Children chalking over our land

[Charliec12]

Hi all, am I over reacting? My neighbours brought their children some chalks at the weekend. The children are chalking everywhere with them including on my driveway which we half share with them. My OH said to one of the children tonight that the area looked a mess. Said child started crying and then the Mum came out and was confrontational and annoyed with me that I don’t agree with it looking nice in the area. I also have 2 young children and I get they want to have fun.

Can you not see that dog shit is totally different ? Firstly , it doesn’t necessarily wash away and secondly it is a health hazard .

It's nowhere near the same as cutting flowers.

We would have been in so much trouble if my parents had found out we had done it on another persons property and rightly so. Whether it’s washable and kids fun etc is irrelevant. It’s about basic manners and a blatant lack of respect by the parents not to teach their children to respect other peoples homes and whilst chalk isn’t grafiti or damaging it opens up a whole new avenue for them to just wander onto your driveway and do whatever they like as they get older ie paint or playing on your drive.

I agree with this, my parents were pretty feckless but even they would have told me off for this. Lots of people lack respect for other people now though unfortunately so not that surprising.

He raised his voice slightly in shock?

Shocked over chalk on the floor. You both sound awful. We can all imagine exactly how that scenario played out. What reasonable adult is shocked and "slightly" raises their voice over chalk that can be washed away?

I mean I think it’s ridiculously petty to be upset about this? It’s not paint. However, I would never have let my children chalk anywhere that wasn’t ours or directly in front of our house, just because it’s good manners not to go on someone’s property. But if it had happened on our drive I wouldn’t waste my energy bring annoyed. Life is too short.

The rain should deal with it, and by what I hear, there is loads of it around Britain.

OP your logic is, you own it so they shouldn’t chalk it. Now I don’t think that’s unreasonable from a land ownership point of view but it’s an unrealistic expectation when it comes to cultural norms.

If you consider chalking pavements, parks, for fun is something we know children do. It’s not permanent. The pavements are mostly (but not always) owned or adopted by the local authority. Imagine your child plays with chalk and not long after the local authority appears. Tells your child not to. It just is unlikely to happen. Because culturally it’s deemed an acceptable thing to do despite ownership of land. Even though yes they do own it and I suppose if they wanted to crack down on those children they could start fining children per a bucket wash 😁

Honestly, OP, you live next to these people, you need to get along. It's really a very minor issue, even if it has pissed you off a bit. I would suggest trying to mend bridges or make it up to them somehow.

Your husband has absolutely no right to “raise his voice slightly” at someone else’s children.

if he had a problem with it he should have put his big boy pants on and went to speak to the parents like a grown up. Only he’s a coward who picks on little children instead. Pathetic. if it had been my children I’d have gone batshit as well.

What is your oh's mess is that child's art! How very cruel... No wonder that poor child started crying🥺

Two things really, I do think they should have told the kids to only chalk on their drive, I would have said to mine, yes you can but make sure it stays in our garden, so in that respect YANBU

However, if you had a problem with it, the best way to deal with it would be to knock on next doors door and just politely say to the ADULTS can you make sure the chalk stays on you side of the driveway please, your OH shouldn't be rasing his voice to other people kids.

Ah, I get it. Why we have the consistent "our LAND" theme.

They're mere renters! You're THAT person, op.

Children should not be playing on someone else's property. If one of them catches a toe on a lifted paving slab and is injured, the land owner is at risk of legal action.

This isn't about pettiness or chalk, it's about civil liability, lawsuits, and finding out the hard way whether your home insurance has legal cover.

It’s really not a big deal is it? It rains so much it won’t last long

Better tell the post man/woman to throw my post from the road to my door. Just in case

OP I would be annoyed by this and my DH even more so.

When you say shared drive do you mean that there is no formal visible boundary between them and you own the portion outside your house and they / landlord owns the portion outside their house or do you both have right of access over it all?

We have similar outside our house with grass and the neighbours kids were all over it the other day, we told them off but mainly because their balls were hitting our car and windows otherwise I’d have just quietly been annoyed but at least glad kids were playing outside. I’d have had something to say to their parents too if they had complained as they should be teaching them respect and to not enter others property, granted I get that can be hard for kids to judge when there is no physical boundary.

Did you miss the part where OP says the dad has now drawn a line down their separate drives (aka land). Which probably went along with the conversation of 'dc, draw with your chalk on this half as its ours'

What a faff over nothing.

Yeah but op is a petty b

I can see people's point of view that no harm done and that it will wash off but on the other hand,I don't think it would do the children any harm (might do some good) to be told by their parents that it's not acceptable to go onto the side of the drive that is not theirs. It's part of learning that they cannot do whatever they want,whenever they want.

God what a misery guts. Lots of things make streets “look a mess”, litter, dog poo, old furniture waiting to be picked up, chalk on the ground makes me have a smile as I walk by.
your husband was out of order for confronting a CHILD about it.

No, I didn't miss it, but they'd already chalked on the OPs drive by then, they should have said it whilst the kids were doing it 'oh, be careful not to go on nextdoors drive'

It's not a huge deal no, and it will wash away, and most people wouldn't really care ,but the OP didn't want kids that aren't hers chalking on her garden, rightly or wrongly she's fine not to want that.

Bit strange that she's finding other public.plaxea they have done it and moaned about that though.

Here it is. All sorted. Dad clearly spoke to his children about it. Probably showed them where they can draw. Yet OP is not going to let it go it seems.

'Land'?
It's a drive

And it was chalk, not paint. It will wash away

And no neighbour will think you're trashing the neighbourhood. They'll think Ah, Children playing outside. Nice.

Yeah I think you're being grumpy. It's not permanent, they're not harming anyone. If you really don't want it on your drive, talk to the parents, not the children.

Because it's CHALK!

Children have done that since time immemorial!