the sofa, luckily he didn't wake her up.

What would you do? I get on with them for the most part, always offering food when they're doing bbqs etc so I don't want to have to talk to the parents really. English isn't their first language so I am not sure how well I would be understood, although it's fine when exchanging small talk for the most part but I don't want to offend them in anyway as they're really nice people.

What else can I do? It's driving me potty!

The only way to solve it is to talk to the parents or the children.

Tell the child if the ball comes over again he will have to wait until 5 pm to get it back as you are working. Then if he knocks again tell him the same. He's a child - unless you tell him he won't know what's acceptable. I mean it would be nice if the parents stepped in but as they clearly aren't going to just tell him yourself

I was thinking of putting a sign in the door "Working from home. Please do not disturb" no?😂

How old is he? I would say to him nicely next time he does it ‘you are disturbing me at my work when you are knocking like that. If the ball comes over the fence you can’t have it back until I finished my work at 5pm and I can get it for you’ then if he comes back just keep saying that until he gets the idea that he can’t disturb you.

Tell the kids you will throw their balls back when it's convenient for YOU. NO KNOCKING UNLESS THEIR HOUSE IS ON FIRE OR THEIR PARENTS ARE SERIOUSLY ILL.

@SnackSizeRaisin great minds think alike!

He's got to be about 6 or 7. The dad apologised for it the other week, if it was this bad then I would have said that's okay but I can't answer the door when I'm working. I'm not when sure they know He's coming to knock. 3 times the ball has come over today

I pop around and hand the parents the ball next time. Then point out you’ve got no problem returning the ball however most of your day is spent working from home in meetings so if they could stop him coming and knocking that would be great and you will return it as soon as you spot it or to only knock after 5pm if you haven’t spotted it by then.

At only 6/7 years old they should certainly know where he is to stop him knocking.

6 or 7 he might have much of a concept of time. You could use a do not disturb sign then.

Tomorrow ignore him till 5pm or whenever you finish, then go round with the ball and ask that they don't let him knock till after 6pm as you aren't able to answer and he is disturbing your work.

You don't need to be rude or difficult - just state facts. If you don't deal with it soon you will become more fed up with it and more likely to snap at him or his parents and cause more problems...

I've told out neighbours' kids that they can go round the back and collect balls from our garden whenever they like - no need to ask. Problem solved.

Do you have a side gate to allow garden access? We had an agreement with our neighbours that their children could access our garden for the purpose of retrieving a ball without asking us.

I do but it's broke and have to keep it locked. The dog roams in and out of the garden anyway so I wouldn't want someone opening the gate as she's escaped before.

Kids and balls really piss me off, yeah yeah they have a right to play in their own garden and all that jazz, but we have a right to a peaceful life free of constant interference, noise and nuisance balls.

Agree with PPs. Plus, the ball might come over your fence less often if the owners could only retrieve it after 5pm.

Just tell the parents what is happening. Tell them you will return the ball when you can - not at a specific time - that you are not interrupting your meetings, phone calls, meals, baths or anything else - but when you can!

if I was the parent of the child I'd get that crystal clear. (But I'd not let them bang on the neighbours door in the first place)

Don't agree a time - you will be a hostage to it!

We have a little boy next door with additional needs who spent 90% of his time outside throwing shoes, gardening equipment, balls, clothes and toys over our fence from their trampoline. The dad came and rang the bell at the most inconvenient times I.e 9pm waking up our baby. In the end I told them I knew the stuff was there and would bag it all up and deliver it to them when it was convenient. After a week or two of this, the parents have been much more vigilant about the throwing and it almost never happens anymore.

Exactly! Great post

Don’t give it back, that will teach him to keep kicking it over. I have a lovely collection of crap from my ndn that my dogs have chewed. Fed up with going around chucking it back so stopped, hasn’t happened since!