Neighbours kids swearing at doorbell?

[GirlMumGabby]

So for the past year I've had a problem with my immediate neighbours two daughters playing football outside my house. The ball hits the car, fence, house.... making my dog bark, toddler cry and just generally annoying. I complained at first to the housing association and they sent a gentle reminder letter out to everyone to say children should be mindful etc. During the summer it seemed to stop when another neighbour went absolutely mad at them. He swore, shouted and I assume made a serious complaint to the housing association. Since then they have quietened down and stuck to playing in other parts of the estate. Apart from the last couple of weeks. They are back outside my house. I have said nothing to them. I've pulled my blinds down and shut my dog in the other side of the house. The car has been hit by the football but I can't see any damage so I'm to ignoring it. I just looked at my doorbell camera and there on my doorstep is one of the girls sticking her middle finger up.... directly at the camera. I don't know why I'm letting it bother me. Would it bother you? Am I being stupid? These children have just started high school, so I assume they are like 11 or 12. They play with a couple of boys off the estate. I'm hoping maybe as they get older they won't want to hang around here anymore. Its started to get me down.

Had anyone told their parents how their little brats are behaving?

The parents are never there. When they are it's non stop swearing and shouting. These children are out playing as soon as they are home from school until it's dark. Today they came out at 12 and went home at 6.40pm when their Dad finally appeared. They spent all that time on the same street.

why shouldn't they play in the street outside their house!

Shocking I know, but kids like to play!

Really? It's needed in most areas. We have had people on our drive trying the car doors, trying to break into our camper van or generally just nosing around the property. Door cams are essential these days.

The kids are being raised by shitty negligent parents, I doubt there’s anything you can do about them. You’re not wrong for being upset about it though, little yobs in the making.

For the exact reasons op has stated, the ball is hitting her car.

Because they are kicking the ball against OPs house, car and fence! Kick it against their own parents' property!

There are 2 types of people on an estate like this (and I say this with confidence, as I am you OP)

You have the 'Kids can't be kids these days' from the lazy, shite parents who think 'parenting' is kicking the kids out the house for as long as possible so they can ignore them and not actually raise them.

And the people like me and you, who have to shut our blinds so our dogs don't bark and wake up our sleeping toddler. Who have to keep their windows shut during hot summer days because the shouting/swearing is not something you want your toddler to be hearing, or checking your car to see for damage.

I wish I had advice - it got so bad on my estate the police now do weekly walk rounds at different times which seemed to have improved slightly. But I still had to tell a 6 year old to stop shouting outside my house at 8.30pm last night as he was unsettling my 2 year old. I happen to live on the main road, so why he was playing their (unsupervised of course) I have no idea.

So glad i saved thousands of pounds for years of my life to buy a beautiful home that I'm prisoner in because the neighbours are feral.

They aren't, they are playing outside OP's house! Kicking ball against their fence, against their car etc...why should any home owner have to accept that?

They are immediate neighbours so clearly they are playing outside their own house. This is normal behaviour.

We've got a similar problem, they are a little gang of girls from various houses along the street, playing football, climbing on & kicking the fence, screeching & trying to upset my dog, oh and hitting the fence with any stick or bit of scrap metal they've managed to get hold of as they skate along beside it .They have huge gardens of their own with swings, trampolines, climbing frames, netball & football nets, that never get used. There's even better &safer places to play along the street but they prefer the blind corner by our house.

It's not normal behaviour to kick a ball against the neighbour's house, fence and car!

We have kids who are dropped off on a Friday night and go home on a Sunday creating sheer havoc where we live. They don’t even LIVE here!!! The relation goes in and shuts the front door and has no idea what they’re up to. Whacking footballs, swearing and shouting, dropping litter everywhere and banging on front doors.Wish they’d fuck off because it’s so nice and peaceful when they’re not here; just a couple of smaller kids on bikes. Once they arrive the whole dynamic changes. I feel for you OP.

If the parents are never there, I’d inform Social Services 😩

Oh we have one of these too! They often come on a Friday or Saturday night and kick the boy out to play with these girls. I think because he doesn't live here, he acts even worse! When we see the car parked up, we shut the blinds straight away.
I hope as it's getting darker earlier we might see less of them.

These girls have a great big garden too. They are not allowed to have their friends in the house or even the garden. But they are allowed to play on a road for 6 hours unsupervised.
They are fully aware of my dog barking. Sometimes I feel like just letting him bark to see if other neighbours might start looking to see what's going on.

I really hope these kids will grow out of wanting to hang around on the street. We brought our house a year and a half ago. It's a very small estate. It was perfect until these neighbours moved in 6 months later.
I'm hoping the dark, cold nights will mean we won't see them after school soon. The weekends are awful. I refuse to have trick or treaters this year because I don't want them knocking on my door.

Praise be for winter! Hopefully they aren’t outside as much

Ask the neighbour who sorted the problem before what he did and copy it? ie letter to housing association or local councillor or a male shouting at the useless dad?

We hoped for that too, but last Winter they started coming out after dark wearing skates and using skateboards with flashing lights on and they were
also wearing head torches. Halloween night they were out there until 10.30 pm.

I suspect this might be unpopular but what happens when you see them in the street or outside your house? Do you talk to them? Sometimes I think a kill with kindness approach works if the parents aren’t going to do anything.
Say hello, ask how they are, let them see you as a person and not just “that neighbour who complains”. I suspect complaining to the council may have made their lives harder as their parents probably just had a go at them without doing anything about thr situation.
Obviously in an ideal world a word with their parents would sort this but it’s far from an ideal world

Sorry you and others are having to put up with this - I had this at my last house. Even in the torrential rain and cold dark nights there were kids playing football and screaming, half of whom were teenagers that didn't even live there. I ended up moving to a main road. There are always a few people on these threads who try to defend the terrible parenting as if we don't have any right to enjoy our homes in peace and not have our property damaged. If kids want to play football they should do so in a park.

Sometimes it doesn't help if they're in their own garden. A kid a few doors from us has a basketball hoop. All you can hear on every dry day is the thud, thud, thud of the basketball. It's stopped us sitting in the garden but I don't feel I can say anything as he's in his own garden and not causing any trouble.