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WWYD? (long, sorry)
So, here's the situation. We live in a complex of townhouses. Our front courtyard backs onto another neighbor's backyard (our backyard has nothing but a large park beyond the fence, which is nice).
We get along fine with all of our neighbors except for the ones that we share a fence with - we don't really know them, we just don't like them because their kids are obnoxious. The kids are probably 12, 9 and 7, and have thrown toys over the fence into our courtyard, thrown trash (fast food wrappers, coke cans, etc etc) over the fence into our courtyard, and I regularly hear them screaming at their mother to "shut the fvck up." Charming little rugrats, eh?
For a while I was nice and tossed the toys back over the fence and threw out the trash. Now, after a year of living here, I throw it all away. As far as I'm concerned, if it comes over my fence, it belongs to me and they're going to lose their toys - they've been doing it regularly enough that they should know by now what will happen. I don't care if that makes me b!tchy.
So that's the background - here's the current situation: they've recently turned our driveway into their new play area. This driveway is a long one (shared by 3 freestanding townhouses, with ours at the end), and I can see why it's an attractive play area - it's off a guest parking area, not off a road, and sheltered on one side by the townhouses and on the other side by landscaping with bushes, so it's a nice private area.
Because it's a long driveway, they like to use it to ride their scooter up and down and practice going over little jumps on it. This means that they've taken to stashing large wooden pallets in our bushes (thus breaking the plants), as well as storing their scooter in the landscaping right across from our garage (thus annoying the sh!t out of me). They've also charmingly decorated our driveway by finding a bit of broken plaster and drawing penises all over it, including a large picture of a man declaring "I've got wood." Destined for the Museum of Modern Art, those kids!
I've had it. I want to throw out the pallets AND their damn scooter. They're all old enough to know better than this. Ben thinks I'm being a bit harsh and that we should give them a while longer to find a new play area; it's been nearly 2 weeks since they started playing here, and I think I've given them long enough.
Normally I'd speak to their parents, but I've observed the parents on a few occasions and they're the type of people who - sadly - don't really care what their kids do, so unfortunately that's not an option. We have asked the kids directly not to play in the driveway a couple of times (we nearly hit one of them once when we were coming home), and they clearly ignore us.
[Poll]
Re: WWYD? (long, sorry)
I really like the last option of taking apart the scooter and leaving it for them
Do you guys have a townhouse leader or strata manager that you could talk to? Are there rules about driveway usage etc?
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Yes and no. They can issue the parents (or, if the parents are just tenants and not the owners, then the actual owner) with a warning if someone in their household breaks the rules...however, I'm not sure they can in this case. From my understanding, the strata manager only has control over permanent structures - for example, if we painted our fence red or something - but not over impermanent stuff like where kids play. That's just meant to be common sense I think lol.
ETA: oh, and about driveway usage, the only rule is that you can't leave a car parked in a shared driveway.
Just curious... is this driveway shared by their house as well? If so, I think they should be allowed to play there. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac and I am counting on my kids being able to ride their bikes in front of our house one day, even if the road is technically shared by other homes and drivers. If your driveway is private to you and your other neighbors, though, you could discuss plans with them about keeping the kids away if you think it is unsafe (and annoying).
Even if they are allowed to play there, I agree that you should be able to expect better behavior out of them. I think I would talk to their parents, even if you think it won't do a thing. If you bring up the damage to your landscaping and gently warn that they'll be responsible for fixing things, they might do something. Either way, should the bad behavior continue, you have more ground to stand on when you remove the pallets, toss the scooters at the family's front door, and send a bill for damages. And if the kids keep getting in your way when you drive, you can then also honk freely. For their own safety, of course.I should have mentioned that in my original post, sorry - no, it is not their driveway. They live in the next row up of townhouses, so they do have their own area to play in - ours is just nicer.
I could do the bill for damages thing, but we don't pay for that stuff (landscaping is included in the annual fees that the owner pays to the management company - so the damage to the plants doesn't financially affect us, it's just unsightly and annoying), so I don't think it would have much of an impact on the parents since they'd know I was full of BS.
I threatened to disassemble a kid's bike one - I was a teenager and he was over with my brothers (7 yrs younger) who I was watching... and he was bullying them and just generally being a PITA and I wasn't having it. After I told him to leave and he refused, I told him I"m putting his bike out in the street, and if I ever find it on the property again, it would be disassembled and in the street.
Anyway, sorry about the issue with the neighbors - it's hard to deal with other ppl's kids. I would definitely take pictures of all the offenses and date them though.
I think this is totally fair!
Since there's no "Beat the kids until they learn not to leave their crap all over the place and ruin your plants" option, I'd have to go with what Melissa and Amy said. (You sure you don't want to add another option in there?) Honestly, I don't think that you'll get anywhere bringing this up to their parents so why even waste your time trying to do that.
Just curious, two of those boys aren't named Alex and Andrew, are they? Those 3 kids who live next door to you remind me of these 3 Australian brothers I met while working in the hotel and they'd probably be right around that age now......
They were the most ill behaved kids I've ever EVER met.
LOL hmmm I hadn't thought of option #5...
I think if the little.......treasures......keep annoying me, I'll have to start documenting. On the other hand, we're only here for another month, so...meh.
But think of all the good karma points you'd get if you were able to put a stop to this now (by submitting documention or beating, whichever) and spared the next people to move in from experiencing those treasures, as you call them.
I'd go to the parents and tell them two things:
1) state your concerns and ask them to do something about it
2) let them know what your next steps will be - that you'll be lodging a complaint with the manager/that the kids have destroyed your personal property and you expect to receive recompense/that if you find their stuff on your property again, you'll disassemble it.
I find that clearly laying out the consequences of action (or inaction in the case of the parents) usually does the trick when I have parent-teacher interviews.
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