You should never make friends with neighbours

[SelfEsteemInDiff]

This is what my mum would tell us anytime one of us moved home. I thought she was crazy and felt it was a really sad existence but honestly I 100% agree now. I’m in my 40’s and I am fed up of them. I think you (well me!) always imagine people will be respectful and decent like you are but obviously everyone is different. I stupidly thought unwritten rules that I follow everyone’s could too. We moved here 2 years ago. It’s our forever home, we will never move again (well that’s the plan) so I made a bit more effort than I usually do. I just feel the neighbours are taking the piss. Just one example the neighbours kids keep bothering us. I’ve politely told them we are busy but they keep trying to come into the garden. Not next door but they are 5 doors down. In comparison before my kids go there I text everytime and wait for a response before sending them.

how can I stop the kids becoming familiar with our garden? And feeling so at home they just open it? Gate doesn’t lock it’s just a latch. How can I respectfully stop being on friendly terms with them? Immediate neighbours we are civil but not friends. We say hi and bye and exchange pleasantries but that’s it. I want that! I think I made a mistake becoming friendly. Can I back away or what? I do have low self esteem so find these situations hard.

What do they do in your garden? And how old are they? If young, build a pond and explain to parents it's dangerous for them to be alone in the garden. But if they're older, a pond might attract them more. Grow plants that are poisonous, grow roses and prickly plants, and stinging nettles. Sure they won't like the garden quite so much if they get stung lol!

" I do have low self esteem ..."

Just stop that. Now. You can't go through life with that as an excuse.

Get a lock for the gate? That would fix it easily and without too much expense.

otherwise. I don’t really see what your problem is and it’s rather vague. Apart from kids coming into your property when they shouldn’t which is easily fixed, I’m not sure why you think you shouldn’t be friendly? You can be friendly without being friends.

PADLOCK!

Put a bolt on the gate high up if it's a tall gate or low down if the child can't see over it so the child can't reach it. Or do the flag signal. Can come in if the flag is visible, don't come in if the flag is down. or both bolt and flag.

I think living on an estate with kids, and kids also living there, this will always happen. If you want peace, move to the countryside.

As others have suggested, get a bolt/lock for the gate so nobody can just walk in etc.

And smile but be firm while telling the children "not today".

Rinse and repeat.

Try this:

Close your eyes and think, "I wonder what my next thought will be".

It's great for people with ADHD as it stops their brain from constantly whirring around!

Bless. I empathise.

It, apparently, takes practice - you have to put it in context. Tell yourself it's done in the right way and right time. Don't second guess yourself.
Easy to say. Very difficult to convince yourself. Very difficult to keep doing it to make it a habit....but very, very slowly. ... Think months...it gets easier and habitual. I'm better than I was. But I totally get what you're saying....

How sad for you.

I’d work on focusing on the positives if I were you and improving your boundaries.

we live in a street where I get 3 or 4 neighbour’s children coming into my back garden. Yes, a bit of a nuisance for me some days - they want ice lollies and drinks and leave a mess, but how wonderful that these children feel comfortable playing at our house! And what very happy memories my child and these kids will have. And I am enjoy seeing them grow! Some days if we’re eating or it doesn’t work, then I just tell them, occasionally they come back and I tell them again. It’s no big deal.

if you say this is your forever home, then work on building a relationship with these people. After all, these are the children and families who will say good morning to you when you’re an old lady and help you out.

Are they at home alone? Have you checked to see if their parents are in when they come to 'visit'?

Perhaps the parents encourage it, seeing you as useful child minders?

Don't encourage it, but don't make enemies of them. I think your mother was right. Far better to be on friendly terms with all, than end up with someone pushing their luck.

You could get CCTV somewhere, or a notice saying you have it! I do, because I have six other properties sharing my boundary. The cameras are right up under the eaves of the house and connected to the screen inside through the loft. It was installed in February and you would be surprised at how wary folks are and how reluctant they are to stay too long. The installers put notices up by the front door and the wheelchair ramp.

It doesn't have to be a sophisticated system. There are more simple ones, but it helps to have a monitor.

(my system does not show any other properties. They are blacked out.)

Adult conversation with a neighbour and peoples kids treating your house as a drop in centre is two very different things!

Oh don't start with the "you need to have kids ok your side so you can burden them when you are old" crap! Not everybody wants every kid on the street coming into their garden and home anytime they feel like! People have rights to peace and quiet in their own homes, especially if they've been at work all day and parents should be setting boundaries!

Imagine a paedophile moving on to a street, it only takes him setting up some play equipment up in his garden and start luring kids in with lollies and it'll be easy to get kids to abuse because people are telling kids to go anywhere they want and in any garden at any time they want.

Imagine being a single dad and everyone's boundaryless kids come around all the time and just walk in - it gives people an excuse to potentially accuse that dad of being up to something.

Or parents do their job and set boundaries! Comments telling people to drastic things because parents can't do simple things is irritating. Would you want your kids walking into the garden of a paedophile or a HMO!

No, in the 80's are parents let is go out to play when it was appropriate and we did not walk into people's houses and gardens, we knocked on each others doors and asked if out friends were coming out to play!
If they couldn't come out to play we accepted it and didn't go back and badger every 20 mins.

Kids had rules back then and given the amount of predators about now, it's wrong not to have boundaries.

Right, guess you were not taught how to spell in the eighties.

My phone has typo'd! You seem to be acting childish over nothing! There's a lot of people with dyslexia in the world so I don't believe in pointless bullying over spelling errors but believe you me, I never spell our as are. I'm not the chav you thought I was I'm afraid!

I’ve done my time on estates. It was like that then, it’s like that now on small estate I live in.

We knocked on doors and asked if our friends were coming out, we never just walked into people's properties! We were all given boundaries and had to be polite and respectful. You'd didn't keep going back after 20 mins to keep harassing people to let you in.

I felt the same when I moved to my forever home 2 years ago. I made alot of effort with all the neighbours and got on very friendly terms with next door. We eventually started sharing school runs as kids were in the same class, took each other's kids out for trips etc, their daughter was at out house most days and we treated her as one of the family. Long story short, we had no idea anything was wrong as they always said kids were behaving,when we asked. Never mentioned any issues the out the blue the husband started f ing and blinding in messages to myself and my husband and was quite aggressive on the phone to him as they accused our kids of being bullies for the last 2 years. The wife then came storming out the front door and started literally screaming and shouting in the street at DH about how awful our children are and called my son a little sh** twice which he heard. DH said nothing bad back and tried to calm her down, she went back inside and slammed the door on him. This took us both by surprise as we considered them both good friends and in 2 years had not one clue that this is how they felt. Their children came to cinema trips, days out, dinner at our house and much more. They were always happy with all that despite my children being so awful apparently. Anyway, the day after that, her daughter was back knocking on our door and in our house and garden playing as usual. There is no longer any contact between us and the parents. So my view has definitely changed and I'm now very wary of being friends with neighbours

Being friends with neighbours doesn't mean you can't set boundaries - in fact if you are friendly it should be easy to talk to them. We love our neighbours both sides - and kids wouldn't dream of coming in our garden unless invited. If they did, we're on good enough terms to mention it. So either mention it or lock your gate and explain why.

This.

If this were to happen to me, installing a lock on my gate wouldn’t be a good solution as it’d mess up parcel deliveries, and I wouldn’t want to spend the money on having a lock installed and getting a parcel lockbox just because someone else’s children don’t know the meaning of the word no.

I had neighbours kids calling a lot like this - but it was my own fault for not having boundaries.

now i just say, bright and breezy,’guys you cant come in now, i’m am really tired /busy /doing something - but we’ll see you at ..(name a time or day that suits)’. I keep having to do this over and over as they dont take a hint easily.

also, i make my children play outside on the road or in the garden and i lock the doors and tell them i’m having a break so no one can come in.

then sometimes i let them come in to the house, at a time that suits me.

it may be your forever home but not theirs.