Kids playing football on the road!

[offmybush]

There seems to be one family that really are so entitled.

And whenever the weather is not raining, their kids, 7&13 are playing out on the front. Today for 8 hours has been consistent banging their football against the side of my house. (My side wall faces opposite their homes and pavement)

I said nicely once "please stop" but they didn't, their mother didn't seem too bothered.

They've even hit the top of my back garden wall so much the top brick came off.
Their neighbours brand new car has been hit on the bonnet about 40 times (they've been out all day so are completely unaware)

There are cars parked up and they are just kicking the ball on the road and against my home.

They only just stopped one hour ago.

There are no signs to say "no balls" so I probably don't have a leg to stand on but I can't cope with this now until winter arrives again.

Anyone with any advice? Am I being a moany neighbour!

No body ever got hurt , it was great we weren't stupid , also lots of kids different ages . The older ones would look out for the younger ones . No body would go near anything dangerous . Don't know who put up the swing , they must have been a lot older than us .

You really really think kids should be dicking around playing on streets where cars drive?! Give me strength!

Take it you didn’t see the public education danger videos films then?!

A kid locally to us apparently drowned going near/in a stretch of water (lake?) to retrieve a ball. He was about 9. A couple of years older than us but we always remembered it.

Oh yes, there has certainly been a hostile takeover. People (like dreaming upthread) feel entitled to sole use of the street. Mercifully the tide is turning.

Too busy playing .

Mine play footie and I would not be happy for them to bag their ball against someone else's house or car. A shared wall dividing properties I couldn't get upset about though.

You really think that the drivers of 2 tonne juggernauts shouldn't be driving appropriately (i.e. dead slow) in residential streets? If you're driving appropriately you're not going to do any harm.

In this case though OP I’ve seen the mother has a garden but doesn’t want this in her garden. Tough titty it should be there or in a perfectly good park.

Not talking about juggernaut’s talking about normal cars. I certainly wouldn’t want to watch for kids 24/7 when I drove but luckily all the parents of kids in my street don’t allow their kids to play there.

There was no water involved . We would take picnics even though I could see my house from the quarry , maybe not so much picnics more of a jam sandwich 🤣.

I agree the road/cul de sac is fair game - a parked car is not more entitled to the space than kids playing outside IMO.

60% of new car sales in the UK are SUVs.

Times are changing, streets are being reclaimed.

I'm with you op. We had this years back when ours were little. Kids playing football and the constant thud, thud, thud of the ball. Used to be so annoying and we have a park aroud the corner. It turned into a big deal in the end as most of the neighbours got so fed up with it.

One of the football playing neighbours neighbours suggested that my dc would be the next generation to do it. I said not a chance, we'll go to the park and that is what we did. They just couldn't be bothered to take their children to the park or say no. The whole not saying no to children though seems to be a underlying theme for many families though. Don't get me started!

But if the parked car gets damaged, what then?

It's very annoying. My windscreen was cracked by kids playing football on the street, came on here to be told I was unreasonable to park on the road and expect my car to be unharmed. 🙄Even worse was my neighour playing hurling on the street with his teenage sons, not the type of bloke you can reason with unfortunately. There are football fields 3 minutes walk away. You can tell the kids to go away and complain to the parents but if they dont care i dont think there is much you can do.

The thud thud thud against your wall would drive most batty.

I had this for the entire six weeks of the school holidays last year.
There's actually a big green across the road and along a bit from my house, but no, they play football on the road. The ball hits houses and cars, these kids don't even live on the bit of the estate where l do, they live further round, but of course their parents don't want them playing there, it's too noisy.
One day it went on from ten in the morning from ten at night (July/August, when it gets dark late) - I never saw any of them go off for food/drinks, or anyone seem to bring anything for them.
More than once they were actually on my front lawn. When l went out and asked them (politely) to move onto the green, and said "You're actually on my garden," one of them stamped on the grass and said "What, THIS?!"
Then they go over to the green for a while, coming back occasionally to hammer on my front door. My neighbour went and had a word and it stopped for a while, but of course he isn't here all the time.

We even have a huge park literally five minutes away, but they won't go there, for whatever reason. Maybe the parents don't want them to, they want them close to home, but there seems to be no supervision at all. I've never seen an adult anywhere near them, besides my neighbour.

I've lived here almost nine years. Of course when l moved here they were tiny, some of them weren't even born, but they're of an age now where they're allowed out and they just seem to do their own thing with no parental input.
They had bikes and scooters, put ramps on the kerbs/road (again, outside my house) and were using them to jump on and off. The constant thudding from this, and the ball, went on for literally hours on end, my nerves were shredded.
They broke my neighbour's fence and a planter with their bikes. The fence is right at the end of her long (enough for two large cars) driveway, they had no reason to be there.

More than once l'd see a car pass my window, then hear a squeal of brakes when one of them ran after a ball or just rode into the road on their bike.

How none of them had an accident is beyond me. I'm on the main road through the estate, which is a fairly long road, and these kids seem to have no road sense at all.
One actually rode his bike straight at my car (fortunately l was virtually stationary, about to pull onto my driveway), and he was laughing.
The same one did the same to my neighbour, who has a huge people carrier. These kids are about 9-13 so l'm told, so old enough to know what they're doing.
I've no problem with kids playing, (I have two stepsons) and my next door neighbours have three boys from 5-13, but they aren't allowed to behave like that, their dad makes sure they don't. They play in their back garden, they have a trampoline and they play with footballs, which occasionally come into my garden, but they ask very politely if they can come through and get them, or l throw them back if l see them first.

I'm genuinely dreading the school holidays this summer. Hopefully it'll be the last l'm here, though, I love my house and l have lovely neighbours, but I can't put up with this for the next however many years. I'm moving to sheltered accommodation where hopefully it'll be quieter. I'm too old to put up with weeks of noise, day in day out. I know it's only six weeks, but it seemed interminable.

The car. The car is the one that has hit them.

According to the Highway Code "Everyone suffers when road collisions occur, whether they are physically injured or not. But those in charge of vehicles that can cause the greatest harm in the event of a collision bear the greatest responsibility to take care and reduce the danger they pose to others."

That's a different issue. Clearly it's stupid to be playing on a busy road, but there's no objection to playing on a quiet road.

But regardless of whether the children "should" be there, the onus is on the car driver not to hit any obstruction, and most definitely not to hit more vulnerable users such as pedestrians.

She is NBU. Kids can be kids without causing damage or disrespecting property.
I don't mind kids playing in the street, ours did , but I'd expect people to pull them up for this behaviour.

OP have you spoken to the family?

I certainly wouldn’t want to watch for kids 24/7 when I drove but luckily all the parents of kids in my street don’t allow their kids to play there. Are you seriously suggesting you weren't looking out for children, cyclists, etc every single second when you were driving? I'm rather glad your driving seems to be in the past.

Of course I bloody look out for kids when I drive but if they’re playing football in the street and I don’t see them, that is on the parents and children really? And like I said parents aren’t so stupid as to let their kids play in the road.

A quiet road like mine is can have cars speeding there any time. And for years since I moved there generally parents don’t let children play there as there’s 2 big parks nearby. Even in the close round the corner you don’t see kids playing there though you could, as it’s quiet.

This is exactly what I mean. If feral kids ride bikes at a car or dick about near a moving car, of course where possible drivers should always be looking for vulnerable road users, but if kids are running to get balls between cars and a car is doing what it does eg drive, kids should have road sense and their parents should teach them the same.

OP this would drive me nuts

Speak to the parents

If no luck, bang a ball against their wall....

Do stink bombs work? Might want to drop one out of the window.

I have a personal alarm that's pretty loud, pull the pin out of that, lob it next to them, it might help, not sure as these sorts of people seem to tolerate all noise.