AIBU to let my children chalk on the road? Neighbour washed it all away.

[TakesTheCake]

We have lived on a small square for four years, where the neighbours are pretty unfriendly and insular (unlike our old street, where they were all lovely and welcoming and mutual support abounded :-( ), and two doors away lives a couple who have always been reasonably friendly and cordial.

Today my two boys aged 7 and 12 were outside playing for a few hours on the square with the boy from next door - riding scooters, running, swinging on the swing in the little grassed area, with me and the boy’s dad keeping watch. My elder boy ran in to get the chalks they sometimes use to draw on our driveway but this time they all drew on the road (there is no pavement, just driveways and road). It covered outside our house and also the neighbours’ house (the couple we are somewhat friendly with). They were really proud of their creativity, finished up, then came in for lunch. Five minutes later the neighbour came out of her house, ran the hose on her driveway and worked pretty hard at scrubbing/washing it all away.

The kids were dismayed when they saw her doing it, and thought they had done something wrong. It felt really horrible for me too, as I don’t think kids’ chalk drawings are out of order in any way, and will wash away in the next rain. They have never caused any issues in the road, so it can’t be because of built-up resentments that spilled over, and they have literally never drawn on the road in the whole four years we have lived there.

She saw me see her doing it, and it feels really awkward now. I would rather she had come over and just straightforwardly said it bothers her to see it from her window and could I make sure it isn’t outside her house again. Washing it away felt passive aggressive, or she really feels I let them do something out of order and wrong.

AIBU to have let them? Are children’s chalk drawings on the road (NOT her driveway or even close) not OK?

I live in a new build development and a neighbour put a post on our residents Facebook group to moan about children’s chalk drawings... in the children’s park! There really are some exceptionally miserable people about these days.

I'm not ashamed to say I was nearly 70 years old when I chalked on the road , whilst waiting to see the Tour De France in Yorkshire .

I would've thought it was really sweet and it would've brightened my day to see it.

We don't really have a garden. Just a small yard. Last summer my boys drew with chalks in the tenfoot out the back. No one made anything of it at all, the area is known as the backs and it's almost traditional for the kids in the terraces to play there despite it being technically public space, outside other people's houses etc. It's bad form to go on someone's property without asking/being invited but outside is fine. There's really more to worry about in life than a bit of chalk.

We always drew on the street as kids, tennis courts, hop scotch, drawing. It was great creative fun and a constant new canvas. She was being a miserable cow x

The kids are lovely.

The neighbour is batshit crazy.

Keep letting them play!

Meh, your kids chalked on the road, it’s a free country. She cleaned the road. It’s a free country. Each can do what they want on public road. If it’s important for your kid’s that their drawings stay, get them to chalk on your drive next time (it’s a nothing to see here situation for me).

I’ve moved to a new road - and my NDN would go nuts if I chalked in the communal road. I personally think it’s a lovely thing to do - but NDN has possible dementia - and would probably see it as graffiti. I don’t see it that way, but I guess I need to be respectful to her perception. However, if it starts to get nasty, I think I’d have the phrase ‘I’ll just check with the council’ - and get some sort of official opinion to back you up.

We walked the dog the other evening and loved seeing the kids’ chalk drawings. Their hopscotch was rather challenging but much to dh’s amusement I had a go (I was dark). Unless the chalk has swear words I like it - shows kids have been playing and having fun. One of my grumpy neighbours would wash it away but I now greet him with an over enthusiastic wave and a cheery hello (totally confuses him into a stumbling hello back - how can you be rude to someone so friendly? It’s hilarious, op please try it).

Chalk washes away when it rains, kids round here chalk up the pavement all the time. She just being nasty. What would she prefer kids smashing bottles onto pavements like they do round my area

Yabu her property

@Shortiemyboo

Yabu her property

Rtft. It isn't.

@Shortiemyboo

Yabu her property

I know right, fancy paint all over her house, dog and husband right??

@1Morewineplease

They shouldn't have done it on their driveway. Sorry.

Jesus Christ can you not read?!?!?!?!

Cancel the cheque

@en0la

It was unacceptable to do it on their drive so yabu. Anywhere else it's fine.

🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ Please read the last line of op's first post

Many years ago in the working class community where I grew up (early 1950s) it was the custom for people not only to scrub their front step but also to wash down the pavement in front of their house. People took a lot of pride in this.

One day when I was about 7 my friends and I played "hopscorch" which is a game where you mark squares on the pavement with coloured chalk. Each participant has a different colour. We chalked in front of my house but it also overlapped that of a neighbour. Later she knocked to complain to my mother and pointed out that she had only just washed down her step and pavement that day. She felt it made her house look scruffy.

My mother called me out and asked if I had made the drawings, and I said Yes, mine were the letters in pink chalk. My mother then made me apologise, and get a bucket of water and a big scrubbing brush and scrub away all the drawings in pink chalk. In the course of doing so I obliterated much of the other scrawlings done by my friends, but not all.

Later that day the neighbour again complains that some of the drawings are still visible. She reminds me that I was supposed to scrub it off. My mother replied:-

" I punished my daughter for what she did but Im not going to punish her for what her friends did. Thats not my responsibility. You will have to speak to their parents and get them to remove the rest."

"But I dont know who the others were. Ask your daughter!"

"My daughter is not a snitch" And my mother slammed the door on the asshole neighbour.

If it were right outside my window and it happened all the time it would pee me off. But it wasn't and it didn't so I think she's a miserable wotsit.

YANBU - she sounds miserable.
Nothing wrong with chalk on pavements and roads, so long as there's nothing rude or gross in the pics!

@TakesTheCake

Tbh I’m actually a little disappointed nobody has asked me to draw a map.

Please draw a map so that if we look on Rightmove for a new house we can avoid your area.

During last year's lock down, all the local kids, including mine, used chalks on the pavement. Sometimes hopscotch, sometimes long courses right up the path. It was lovely to see and lots of adults walking along would do the hopscotch and follow the course up the pavement. It was lots of fun but washed away in the rain. Can't see why she'd care but people are weird.

She sounds like a nitpicking moaning minnie who should be locked in her house..I have often seen some great chalk art on pavements and roads,all done by children.

After the snitch incident my mother warned me to always play hopscotch on the pavement by waste ground, where no one could complain about it making their house look "scruffy",

YABU you should pay to your neighbour a compensation by cheque

And then cancel it!

The neighbour sounds miserable af.

Round where I live we have a huge graffiti problem - it's everywhere, all over the walls and sides of people's houses. A bit of kids' chalk would be a refreshing change!