neighbour problems

sparky30

hi everyone, i know this isn`t anythin to do with moneysaving but could really do with some advice off someone on how to deal with my neighbour.
the problem i am having is sometimes the kids ball goes over her wall, sometimes she throws it back over other times she just puts it in the bin, think it just depends what sort of day shes having.
The thing i`m wondering is does anyone know if she has to give the ball back by law?
I have tried to find out on the internet where i stand with this but can`t find much about it, i have heard that she does have to give it back but i was wondering if anyone can confirm this.
i don`t speak to her anymore as i had problems with her last year and i just find that it`s just better not to bother with her anymore.
is anyone else out there having the same kind of problems?
Any help would be appriecated.

rchddap1

Not sure about where you stand legally, but how high is the fence between your two properties? Could you put up some trellace (bad spelling I know) to try and stop the ball going over? Have you asked her if it is allright for you to pop into her garden to retrieve the ball when it goes over? THis one might a problem though if you don't talk to her anymore.

Depending on how old the kids are you could also take the hard line approach. They obviously know that they sometimes lose their ball when it goes over the fence. If they lose the ball over the fence they have to contribute to replacing it. But as I said it depends on how old they are.

tru

There was someone on TV (This Morning I think) about 3 years ago, she said the neighbour doesn't have to give it back as long as they don't touch it, as soon as they do, they have to give it back.

jockettuk

send the children round to ask politley for there ball. if she gets nasty and horrible with them then that should be enough to make them be more careful abt not kicking the ball over the fence.. if she is as bad as you say and doesnt throw the ball back over then i would write it off.. doesnt seem worth the hassle and mabey if she sees your not bothered she might not get the satisfaction from keeping them ..

SnowyOwl_2

You could have a look in this website:

http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/index.shtml

There is a section about "neighbours from hell" and a chat forum - maybe her neighbours on her other side are already on there finding out what to do with her!!

[Deleted User]

She cannot keep the ball or cause damage to it.

However, she does not have to give it back to them and can insist on YOU collecting it from her each time.

Or she can hand it in to the police as found property.

Presumably she is fed up with the balls landing in her garden.

Queenie

She cannot *keep* the ball, because it's not her property. If it has been disposed of, she has then "assumed" the rights of ownership and one *could* argue that she has commited criminal damage.

I think a happy compromise would be ....

.. if at all possible, take your kids up the park to play ball games - turn it into "quality family time". Leave other games for the garden where the risk of flying objects over the garden fence are minimalised or even non apparent!!

A further option might be, ... go round and have a chat with her. Explain that you really are apologetic about the number of times the ball goes into her garden (it may be causing damage to her plants or whatever, so try and be open minded) and is it possible to come to some sort of agreement? Clearly, asking her to return the ball each and every time it goes over could well be inconvenient and, realistically, simply not practictable; so, once a week you could pop round and retrieve the balls?

Questions you may like to ponder on:

Is she elderly? Does she live alone? Is she incapacitated in some way? Is she simply fed up to the eye teeth? Is she an unhappy individual who finds being neighbourly a pain in the proverbial?

The reason I say all that is because, from experience, the most objectionable of people are usually the one's who are sad, lonely, feel put upon, are bitter, resentful or the (minority) one's who will simply *never* see reason!!

Is there a trade off? Could you (or even *would* you!) be able to offer to mow her lawns once in a while if she would simply not throw away the balls until you can call to collect them - on an agreed day, mutually convenient?

I can't remember accurately the old saying but it's something alone the lines of: You catch more bee's with honey than with vinegar! In other words, sweetness can be far more effective than sourness.

I wish you luck!

misslopex

There are a lot of good points here but one thing you really need to remember, which may or may not be relevant to you at this stage, is that should you decide to move in the near future you must declare any feuds or problems with your neighbours.

When I was a kid there was a lady just like her next to us who would often just keep the balls that went into her garden...we tried the asking politely approach however this was never successful. After realising that our balls were never to return from her garden we soon got the picture and learnt to keep the ball down and away from her side of the garden. When she realised we had learned and were being a little more considerate she returned all our balls.

Good luck and let us all know how you get on!

Dormouse

At the risk of being very unpopular, I have to say that there are two sides to every story. I appreciate that this neighbour might be a problem anyway, but you cannot blame her for being cheesed off with balls in her garden.

I was on the receiving end of this sort of situation a couple of years ago and it was hell :mad: . Next door's kids (3 of them) were a nightmare, completely unruly little terrors. The balls were constantly in our garden, we're talking one every few minutes at some point! What happened then was, either we had kids shouting "Excuse meeeeeeee!" over the fence for donkeys (didn't matter where we were or what we were doing), or they'd be banging on our door, or they'd just jump over the fence and run amok in our garden. If I can also add that this was the very hot summer two years ago, I had a newborn baby in the house who I was breastfeeding, the back door had to be open as it was so hot, so I really did not appreciate visitors in the garden! I cannot emphasise how inconsiderate I found the neigbours - they just expected me to fetch their stupid balls every five seconds as if I had nothing else to do all day!

Funnily enough, their parents did not seem to be bothered by this - aarrgh! Perhaps they saw me as the witch next door, but I do not feel I was being unreasonable AT ALL!

Right, rant over! I would just like to emphasise to the OP to have a good chat to your kids and get them to stop doing it. Obviously, accidents happen, but they are often easily avoidable.

(and yes, we've got new neighbours now :j )

nickinoo

Dormouse wrote:

At the risk of being very unpopular, I have to say that there are two sides to every story. I appreciate that this neighbour might be a problem anyway, but you cannot blame her for being cheesed off with balls in her garden.

I was on the receiving end of this sort of situation a couple of years ago and it was hell :mad: . Next door's kids (3 of them) were a nightmare, completely unruly little terrors. The balls were constantly in our garden, we're talking one every few minutes at some point! What happened then was, either we had kids shouting "Excuse meeeeeeee!" over the fence for donkeys (didn't matter where we were or what we were doing), or they'd be banging on our door, or they'd just jump over the fence and run amok in our garden. If I can also add that this was the very hot summer two years ago, I had a newborn baby in the house who I was breastfeeding, the back door had to be open as it was so hot, so I really did not appreciate visitors in the garden! I cannot emphasise how inconsiderate I found the neigbours - they just expected me to fetch their stupid balls every five seconds as if I had nothing else to do all day!

Funnily enough, their parents did not seem to be bothered by this - aarrgh! Perhaps they saw me as the witch next door, but I do not feel I was being unreasonable AT ALL!

Right, rant over! I would just like to emphasise to the OP to have a good chat to your kids and get them to stop doing it. Obviously, accidents happen, but they are often easily avoidable.

(and yes, we've got new neighbours now :j )

You sound just like me Doormouse, I am only in my (very) early thirties but got the impression the kids from next door thought I was a miserable old bag as I used to regularly go out & tell them off for jumping the fence (& damaging it), they would ask for the ball once a day but the rest of the time just help themselves. I have to say I took great pleasure in letting my dog out just to put the wind up them (he was a boxer & soft as butter so no worries there). I just got fed up with the invasion of my privacy as a new mum with PND. I loved it when the dog popped the ball ;o)

We have new neighbours now :O) just a shame they bonk loudly all night!

culpepper

we had a family living in the house backing on to ours a few years back,whos son constantly kicked his ball against the 6' high fence.Well it was their fence so not much you could say.Our garden is very long so we only go into the bottom bit to generally have a go at the weeds and there were loads of balls down there each time. I guess he couldnt climb over to get them because he had damaged the fence so much it would have just fallen down.
Maybe the balls damage her flowers.
When I lived in flats as a child one lady would not even let us retrieve the balls from under her window! She would come out like a flash and take the balls into her flat. She wasnt worried about our parents either so we were always careful not to let balls go in that direction.As we used to play a lot of 'wide games' it felt like a disaster if they did as usually only one of us would have brought a ball out and nobody else wanted to lose theirs the same way.