We live in a nice neighborhood and have been living in this house for about 5 years now and our neighbor's kids have been really getting on our nerves and we are wondering if there is anything we can legally do to try to stop it.
For the first couple of years we lived here, the kids next door kept playing in our yard and leaving a bunch of balls in our yard (including golf balls which we sometimes ended up mowing over). We would also find all types of garbage in our yard. We told the parents and asked them to try and keep their kids in their own yard or at least keep their balls and garbage out of the yard but things didn't improve. The kids kept running through our garden and flowers and we finally decided to get a fence.. the fence wasn't just because of the neighbors; we now have two dogs and having a fence seemed like a good idea.
We have had the fence for the past two years and things might have only gotten worse. The kids have now started banging their balls on the fence and constantly hitting balls into our yard. We told them we don't want them to get the balls themselves because if a gate was left open one of our dogs could get out (one of our dogs did end up getting out one time they left the fence open... luckily another neighbor found him). When they know that we are home they usually ring the doorbell to get their balls back but we have caught them several times sneaking into our backyard.
To stop the kids from getting through the gate we locked them (which is inconvenient for us but we figured it was worth it). Our back fence is a chain link fence and it looks like a kid tried to climb over it a couple of times because it is bent out of shape in parts. The kids continue to constantly knock balls against the fence which gets very annoying to hear a banging sound a couple times a minute. We have repeatedly told the parents that we don't want the kids in our yard and for them to stop hitting things against the fence but the parents don't seem to care (I don't know how they can stand the sound).
The kids also hit balls over the fence all the time. Last night I went through the yard collecting them and found 8 balls.. then today when I got home from work I found 4 more. I have two teenage kids so it wasn't long ago that they were this age. There is no reason for kids to have to hit that many balls over a fence. Back in my kids were growing up, one of our neighbors had a fence. They would hit a ball over every once in a while but never anywhere near 5 a day.
And it isn't just about our fence and their balls. A few weeks ago we were having a family barbeque. My kids and neices were hanging out in the back yard and the neighbor kids started climbing a tree that is near our fence. They started to shout things over at my family and were yelling that we are annoying neighbors and all these other things. While we were eating, they threw a stick over at our table and almost hit someone. This led to a tense discussion with the parents next door and they just seemed completely ignorant to what their kids had been doing for the past couple of hours and gave the old excuse "boys will be boys." I really hate that excuse. When my son was growing up I actually watched them and him and his friends never behaved like that.
I'm sorry this is such a long post it is just very annoying to us and we want to know what we can actually do to try and stop them.
For the first couple of years we lived here, the kids next door kept playing in our yard and leaving a bunch of balls in our yard (including golf balls which we sometimes ended up mowing over). We would also find all types of garbage in our yard. We told the parents and asked them to try and keep their kids in their own yard or at least keep their balls and garbage out of the yard but things didn't improve. The kids kept running through our garden and flowers and we finally decided to get a fence.. the fence wasn't just because of the neighbors; we now have two dogs and having a fence seemed like a good idea.
We have had the fence for the past two years and things might have only gotten worse. The kids have now started banging their balls on the fence and constantly hitting balls into our yard. We told them we don't want them to get the balls themselves because if a gate was left open one of our dogs could get out (one of our dogs did end up getting out one time they left the fence open... luckily another neighbor found him). When they know that we are home they usually ring the doorbell to get their balls back but we have caught them several times sneaking into our backyard.
To stop the kids from getting through the gate we locked them (which is inconvenient for us but we figured it was worth it). Our back fence is a chain link fence and it looks like a kid tried to climb over it a couple of times because it is bent out of shape in parts. The kids continue to constantly knock balls against the fence which gets very annoying to hear a banging sound a couple times a minute. We have repeatedly told the parents that we don't want the kids in our yard and for them to stop hitting things against the fence but the parents don't seem to care (I don't know how they can stand the sound).
The kids also hit balls over the fence all the time. Last night I went through the yard collecting them and found 8 balls.. then today when I got home from work I found 4 more. I have two teenage kids so it wasn't long ago that they were this age. There is no reason for kids to have to hit that many balls over a fence. Back in my kids were growing up, one of our neighbors had a fence. They would hit a ball over every once in a while but never anywhere near 5 a day.
And it isn't just about our fence and their balls. A few weeks ago we were having a family barbeque. My kids and neices were hanging out in the back yard and the neighbor kids started climbing a tree that is near our fence. They started to shout things over at my family and were yelling that we are annoying neighbors and all these other things. While we were eating, they threw a stick over at our table and almost hit someone. This led to a tense discussion with the parents next door and they just seemed completely ignorant to what their kids had been doing for the past couple of hours and gave the old excuse "boys will be boys." I really hate that excuse. When my son was growing up I actually watched them and him and his friends never behaved like that.
I'm sorry this is such a long post it is just very annoying to us and we want to know what we can actually do to try and stop them.
