Balls from neighbours in my garden

[tempname1234]

We have newish neighbours that have a few children. They’ve given the children a basketball stand and football goalie net - set up right at the shared fence line.

we now have the joyful sound of the football or basketball hitting the fence from as early as 7:30 (welcoming the shorter days!) in the morning through the day in the weekends, from after school week days.

we work from home. We also have a lovely garden with many lovely plants for all year round colour having planned and cultivated the garden for many, many years.

we have the best constant noise of the balls hitting the fence, the back of the basket ball hoop, balls in the garden breaking our plants, hitting our garden furniture etc.

for all of the summer, we have asked nicely both in person and by text to please ask their children to stop this. Clearly they don’t.

AIBU? would I be unreasonable to not return the multitude of balls that end up in my garden? Looking for solutions to at least stop the destruction of my garden plants (less noise would be ideal too). The noise gives me migraines!

any other suggestions??

@stealthsquirrelnutkin interestingly, I can so empathise about peonies! I planted multiple bulbs in 2022 and this was my first year having flowers as loads of buds grew - oh I was looking forward to them! The balls broke all my buds. I couldn’t even salvage to have them in vases waiting to open.

Yes inconvenienced.

we've had several things broken as a result. The garden no longer has any privacy and the ball easily (and has) rattled off of us when we've been sitting in the garden.

not a single word of apology either.

i haven't damaged the balls (not that deflating them causes damage) but I totally understand why others would. It's self centred parents who can't understand why others don't want balls in their garden constantly who are the issue.

I hear the dad next door to me proudly bragging about his boys kicking balls over and pissing the neighbours off. He works away and I can tell when he’s back because the boys run outside and smash balls around to perform for him.

The people who are saying it’s just a ball obviously haven’t been on the receiving end of this sort of harassment or having kids bang on your door every day only to kick it back over minutes later. A moaning neighbour is vital for this toxic game of boys will be boys.

A standard football weighs just under half a kilo, around the same as a tin of beans or a can of coke, and even young kids can kick them with serious speed. For those of us toddlers, pets or just windows it is not a ball on the ground.

Its not unreasonable for the kids to use their own garden, no.

It is unreasonable for their belongings to be damaging the ops garden...she has explained that the balls coming over the fence are damaging her plants.

Thats not fair and the parents are doing nothing to prevent the balls from going over the fence.

The parents should either move the goals , put a high net up or take their kids somewhere suitable with enough space to play but sounds like they are too lazy and selfish to do that.

This. My sports loving kids never played football in our back garden through choice. We took them better places to play with their friends and engaged with them. Playing on your own in a small back garden is boring. Letting your kid repeatedly kick a ball in your back garden for hours on end is lazy parenting.

Its exactly this. Its like the dog issue people have. Lazy owners/parents who dont have it about them to either walk their dogs or take their kids out to play would rather open the back door and have them run around a little square fenced back garden to play football or take a shit (The level of parenting i would suggest sometimes both).

Parents have lost the ability to get off their arses and take their kids to a green area and play. If they are not paying for a soft play area so they can sit on their arses and drink coffee, look at their phone and do nothing they arent interested.

Guess what......this is the normality they are teaching the next generation too.

I'm the parent of three kids under ten, including one that's a sports nut, and I have to say yanbu. If you've told the parents that the kids' balls are destroying your garden and they're not moving things so that the kids are aiming their balls elsewhere, the parents can pay to replace the balls. You are going to have to learn to tolerate the noise, however, as your neighbours are not responsible for keeping the planet silent while your work, close your windows. But yeah, I'd keep the balls.

Right? What smug passive aggressiveness. If that doesn't work, will you offer them poisoned apples?