AIBU About the constant ball kicking!

[Mabellou]

I live in a relatively quiet estate. I work early mornings and sometimes late nights. And when I'm home, I just want a little peace, but my neighbours teen will constantly be kicking a football against the fence. I'm not talking an hour here and there. This is from 4pm until 10pm every night and during the day for hours on weekends. It's all I can hear over and over and I'm quite surprised the parents put up with it for so long. I don't want to knock on the door and sound like I'm being unreasonable, firstly because I don't like confrontation and secondly because I don't want there to be any awkwardness. But I would love just a quiet night in the house without getting annoyed 😔 AIBU. What would you do?

My neighbour is exactly the same it's so annoying!

I'd be glad it was Autumn & unlikely to continue much longer & hope he has a girlfriend by spring.

This is one of the most annoying noises ever. I would knock and ask them either not to do it or not to do it for so long.

I don’t think you can ask them not to do it at all but I don’t think it would massively unreasonable to ask for it to stop earlier than 10pm. Weekends through the day is fine, week nights after say 7/8pm isn’t.

Unless you can conjure a magic spell to stop it, or unless you are willing to put up with it because you own your home and do not wish to disclose any potential neighbour disputes when you sell, you will have to ask them to stop / reduce it, or move.

What would I do?

Knock on the door of course and have a polite word like an adult.

Where does the 'confrontation' come into it?

I'd also have a polite word with the teenager too.

We had neighbours like this. In the end we had to move house because it was mummy and daddy pushing their wish for their DS to become a premier league footballer onto the kid. He was outside in all weathers practicing from Age 4.

We live nearby and their (quite lovely) DS has kicked the ball into the house and next doors house (which was ours!) so much that the render has chipped off. They were new builds! Also muddy football prints on all their upstairs windows.

When we lived there he battered the fence with his football and it needed repairing.

lovely family (I genuinely really liked them! Even the kids!) but zero self awareness and if you ever mentioned it they’d get a bit shitty. It was a bit tricky!

We had that with a neighbour opposite, the son would use the metal garage door to kick the ball against. I would be waiting for the next 'bang'. I loved it when it rained so he would go inside. I could see him then inside kicking the ball against the living room wall.
Eventually put a kindly worded note through the door and he was then provided with a goal to put on the drive, so much better. They moved then - I was pleased 😊

If it’s constant for hours at a time then that’s ott and unfair, have a polite chat and ask if the length of time could be reduced, and maybe an evening curfew?

our ds kicks the ball in the street (our garden is too small), he is allowed to do it for 20 minutes at a time (I set alarm on Alexa). Then he has to come in and do something else for an hour or so. He's not up before 10am on a weekend or school holidays, and I never let him do it past 7pm. Even so I had a neighbour opposite who moaned and reported ds to local community police officer! Police said there was no law against what ds is doing, and that I was being reasonable by setting limits and a curfew.