Neighbour conflict

[Amumof287]

Sure this is a common problem. We have lived in our house 4 years. Our neighbour is a lady who lives there with her adult son. I guess he’s in his 30s.

our 7 year old loves football. He plays football outside for perhaps an hour a day maximum on the days we’re home. In the summer holidays we’ve been away for 3 weeks. The other 3 weeks he has played outside. We are a family who go out a lot and he does multiple clubs, we’re always at the park etc so it’s certainly not excessive. 2 weeks of the holidays he was at football camp all day ever day in the week.

since we’ve lived here he’s knocked on her door to ask for his football back maybe 6 times in total. The last time he asked she said no. Balls do go over her fence sometimes, not every day. But unfortunately we don’t have a large garden and it does happen. We have asked him to try not to do it. Usually we just wait for them to be thrown back.

he’s never broken anything in her garden. She doesn’t have any plants/pots or anything like that. They just land on the grass.

she’s posted a very long letter though my door this morning saying it’s very disruptive when he knows on the door and can I stop them going over.

so my solution is I stop him playing football outside or I try to put up some kind of net? Has anyone done this? Any recommendations? Or ways to make the fence higher?

in total I would say she throws a ball back once a week in the summer and never in the winter since the garden gets too muddy to play. He’s a really polite little boy. We have a little girl who causes her no issues at all. We’re not a noisy family, as I say we’re detached anyway.

shes never ever complained about it at all to my face, just posted a letter and ran off. She’s also complained about us parking outside her house which I don’t understand because we don’t do that. And we live on a quiet road with hundreds of parking spaces. She lives next to the circle at the of the cul de sac which is always empty and she has a driveway. I can only assume perhaps someone visiting me has parked outside her house but that would be on occasion only. She says she needs the parking space for the kids she teaches (very loud and annoying) violin. I don’t want conflict but this seems so petty.

Can he not just go into her garden and get the ball himself?
My neighbours lad now just comes into mine and get it.
Shuts my gate .. saves me going out .

but surely the answer to that CF ery is "I prefer that the ball doesn't come over at all and if it does I prefer that you child waits until I I see it and throw it back"

Our next door neighbours ds plays football in the garden and any time the ball comes over the hedge to our side and I notice it I just throw it back. The mum is always telling them to be careful and reminding them I have a greenhouse.
The other side used to have a trampoline right next to our fence and played with balls on it, which quite often ended up in our garden...and I just threw them back. It's not hard, and it doesn't happen often. Some people are just grumpy about things like this.

Speaking as someone in a similar situation to your neighbour, sorry but YABU.

If your garden is small so is hers, it's an invasion and it really really doesn't matter that nothings broken yet.

Take your son to the park or buy a detached house wjth a big enough garden to enable his football.

Stop inflicting it on others.

Oh my god are you kidding?

She doesn't use her garden fir leisure so the invasion of my sons footballs really shouldn't be a problem because I say so in my assessment of thr situation

Entitled much??

Iv clearly stated I’ll be buying a net and asked for recommendations so I’m not sure where you’re getting I’m entitled from. My point about her garden is that thankfully he hasn’t ever broken anything as that would clearly be totally unacceptable and I would have addressed that. There are others up thread that have said that their property has been damaged by kids and that is clearly a different issue to a ball landing in your garden. Im
not saying that it makes it a non issue. She doesn’t like it obviously and Iv said we’re going to sort it out. I personally have no issue throwing kids balls back out of my garden. In the scheme of things it’s nothing to me. But we’re all different and obviously for some people it’s absolutely unbearable to throw a ball over a fence once a week and that’s fine.

we don’t get balls anymore in our garden but in our old house I used to get them daily and the kids would lean over the fence and shout at me through the window to throw them back. I honestly didn’t care, didn’t give it a second thought. Just went out and threw them back. So I didn’t really think she would have an issue with it. Things like that don’t bother me, or anyone I know. She does, fine, so I’m going to put up a net.

I do take my son to the park. I also pay for him to be in a football team, and he does football training 3 times a week. We have a dog so we’re always at the park. However, he does have a right to play football in his own garden when I’m busy with his sister or making tea etc. so I’ll buy a net.

our house is detached. Her garden isn’t small. But that isn’t relevant at all. We won’t be moving. Just as I’m sure she wouldn’t move if I told her the kids playing screeching violin at 8pm with all her windows open drives me insane.

Is she running a business from her home?
I would call to her and tell you will do your best but children will play ball and exercise is good.
I would also remind her of the absolute racket her students cause and how it really is very hard to listen to.
That if you had known that there was a business being run from the house, you would have rethought the purchase.
That you are very disappointed not to have been informed about the regular hours of noise that you try and block out.

Put it back on her.
I hate the racket of violin, it is a horrendous noise.

Start recording the racket and thinking about reporting that noise.

One thing to think about if you do get a net is that birds can become trapped in them so please don't have it up permanently.

If balls are going over then your garden is too small for football.

I say this as a neighbour who is constantly throwing balls back. The other day one hit my guinea pigs run and damaged the lid, causing it to collapse onto the pigs. Is that ok, just so long as your son can kick a ball ? No, of course it's not. Go to a park.

I would innocently 'helpfully' try to compromise with her. Tell her you're sorry if your son is upsetting her quiet enjoyment of her home but while you're on the subject, 'I'm sure you won't mind also thinking about the impact of the noise of the violins and the extra people coming and going. Ask her if she would be willing to come to a compromise that will suit both home

If you’re constantly throwing balls back did it not occur to move the run to a safer place? I wouldn’t risk my animals like that. However, if my child had kicked a ball over her fence and it had caused damage to her guinea pig run or harmed her animals in any way he would have been round there apologising and we would have been paying for it and fixing it for our neighbour.

iv never said damaging a persons property is ok. He’s never caused any damage and he won’t because there is absolutely nothing to damage in her garden. But, to save her the hassle of chucking them back once a week and the invasion of her space we will erect a net.

furthermore, I won’t any further inconvenience her by lending her my stuff, cutting her trees for free and putting up with the horrendous noise that comes from her house. Then we can all live a more peaceful life.

perhaps you could ask your neighbour to put up a net too.

thanks for the recommendations re nets from everyone. Have a peaceful ball free Sunday

why should I limit what my animals can have and where they can be because next doors child can't keep the football in their own garden? Luckily my ball playing neighbours are lovely and when I explained about my dogs and tortoise, THEY moved their football playing area away from the adjoining fence.

godmum56. You wouldn't believe it,we have a big garden 200 at the bottom an expensive greenhouse. It's toughened safety glass. This morning my DH heard bang,bang,bang, bloke and 2 kids using my fence as a goal! Kids looked about 8/10 bloke absolutely huge,DH and I are tiny pensioners. He said he didn't want to say anything to the bloke. I asked him why he never said anything in our last house,he didn't want to cause bad feelings with the neighbours! Unfortunately,he suffers from mental health issues and depression. There is a park in the next road in our village. The ball hasn't come over as yet. I worry for my dogs, greenhouse, plants. The rest of the fence has cost thousands,you can imagine, this fence is old, Brittle,2 mtr high. We replaced the other fence while we were working. I feel deflated.

You shouldn’t have to but I would rather my animals weren’t injured or killed. So I would move them. I shouldn’t have to walk the long way round on my dog walks to avoid my dog being attacked by the big dog at the end of the street who is reactive. But rather than dig my heels in I protect my dog and go the long way round. Sounds like you have lots of animals, perhaps you need a bigger garden.

you have no idea how big my garden is and its not relevant. You also sound very defensive.

I really don't think you are being in the least bit unreasonable and don't understand why anyone would think you were.....

Now you're being ridiculous. No-one should have to change their garden arrangements because of the neighbour's actions and balls coming over. I was on your side until this statement, which is very revealing. Totally unreasonable.

If there's an attacking dog you need to report it.

Our old neighbour used to put my sons ball into the wheelie bin every time it went over and made me fish them out if we dared to go round and ask for them to be thrown back over. ...

Nobody should have to. Absolutely not. But if I knew my animal could get hurt I would have moved it or spoken to the neighbour seriously about it. It sounds really bad it collapsed on top of them. They could have died. Absolutely that’s not on and I don’t condone that. Hopefully her neighbours have addressed that issue with her and it’s sorted. Or perhaps the ball went in to an area of her garden it doesn’t usually. But.. she said there’s balls entering her garden all the time so I wouldn’t have let that get to a point of potentially harming my animals. No way. She said that I thought it was ok that her guinea pigs were harmed just so my kid could kick a ball. Based off my experience, which is nothing like that.

everyone should be allowed to enjoy and use their garden as they wish to. Including children playing so we can all compromise can’t we. Silently getting annoyed throwing balls back, that you know could land on your animals, and not sorting it out isn’t ok either actually. I would rather do something I shouldn’t have to, than allow my animals, or children to be hurt. I thought it was a really poor comparison to my situation because the suggestion I think it’s ok for my child to hurt an animal.. absolutely not.

I think someone else replied to my comment about my piggies.

My garden is tiny. I have no choice about where to put my run. Moving it would not move it out of the ball zone. My neighbours are well aware that I have animals in my garden. Their garden is much bigger. But the balls still come.over. as I said before, gardens are not suitable for kicking balls in if they constantly go over fences. Go to a park.

Sorry that’s happened to you but that’s not the same. We live in large detached houses. When I say a small garden I don’t mean we wouldn’t have space to move a guinea pig run. It’s just not huge. It’s big enough for football.

i also am not like your neighbour. She’s never complained before and I haven’t ignored her like your neighbour has. And I don’t condone hurting animals. Iv got a dog and Iv always had pets. Iv put up a new much larger goal for him this morning which is going to help massively and I’m investing in a net. Sorry you’ve got awful neighbours. But my son is a lovely boy and he would be genuinely devastated to hurt any animal. He deserves to play football in his garden. I’m glad he’s active and we’re blessed to have outdoor space which he will enjoy. It’s not feasible to always be at the park with him obviously.

It doesn't matter how big or small your garden is. You're intruding on your neighbour and that's what matters here. The good thing is, you're being proactive about sorting it out. It usually takes a long time before a neighbour finally says something, so she is likely very over it.

Your son has the right to play football and your neighbour has the right not to be intruded on by his balls. Your son's right to play ball doesn't trump her right.