Very young boys playing out in the dark on my street

[Lifeomars]

Looking for a bit of advice. My street is a real hot spot for flytipping and today's offering was a heap of manky, filthy mattresses and two pieces of a broken down bed frame with wood and nails exposed. I noted all the details so I could report it to the council. As the afternoon progressed I heard children's voices and saw two little boys, each with a football, running around by the flytip and then jumping and climbing on the filthy mattresses and using them as a launch pad to leap onto the broken bed frames. No adults around. They looked very young, about 5/6 years old. I was so worried about the risk to them that I opened my door and spoke to them, told them the mattresses were very dirty and "full of germs" (the stains were visible) and that they could hurt themselves on the bedframes. They picked up the footballs and trotted off, then as darkness fell they were back again, more jumping, chasing the footballs into the road and dodging cars so I chatted to them again.By talking to them I found out they are both in year 3 at the local primary school at the end of the street and that they live another street away. They looked younger than they are, very slight build for their age. I spoke gently to them, told then they could easily have an accident and also not to go running in the road after their footballs. The incident keeps preying on my mind, they could have had a fall or got run over. I can't think of anything else I could have done, and indeed am wondering if I overstepped the mark by twice telling them not to play in the rubbish. Wondering what others might have done?

That's not much else you could do. Some people wouldn't get involved, so good on you for trying (twice) though.

To be fair I would have just left them to it but glanced out the window every 15 minutes just to check they are OK. They are 7/8 years old and although it's dark early that isn't actually bedtime is it?

You did the right thing, 7/8 year old children playing on a load of stuff that's been fly tipped isn't safe , we get quite a bit of it as well and I'd be worried about glass and maybe even needles in there so I think you were right in going out twice

The only other thing you could maybe do is call the police to say there are two young children on your street playing and you don't think they are safe. They may or may not have come out, but they would have been in a position to return the children home and speak to their parents if they thought necessary. But that has the potential to go down very badly with the parents and might scare the kids - and it does seem overkill to be fair. But there isn't anything else you could do really.