No, but I have told adults to get off my lawn. In fact, two weeks ago I had a drunken yahoo’s SUV towed off the property. Since then, the nearby barflies have stayed on their side of the fence.
No, never. Even the 8 year old kid whose mother sued us after our dog nipped him in the ankle. I felt badly for him, because his mother was the worst mother I’ve ever known. She’d let let her kids roam the neighborhood, completely unsupervised. I had to tell him to not stand in the middle of the street because he’d stand where cars coming over the hill would have no chance of braking before plowing over him. One day, they went to the bus stop without realizing that school had been canceled due to snow. She’d locked the door behind them. Those kids pounded on the door for a half hour before another neighbor told them they could come into her house because she was afraid they’d freeze to death. The lazy mother finally responded to a text message.
That same kid was shot to death last year after attempting to rob the wrong guy. He was 18, and lo and behold, his mother had no idea what he was doing. That poor child didn’t stand a chance
No never. I just ask them to keep out of the vegetable garden and they respect that. No problems.
18 months ago I caught 7 kids about 12 y.o. at 10:15 wandering the street and vandalizing some of the greenbelt landscape. It ended up being $1700 and when they wouldn’t give me their name I called the constable. Turns out they were the new neighbor’s kids 2 doors down and their friends. The mom was pissed at me for embarassing her with the police but hey, tell your kids not to run away and it won’t happen again, I’ll let you handle it. Anyway, I started catching her son’s friends destroying my shrubs bordering my circular driveway after that. Their son’s wouldn’t do it but just watch as their friend(s) rode their bikes through my yard and kicked at the manicured shrubs. I complained to the neighbors but “Hey, it’s not my kids.” I complained to the friend’s dad but “Hey, do you have videotape evidence?”
So yeah, Kid, stay out of my yard or I’ll daydream about turning your dad’s head into a canoe.
We’re really close to all our other neighbors, do stuff for each other and generally have a lot of fun but it seems like there’s always one house where things just ain’t quite right. Their’s is that house and pretty much everyone gives them the cold shoulder for this and numerous other things since.
I haven’t told anyone to get out of my yard, but when I was a teenager I had to tell some kids to get out of a pine on our property, in which they were planning to build a tree house. As an adult, I asked some kids not to sit on the railing of our deck, which I didn’t think was strong enough to hold their weight.
Both times, everyone complied and I never had a problem with them again.
Yes, just the other day! And I was thinking about how I finally crossed the “get off of my lawn” line. Actually, our driveway is a nice long hill that’s fun to ride bikes down, and I don’t care about that. The couple of kids that use it started circling the house and it’s mostly a privacy thing. So driveway = fine. Backyard = not fine.
It was more of a discussion anyway. As long as they’re respectful, I’m fine with letting kids be kids.
Frequently. But they just smile, laugh or wave 'cause they know I don’t mean it.
Yes.
We have a pine tree that makes an awesome fort. The people who owned the house before us ran a daycare and apparently took care of the kids down the street, so they considered it “their” tree. I told them they could play under the tree as long as I didn’t catch them climbing it because I didn’t want anyone to get hurt on my property. I caught them climbing it once and gave them one more chance. Two days later I came home to FIVE kids sitting on various branches. I went full tilt cranky old lady on them and told them to get off my lawn, then I went and told the parents I did not want their kids in my yard anymore. So far I haven’t caught them at it again. I think the major instigators moved away anyhow.
Now I just have the other neighbor kids that I have to remind to go home when it’s time for my son to come inside.
Right after I bought my house I happened to see some kids cutting through my yard (I have the corner house). I was quite surprised to instinctively think “get out of my yard”. But there’s no point in trying to stop it.
I did tell some kids to get out of the street in front of my yard. They had built a skateboard ramp out of some plywood and old tires. It was bad enough that they didn’t do this in front of their own house but when they were done, they would throw the plywood and tires up into my yard. I finally came home one day and caught them at it and told them to move along.
There’s always a person (or people) who ruin it for everyone - I call them “Ruiners.”
I think I may know why you haven’t had to tell kids to stay out yet…
yes. More than once. We have a group of hooligans in the neighborhood. I’ve caught them more than once in our back yard playing on our swing set. Rumor has it they were coming into our yard when we weren’t home. I think they’ve stopped though. We haven’t seen them for several months.
We have also had issues with someone using our yard as a shortcut and leaving the gates open. that was fixed with us putting combination locks on both gates for six months.
We have one like that, except she’s in her late 40’s. Since the day she brought her sisters in with her and caught my husband sitting around in his underpants, she does at least knock 5 seconds before she walks in.
Yep, when we lived in Madison, Wisconsin. They were playing basketball at 10pm. Thump thump thump…etc.
Why yell when you can laugh and start up the chainsaw?
I’ll see some kids walking home from school sometimes, and they’ll be in the yard away from the street. Since we live on a dragstrip, I don’t mind. A fence and dogs keep anyone out of the back.
For some reason, the local elementary school had decided that our driveway is a bus stop. That was great when MY kids went there, but now that the only bus riders live 3 or 5 houses away, they still stop there :smack: WFT? They drive right by the kid’s house, stop at mine, and he has to walk back 5 houses. In the morning there’s 3 or 4 milling around in my drive, and if it’s cold or raining, cars parked there, with kids inside, waiting.
I don’t care, really, but it just doesn’t make sense.
As a 13yo, a crotchety old neighbor had a driveway MADE for skateboarding, and he would yell at us daily to get the hell out. After taking a assfull of rock salt, I stopped for a week, then took advantage of his incarceration to skate the hell out of that fucking place!
I got punished by my parents for bothering and disrespecting the old man, but momma didn’t take Attempted Seasoning lightly and called the cops!
Been on both sides.
Only one of note:
Had a high school about ½ mile away and the kids with cars would come through at really high rates of speed.
Could not get the cops to come out.
I had kids & so did the guy across the street. We took off early from our jobs for a few days and stood on either side of the street with ball bats. The kids slowed down. After 3 days, they found another route to leave the area. snerk
Another time, I threw a tricycle out in front a speeder. He got the point.
Yes, but I was in my 20’s and living with my parents. They had a huge yard with citrus trees and a lot of kids walked by on the way to and from school. They’d grab oranges from the trees and throw them at each other, heck if they ate them we wouldn’t have cared but they were wasting them. But I think the last straw for me was when my mother told me the kids were trying to catch the black racer I always saw in the yard he was in some shrubs near the driveway and they were trying to grab him. I think that’s when I finally told them to get the hell off our property. After that I made it a point to be outside whenever they were walking home from school.
Yep. I didn’t mind that they came to get their ball - I did mind that they stomped on my vege patch while doing so. After that they had to politely ask me to get the ball.
Nope.