Can noise from kids be anti social behaviour?

kevinyork

OK. Im going to sound like a real moaner here......

We live in a cul de sac on a relatively new estate. First couple of years its been pretty quite as its taken time for people to get to know each other and for kids to mingle.

The kids from the few houses on our cul de sac have regularly played on the road on occassion as very few cars pass down it and those that do are people who live on the cul de sac and are aware of kids playing there.

This summer though this has now grown so that some evenings we have 10 to 15 kids right outside our house on the road 'playing'. The other kids have come from elsewhere on our estate and realised that the cul de sac is a 'safe' place to play and whilst the kids that live on our road are only around 5-8 years old those drifting onto our road to join them are into their teens. This 'playing' involves cycling up and down and racing each other on bikes and scate boards, runnning through the flower beds, playing football (but the road is so small the ball usually ends up hitting cars or flowerbeds anyway) and generally screaming and shouting. This goes on from after school time through to dark and now schools have broken up its all day and every weekend too.

We cant have our windows open as the noise is incredible. I never knew kids could scream so much....it sounds like one is being murdered each minute. Any chance of an afternoon nap or a lay in on a weekend has long since gone sinc ethey are out from about 8am. What annoys us most is that 200 yards away in the centre of the estate is a brand new playground with grassy areas all around it but the kids seem to prefer our road!

Now I know these are just kids and in fact we like our neighbours kids, they are pleasant and polite however the noise they, and those that join them, generate is now becoming unbearable. We cant wait for rain or for winter when they stay indoors. If we as adults went out onto the street and shouted and screamed like the kids do all the time Im pretty sure we would have complaints if not police intervention.

Is there anything we can do about this? Does this come under anti social behaviour or is incessant loud shouting screaming etc exempt from being anti social since it originate from kids?

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

yes it is - my neighbours sons have asbos slapped on them for being a nuicence (spelling?) and they arent allowed out after 8pm now hehehehe from what i gather there was a number of complaints against them and a few "logs" of times and what they were doing etc - get in touch with council and speak to them about it

LemonGrove

I have this same problem on my terraced street, there is around 3 families who live at different parts of the street, all with young kids who are best friends with each other and seem to spend the entire day from 6am to 9pm screaming, shouting and running. When I have the window open it is so loud it is like being amongst them. It would be nice for it to stop, but they aren't doing any harm and just having some fun during their holidays afterall, they aren't affecting my sleep or concentration so I just leave them be.

If anything can be done about it, I don't know but I wouldn't enfore it anyway. If it got that bad I would have a polite word with their parents about it perhaps but an ASBO seems a bit serious for kids just enjoying themselves.

Round here there is also the seagulls which from around midnight start squarking non-stop until morning, at which point the kids come out again! :rotfl:

CiderBoy

Take a look at your local police force web site and find out when your next local PACT (partners & communities together) meeting is - under the Policing Pledge they should be held fairly regularly.

Try to get some of your neighbours to attend as well to see if you can get the problem voted as a local priority - if it is then the police will patrol regularly & make it less desirable for them to gather there.

These meetings are not well known about so it sometimes only takes four or five people from a street to attend to be able to vote in a priority. At the very least you'll get the chance to meet your local community policing team to have a quiet word with them.

This may sound a bit OTT but it did the job for us when we had similar problems last year.

fergies_army

Just be gratefull their just playing football, riding bikes etc rather than setting fires, joyriding, breaking into houses, fighting, drinking, taking drugs etc like some kids on certain estates.

I know much use to the OP, but could be worse???!! Here comes the summer holidays too!!!!

LemonGrove

I think this is too much, they are just having fun as kids do. If they then had such a thing imposed on them they could think that they are in trouble and could get upset by it which I doubt would win you any favours with your neighbours either.

fergies_army wrote: »

Just be gratefull their just playing football, riding bikes etc rather than setting fires, joyriding, breaking into houses, fighting, drinking, taking drugs etc like some kids on certain estates.

I know much use to the OP, but could be worse???!! Here comes the summer holidays too!!!!

:T

Widelats

If they are not criminal i would leave them to it, maybe get yourself out of the house through the day too.

SpursDave

I have a lot of sympathy with the OP. I used to live on a new estate and had exactly the same problem. Whilst I think it is great that kids are out an about enjoying themselves, everyone also has a right o some peace in their own homes, and clearly this is not possible. It is a tough call, but it maybe worth chatting to some of the neighbours without kids and see what they think. If they feel the same as you, it may then be worth talking to some of the parents and perhaps politely suggesting that the kids could utelise the park area and play in the road less, not only for the noise, but also for the safety aspects....you guys know they are there, but what about other drivers?!

On our estate before, the kids were from two houses only and unfortunately their parents were of the Neanderthal variety and not open to polite conversation. IN the end we opted for a move to end the poor quality of life we had there. Drastic I know, but noise wasn't the only issue.

At least in the OP's case it does sound like the kids themselves are not terrorising the place, just being a bit inconsiderate and some friendly enquiries may go a long way.

Trouble is with modern estates is there is no sense of any community. Often folk end up there from all over, they all commute and work elsewhere, they all socialise elsewhere and as consequence the estates become collections of individuals rathjer than real communities. Thankfully where we live now is a proper old estate with established residents associations and a genuine community. Any problems are quickly dealt with locally and without fuss. And I am so glad we did move!

AliceBanned

Widelats wrote: »

If they are not criminal i would leave them to it, maybe get yourself out of the house through the day too.

I agree. Kids can be very noisy but it is so easy to criminalise them for it. I don't think an ASBO is fair even for shouting and screaming whilst playing, as it is not a wilful act of anti-social behaviour, it is innocent. I close the windows when the kids on my street start screaming, but I admit they don't stay right outside my flat for long periods of time. Don't forget that they may find another spot/grow up/and move on in any case, and at least they aren't meaning to do harm.

kevinyork

AliceBanned wrote: »

I agree. Kids can be very noisy but it is so easy to criminalise them for it. I don't think an ASBO is fair even for shouting and screaming whilst playing, as it is not a wilful act of anti-social behaviour, it is innocent. I close the windows when the kids on my street start screaming, but I admit they don't stay right outside my flat for long periods of time. Don't forget that they may find another spot/grow up/and move on in any case, and at least they aren't meaning to do harm.

Having the windows closed on every hot day does lessen the noise somewhat but of course makes is pretty unpleasant inside the house.

The problem with speaking to the neighbours is that the kids on the street who are the central group around whom the other kids congregate are from social housing and the parents are not the 'can I have a quiet word' type. We have some neighbours opposite in private housing with 2 very young kids who have just sold their house. When I chatted with them their reason for moving was that they didnt want their kids drifting into being part of the group of kids playing on the street.

Whilst we have looked at this as harmless children just playing, the numbers keep increasing, the noise level keeps going up and the amount of hours that are disturbed by this does to. Shouldnt we be entitled to some relative quiet in our own home?

seagull09

You're quite brave to even ask about this problem, in what seems to be such a child-worshipping nation as ours.
But I agree that it can be a problem, I have a similar one here made worse by the fact I do shift work which involves starts as early as 3 a.m, and getting to sleep at 7 or 8 p.m at the moment is hard even with double glazing (and earplugs mean I miss the alarm clock :rolleyes: )
What gets me isn't the playing, having fun etc., I'm glad they do. What so irritates me is the stupid high-pitched 'I'm being murdered' screaming, something which wasn't tolerated by my parents when I was young (for the simple reason 'the boy who cried wolf') but seems to be accepted now.
Just to rub it in even more, our neighbour's kids get in their cars while parked and sound the horns 'for fun'. Yeah, great.