Since the beginning of buying our new home, the middle school adjacent to our property and separated by a 10 foot high concrete fence, their side. My side is about 5 feet high. We've lived here more than 15 years. We are a HOA with 24 homes facing the field separated by the concrete fence. As a former teacher in the district, I met with the superintendent many years ago regarding the students playing on the field and constantly hitting balls into our property, and being hoisted on one's shoulders to scale the 10 foot high wall to enter into our backyard properties to retrieve their balls. This is clearly trespassing. The superintendent said we do not have to return the balls and if the students of the school, and the weekend soccer leagues persisted in hitting the balls over the fence into one's property that the leagues would be suspended for the season. In the beginning I used to return the balls but I found that the students nor the soccer leagues were not as courteous with me nor the other home owners. So, I never returned them, but donated them to other organizations. Within the past year, I gave away over a dozen soccer balls to one particular organization, and more recently, I've accumulated within this past two weeks another 3 balls. These balls hit our large kitchen windows, double-paned, and they have destroyed parts of the wiring on our screens as well as on our large sliding door window. I replaced one screen window, but I have yet to replace the sliding door screen. This could run up to a few hundred dollars.
Within the past few weeks, I found a young weekend soccer player in our yard to retrieve his ball. I could have captured him, but I didn't do so because this would have created a problem with the adults. So, I called the police, and reported the incident. When the soccer leagues did not abide by the rules, the school district suspended all the week-end soccer leagues.
But now, I have a problem with the students of the middle school. They horse around and they like to kick the soccer balls against the concrete fence on their side. Also, when they play, they don't keep to using the length of the field to kick the ball, but instead, they kick the ball towards the adjacent home owners properties. This is not acceptable to me because it doesn't take rocket science to understand that if you hit the ball towards the concrete fence, the ball will fly over the wall. This is no longer a mere nuisance. This is disturbing our peace and quiet of our home. Those balls hitting our windows have a large thud to them, and I'm afraid that one day, the ball will crack our double-paned window which would have to be entirely replaced. These windows have to be removed from the stucco frame in order to replace them. This is very costly. We've been wrangling with the District that they have an obligation for students not to be kicking the balls towards our properties. But I get from them that the students have their rights to the field for physical activity. I explained to the District that I too have private property rights. They need to have their teachers monitor how they play on the field. I have no problem with this because they need their physical activities. But, I don't think they have a right to keep kicking the balls towards our property with intent. They can control this, but I think they believe that their rights trump my property rights.
Since I began this process of attempting to stop the above with both the students and week-end soccer leagues, I've recorded and reported every incident for the purpose of eventually getting a court order to stop the students and the leagues from hitting the balls towards our properties. With the leagues, I've reported the trespassing and hitting of the balls into our property several times. I have papers going back to the first days over 15 years ago when we attempted to stop some of this.
What I seek from those who may be in a position is to find some sort of case law about similar circumstances as mine. Our HOA hired over a year ago a HOA management firm. We have about 60 homes, and virtually most of the residents are not participants nor attend any meetings. I no longer go to them. I found that far too many just don't want to get involved. So, I'm very much alone in pursuing the school district. We do have reports of previous members, including board members, contacting the middle school about a number of problems including soccer balls, baseballs, parking issues, students using our gated community for short cuts, and other issues. For the next few weeks, I'm waiting to find out if the middle school will do anything about using more close monitoring of their students using the playing field. I doubt it, and eventually I may have to contact an attorney to protect my property rights.
I know this is a long discussion, but I had to give a perspective that might help me to identify if I can really do something about this problem. I'm open to some suggestions.
Within the past few weeks, I found a young weekend soccer player in our yard to retrieve his ball. I could have captured him, but I didn't do so because this would have created a problem with the adults. So, I called the police, and reported the incident. When the soccer leagues did not abide by the rules, the school district suspended all the week-end soccer leagues.
But now, I have a problem with the students of the middle school. They horse around and they like to kick the soccer balls against the concrete fence on their side. Also, when they play, they don't keep to using the length of the field to kick the ball, but instead, they kick the ball towards the adjacent home owners properties. This is not acceptable to me because it doesn't take rocket science to understand that if you hit the ball towards the concrete fence, the ball will fly over the wall. This is no longer a mere nuisance. This is disturbing our peace and quiet of our home. Those balls hitting our windows have a large thud to them, and I'm afraid that one day, the ball will crack our double-paned window which would have to be entirely replaced. These windows have to be removed from the stucco frame in order to replace them. This is very costly. We've been wrangling with the District that they have an obligation for students not to be kicking the balls towards our properties. But I get from them that the students have their rights to the field for physical activity. I explained to the District that I too have private property rights. They need to have their teachers monitor how they play on the field. I have no problem with this because they need their physical activities. But, I don't think they have a right to keep kicking the balls towards our property with intent. They can control this, but I think they believe that their rights trump my property rights.
Since I began this process of attempting to stop the above with both the students and week-end soccer leagues, I've recorded and reported every incident for the purpose of eventually getting a court order to stop the students and the leagues from hitting the balls towards our properties. With the leagues, I've reported the trespassing and hitting of the balls into our property several times. I have papers going back to the first days over 15 years ago when we attempted to stop some of this.
What I seek from those who may be in a position is to find some sort of case law about similar circumstances as mine. Our HOA hired over a year ago a HOA management firm. We have about 60 homes, and virtually most of the residents are not participants nor attend any meetings. I no longer go to them. I found that far too many just don't want to get involved. So, I'm very much alone in pursuing the school district. We do have reports of previous members, including board members, contacting the middle school about a number of problems including soccer balls, baseballs, parking issues, students using our gated community for short cuts, and other issues. For the next few weeks, I'm waiting to find out if the middle school will do anything about using more close monitoring of their students using the playing field. I doubt it, and eventually I may have to contact an attorney to protect my property rights.
I know this is a long discussion, but I had to give a perspective that might help me to identify if I can really do something about this problem. I'm open to some suggestions.