Avoiding the neighborhood urchins

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I recently moved into a kid-heavy neighborhood. It’s an economically depressed area; a lot of the parents have big problems and there is a lot of crime. You know how “yuppie” parents can be overprotective of their kids, never letting them leave the yard? Here the parents are underprotective and the kids (dozens and dozens of them on this block) run wild all over the place.

I like kids and I like people, and I’m happy to be friendly with the lady across the street, who has at least 5 kids under age 12 or so. The youngest kid is just adorable; his parents appear to be losers and I forsee a terrible future for him. I’d like to be friendly to him and his siblings, maybe even be a mentor-type, or something. I’m also a Christian and the phrase “suffer the little children to come unto me” resonates strongly with me. I hate to rebuff friendly kids, even though I am childless and have few kid-skills.

But I have a problem ever since a few weeks ago, when the littlest kids from across the street came over with a tiny, baby kitten in their arms, asking me if I wanted it. I’m a sucker for kittens but couldn’t possibly take another one in, so I went and spoke to the mother, ascertained that she was going to dump it if I didn’t take it, so I took it and found a home for it that very night. My friends came over to pick up the kitten, and in the meantime I let 6 kids into my house to say goodbye to it.

Those six kids – all under 12 – swarmed all over my house, opening doors, inspecting my bedroom, inspecting my bathroom medicine cabinet, climbing up into my attic (the portable stairs are always down), opening the kitchen cabinets, running in and out the front and back doors (I have indoor-only cats, and leaving the doors open is problematic). Also they found a book of matches, and lit one (I could smell it). Also I caught 3 of them stealing handfuls of change from my enormous bowl of small change.

For the half-hour they were in the house, it was a madhouse scene. There were too many kids for me to look after all of them, and they turned my house upside down. They all left suddenly out the back door (leaving it wide open) when apparently they heard their mother calling them. I bolted all the doors, checked for any raging fires in the house, and sat down exhausted with the kitten until my friends picked the kitten up.

Since that night, all the neighborhood kids think my house is their house, and they knock on my door several times a day asking to come in. I have said No many times, but a few days ago there were just 2 little ones, begging to check their email on my computer.

(I believe I am the only person on the block who owns a computer. In fact, I own two, and the kids have asked me repeatedly to give them one.)

So I let the 2 kids in – the older girl wanted to first gather up all their friends to come in as well, and I told them no, just 2 of you may come in. So the 5-year-old is in my living room, and I’m more concerned with him because he’s so little, and the 8-year-old is on my computer, and when I check up on her, she is systematically opening each file on my desktop to see what it is. (Turns out she had no idea how to check her email; I don’t believe she really had an email account at all.)

Other times, there’s been a knock at the door, and two little kids will be at the door, but some older kids – as in, post-puberty – will be lurking about around the corner of my front walk. Older kids who are just a year or two away from street thuggery. Given the change-stealing by the little ones, I’m starting to be seriously concerned that my joint is being cased. Under no circumstances will these 14-year-olds be allowed in my house; I don’t even want them in my yard.

As a former inhabitant of yuppified, overprotective-parent neighborhoods, I’m shocked that the parents allow their small kids into a stranger’s house. When they swarmed into my bedroom that first night, all I could think of was What if I had a loaded gun in there? I didn’t, but the parents couldn’t know that.

Also, what if I’m a child molester? I’m not, but again the parents can’t know that. I’m a late-30s, single man who keeps odd hours. If I were the parents, I’d suspect me, or at least be aware of the slim possibility that I might be dangerous.

Wanting to keep my nickels and quarters, and not wanting my house to be burned down, and not wanting the little kids to report to the older kids about what nice things I own (I believe I have more and nicer possessions than anyone on the block, especially the computer equipment), I’ve decided to not have any kids in the house anymore. They’re sweet, but poorly raised, and uncontrollable.

Besides fear for myself, I fear a kid injuring himself in my house – falling down the attic stairs, smacking his head on the brick fireplace, who knows – and then I fear a lawsuit, let alone the tragedy of a child being harmed.

I also fear very much the risk of being accused of molestation. I know a few people who have been falsely accused and of course their lives have been ruined. Interestingly, the mother of most of these kids – the across-the-street lady – warned me when I first moved in that my next door neighbor was a convicted sex offender. Two women and a 13-year-old boy live in that house, and the lady who warned me claims the sex offender lives upstairs and never comes out, like Boo Radley. I have since ascertained that this is almost certainly false, and I think the two sets of neighbors must have a preexisting grudge against each other. I can’t ignore the possibility that the across-the-street lady made up the accusation just to defame my other neighbors, and it makes me wonder if she might ever accuse anyone else of sex crimes – against, say, her children, by me.

So, given all these factors, I’ve decided there will never again be any neighborhood kids in my house. When they knock on the door, I tell them I’m busy, and endure their heartbroken looks.

They knock so often, though; sometimes I don’t answer, and then they twist the doorknob, and on one occasion went all around the house looking in all the windows (and trying the back door as well.)

Is it time to speak to the lady across the street and ask her to keep her kids away from me? :frowning: It seems any corrective action I could take would have the result of my being hated in the neighborhood, and in that case, I’m very seriously concerned about vandalism, arson, and break-ins. Right now, the neighbors like me, and I’d like to keep it that way. So my strategy is to ignore all knocks at the door. I’m pretending I’m deaf.

2

Your fear is not unfounded. I have been accused of molestation once (which was quickly proved false), and it is not a pretty thing. Not for you, and not for them.

I would answer the door and tell them that they cannot come in, as the past has proven that they cannot behave themselves. If they have a problem, tell them to come with their mother and you will talk to her about it.

If you start seeing more of the older kids hanging around, I would call 5-0 and see if they can help you. If you have a local storefront, or You need to make sure that the police (for whatever good it will do you) know what is going on. I would also have a LONG conversation with their mother(s)/parent(s) as quickly as possible. There is no need to be rude, or mean, but you have to set boundries which so far you have failed to do.

Also I would suggest that you spend time outside, in a public place with the kids after you get permission from their mother. Play basketball, or stick ball with them. I used to play touch football (where I was the QB on both teams) with some neighborhood kids and had a grand time. Maybe even use some of those nickles and quarters and get a football.

I wish you luck, and keep us appraised.

3

I didn’t finish my thought before I pressed submit.

If you have a local storefront, or police station I would do my best to make friends with the local cops. They can be invaluable when your dealing with kids, as sometimes they have influence over them.

Good luck!

4

Don’t let ANY kids into your house. If you must interact with them, do it outside only. Tell them all that you will have some sort of signal when it’s OK to knock…put a bandana on the doorknob, or something. If they knock anyway, chew them out. SOMEBODY has to set some rules.

Tell the parents of the change stealers that you caught the kids with their hands in your money. If you didn’t get it back from them, ask for it now. Tell the parents of the 8 year old who was snooping in your computer about that, too. Tell both sets of parents that you will not be allowing their kids into your house because of these instances.

Next time the kids ask for your “spare” computer, tell them that you no longer have it available. Put it in a room where it cannot be seen from the outside.

Those older kids who are hanging around have probably instructed the younger kids to unlock a door or window in your house. So, again, DON’T LET ANY OF THE KIDS INTO YOUR HOUSE.

You can hang out in your front yard with them, but don’t let them in your house or back yard. Set some limits for them. Kids learn very early on how to manipulate people and take advantage of softhearted suckers.

Having said all that, I must admit that I don’t like kids, for the most part, and I’m in a bad, bad mood right now. Besides which, I’ve always been in the running for the “grumpy old crazy neighborhood lady”.

5

Some good advice here.

So three of the little urchins knock on the front door at 8:30 tonight. They said can we come in, and I said no, I’m busy, sorry. (Big Brother was on!) One of them says “how about tomorrow?” and I said I didn’t know, I might not be home. :rolleyes: (I know, grow a pair, masonite)

But I have set the boundary of no-kids-in-my-house, as of a few days ago, at least. Now I need to set a new boundary of telling them about this policy, and asking them not to come knock on my door anymore, I guess. I should get out in the street and play with them, as was suggested. I have the athletic skills of your average quadraplegic (I can do girly stuff like jumprope and hopscotch, but I don’t think that would be great for my street cred, y’know?) So maybe sitting on their front porch when the mom is out there would be a good thing to do. I’m not super-comfortable with joining them when no parents are around, because there are quite a few 14-16-year-olds who hang out then. (Were I the mom, I wouldn’t let my 5-8 year olds hang out anywhere near 14-16 year olds, not in this neighborhood. I guess the mother knows the older kids, though.)

I’m not going to ask for my change back; I’m disappointed that such young kids are stealing but since I didn’t confront them at the time (and make sure they knew how wrong stealing is), I’m not going to get into it now. What I should have done was to have made a huge big deal of it right then and there, with the kids, but I didn’t and I feel the moment has passed. It’s not like I care about the change as such; if I discovered they had snitched something of real value, it would be different. Not that stealing anything is okay in general.

As far as people in the back yard … I’m not able to keep the adults out of my back yard unless I sit out there with a shotgun across my knees, so I’m not even going to try with the kids, unless they set up a kickball game or something. This is a casual neighborhood. People are briefly on my property all the time retrieving their balls, pets, etc. Place needs a strong fence but my slumlord is too damn cheap. :smiley:

I’m planning on increasing the security of the place, though. It will be a priority to get a good set of motion-sensitive outdoor floodlights, and I may even look into window and door alarms. Unfortunately I don’t feel as safe here as I used to, because of these kids, who are really quite sweet. It’s ironic and sad.

6

Right after I hit Submit, another knock on the door (preceded by trying the doorknob). It’s the littlest one, about four years old, all alone. It is almost completely dark. :mad:

I told him it was way too late to be across the street, and he should go home. I was not friendly, although it breaks my heart that that child’s idiot mother lets him run around like that. I will definitely mention to her that he was over here after dark, and doesn’t she see that as a problem, but she won’t. I think she loves her kids but she drinks, and I don’t think she looks after them properly at all, some of the time. (At other times, she is on the street with them, keeping a very close eye and yelling at cars going too fast. But most of the time she is nowhere to be seen.)

I may be calling CPS before I call the cops. Fuck.

7

I’d move. I hate frigging kids- and their parents always think they are georgeous, sinless, and every other adult should think the same.

Meh. The Al Capones of tomorrow.

After that compassionate, altruistic outburst…

:stuck_out_tongue: