Neighbour Problems!!

Woody39

Help! We recently moved into a new house with a large garden. The problem is the old lady next door doesnt like my 7 year old playing football in our garden. She has even written us a letter asking us to take him to the park to play. The first time that the football was kicked into her garden I went and asked for it back and she refused to give it to me! We had words and she was most rude and insisted we stopped him from playing football. She said it was damaging her garden/flowers and she felt unsafe as the ball might hit her! I pointed out to her that my son was at school between 8.30 - 3.30 and he was in bed at 7.00. It left him little time to play in the garden considering the english weather and he doesn't always play football. I decided to log the times my son played and surprisingly it was only a couple of hours over a 2 week period. Anyway the odd ball has gone over in a period of 11 months and she wont give them back. We just keep replacing them. When we moved into the house the previous family had a teenager that played footabll and they had erected a net over the shared fence to stop there ball from going over. But the day we moved in she asked us to take it down as Bats were getting stuck , which we did. She is now saying that she is keeping the balls for evidence in court! What can I do to make her give the balls back. I have to listen to her dog barking but don't complain. Advise please

Yorkie1

She cannot make your son stop playing football; it is a perfectly reasonable activity which nobody in their right mind would categorise as a nuisance (which it would have to be before anyone could stop it happening). However the difficulty is the balls going over into her garden. If you do cause damage then she is within her rights to ask you to compensate her for that damage, and she is under no obligation (I think) to return the balls. Is there any way you can play ball in a different direction to minimise this risk?

It is a difficult line to tread between getting along with the neighbours, and them feeling that they can dictate to you how you live your lives.

Money_maker

Actually, playing football can be a nuisance to neighbours - kids from hell next to us did their best to destroy our fence with their damn balls (football & basketball). Not saying the OP's son is anything like this but please make sure the goals are not the fences between properties.

There are lots of other issues with this family near us also so it wasn't just the balls. Sometimes though, you have to walk in someone elses shoes to see the effects.

celyn90

Could you put the net back, but with a larger weave so it doesn't shred any bats? Or maybe get some softer sponge balls rather than footballs so they don't cause damage if they do go over? A football can cause quite a bit of damage to be fair - so it might be worth asking her if anything has been damaged.

cheepskate_2

I can sympathize with the old lady.

How is your son managing to hit it into the ladys garden if he is playing on his own.

Its a large garden so should really be enough room.

Can he not just kick it in the opposite direction??

We have a tiny garden but in general when son and father play it seldom goes into next garden , about a 1/40(days) time it will go in, considering it is a small garden we have

We had an idiot of a neighbour who insisted on kicking his ball our fence side and it would wizz by our 1 year old. As far as he was concerned he was playing in his garden.

The old lady is not dictating how to live your lives, just don't put it into her garden , thats all she asks.

RadoJo

Could you maybe come up with some temporary netting arrangement that you cold use to ensure your son's balls don't go over the fence while he's playing, but take down to avoid trapping anything once he's finished? That would sound like a good compromise, and if you show willing to remedy the situation she might be a little less rigid.

poppasmurf_bewdley

We had a friend and neighbour who had trouble with his next door neighbour not returning his sons football on several occasions when asked nicely.

He went out and bought 50 cheap plastic footballs and kicked every one into his neighbours garden and DIDN'T ask for them back!

bristol_pilot

Your son is lucky not to be getting an ASBO. Yes, really. If he cannot play football without the ball going over the fence he should stop playing. I have an elderly mother who was terrified of being hit in the face by a ball from next door's boys playing until their parents saw sense and took him to the park.

mumto2loves

your neighbour isn't allowed to keep the ball, if you wanted to you could call the police, this happend to someone where i live

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293374/Woman-held-hours-refusing-children-ball-teach-lesson.html


i think its unreasonable to ask you to not play in your own garden, tell her its her choice, you put the net up to stop the ball going over or you don't and she may be asked ocasionally to throw the ball back over.



we've got a tiny garden and my 4 year old son used to love to stand and TRY and kick it over the wall then stand and shout for our next door neighbour to "throw the ball back please" in the end I told my son if the ball went over he had to wait until they noticed it before he could have it back (ie he had to stop playing with it for a couple of hours or more!) luckily my neighbour had the opinion that it was the next stage on from a baby dropping a toy and getting someone to pick it up for fun over and over again.:o

withabix

Put the net back up or go to the park.

globetraveller

We had that with our young neighbour for a few months. He always came to the door and asked politely. We knew he was doing it on purpose and he is quite loveable really but it always seemed to happen when we were having dinner. One time we just "couldn't find it." He got it back a couple of days later. I think he realised that 2 could play the game:)
Is your son kicking the ball against the fence repeatedly? That can be annoying. Does your neighbour have a greenhouse?
I would just put up the netting again.If you even see a bat caught in the net then you might want to replace it with wider netting. But you might find you never need to.