Keep Your Fucking Kids Off My Patio!

The BBQ Pit
1

I am well aware of the fact that we are living in apartments, and that the grassy areas behind and between buildings are “common” areas, where anyone can disport themselves in whatever legal manner they like. I know that your oldest moppet, SportsBully, and his delightful younger sister Shriekie are allowed to play and scream and shout and hurl things into the air even right below my bedroom window, since they are playing in this “common” area. I know that there are no time limits to the “common” areas, no ticking clocks or deadlines or expiration dates; a “common” area is as available for ear-splitting activity at 10:00 p.m. as it is at 10:00 a.m. I am hopeful that little Shriekie will grow disenchanted with her spectacular capacity for shrillness at top volume, and that SportsBully will discover the joys of kicking the ball to his friends instead of against the sides of the building.

All of these things, while annoying and tiresome and disruptive, are happening in a “common” area, after all, so all I can do is grit my teeth (and swear as creatively as I can) until they scamper on down the hill to the “common” area outside their own apartment, there to kick balls off their own walls and throw sticks at each other, at a slight remove from my living room.

But then, yesterday, your youngest moppet (let’s call him the little Explorer) charged up the hill, stood staring into our living room windows for who knows how long (I have no idea how long he stood there before I saw him) and then proceeded to walk onto our back patio, bend over, and begin rifling through our things.

Whatever rights your noisy, rude, undisciplined little brats have to run around this place ENDS at the line between the grass and the concrete that makes up our back patio, you shit-brained excuses for parents! What the fuck are you teaching them? Do they not understand the difference between what is theirs and what is not theirs, where they can be and where they cannot be? What a great idea, raising kids with no concept of consideration or privacy or decency – how much easier that must be for you! How nice, how absolutely fucking WONDERFUL for you that they come up here and ruin my peace and quiet and invade my space (what little there is) instead of staying down there where you’d have to hear them, and deal with their destructive behavior! What is the fucking attraction up here? STAY AWAY FROM MY PATIO!

2

We had a similar problem we just yelled at them a lot, and eventually they were scared of us so they quit coming around. or you could build Burmese Tiger Traps in the “Common” area. Sure you might catch a few other kids, but you can’t make an omelette with out breaking some eggs.

3

If you think thats bad, these kids who live by me were setting off FIREWORKS by my bedroom window, 8:00 Saturday morning.
Well they were not real fireworks, but these stupid things that go pop and make a puff of smoke when tossed them AGAINST MY WALL.
I wanted to open the window and yell at them, but being hot, I was sleeping barassed so I didn’t want to have to deal with molestation charges when I opened up the blinds.
The other day some kids dug up my entire 9 square foot “yard” with a plactic hoe and matching rake. They left them there, so now I have their crap in my closet. I wish they had some cool toys to leave (I’m still stuck in the G.I. Joe, Transformers era) so I could confiscate them.
I am considering planting some big ass cactus bushes along the perimeter to keep the runts out.

4

If “hey fuckstain, get outta my stuff!” is too blunt, just go out onto the patio with a butcher knife and sharpening steel. Keep staring at FS whitst you shing, shing, shing the knife with the steel. Licking your lips might be fun too.

5

I find the best thing to do is to be reasonable and ask said kid for an apology or make them fix whatever they broke. That might not always work with unreasonable parents or really bad kids, but when it does the kids never do it again. If they don’t associate fixing whatever they did with doing it of their own free will then they will try to do it when they won’t get caught.

6

Reason’s like this are why I’m selling my fucking condo as soon as I have money for good downpayment on a house.
Last week my daughter was playing Barbies on our steps. Another girl comes over and starts talking and playing with her. We as my daughter “Whats your friend’s name?”. The other girl, (who we have seen playing with the kids, just not met yet) replies “I’m not her friend, I just want to play”. We ask her to repeat that, and she gets pissy and says “I don’t like little girl blur, and just want her toys”. So we kick her off our steps, tell her not to touch our daughter’s stuff till she appoligizes, and carry on with our day.
A couple of minutes later, her mom comes over and starts yelling at us. We said if your daughter is going to be rude, she cannot play with toys we paid for. The mom starts yelling, saying we have no right to talk to her kid like that. Well, bitch, if you were watching your kid, you’d know we were polite, but just kicked her ass off OUR patio.
So, we carry on with our day. 5 minutes later, the freaking cops show up, knock on our door and say the mom called the cops on us, but they can’t understand what happened, cause conveiniantly the neighbor forgot enlish. (This happens all the time). We tell the cops the story and ask why the mom would call the cops on us when its HER 3 year old thats running around unsupervised and causing trouble.
Well, the cops appoligized to us, and went back over to ask the neighbor why she wasn’t watching her 3 year old.
Damn, sorry for the hijack. I got on a roll.

7

That’s why I’m not buying a condo-the risk of having loser neighbours 47 inches away.

8

There’s an entire family (with two adults!) that comes and plays baseball in the parkway right next to my house (they don’t even live near us - at least a couple blocks down). There are a couple baseball fields not too far away from where they play, not to mention a ton of free space that is nowhere near any houses. They always angle the bases so that they hit the balls toward our windows ([Church Lady]how conveeeeeeeeenient![/CL]) Also, they let their dog run around without a leash (against the law here) and let their dog poo wherever it damn pleases. And they don’t clean it up (also against the law). When we have our dog outside and their dog comes over, their dog just comes up on our porch and starts messing with my dog (theirs is about three times the size of ours), like pawing at it. We end up having to go inside because we don’t want to risk getting hit with the baseballs (and also the possibility of their dog kicking my dog’s ass). My brother and I want to yell at them so much, but our mom won’t let us. Yet.

9

Hmm… something is developing here:

  • Burmese tiger traps
  • Cacti plants

Is spraying water from a garden hose illegal? I remember when I was younger that there was a family that lived a block or so away from my house and the kids used to say, “If you get on their lawn, they will spray you with their water hose!” For some reason this worked on me.

10

I think there are a lot of people here who have a great future as the cranky old guy on the block who steals your ball when it goes in his yard.

11

Ah, but there’s a difference, msmith, between being a cranky bastard who takes things accidentally launched into one’s yard, and having to put up with constant and deliberate trespassing.

Consider the tale of my parents’ nextdoor neighbor, Joe, and his houseguest. Joe used to own the property that backed my parents’ yard. It’s not huge, but it’s a nice size for our city, has trees, a teeny stream thanks to the nearby swamp, and a grape arbor that Joe (straight out of Italy, was Joe)planted many years ago.

One summer several years ago, Joe goes away to visit family and lets a friend of his mind the house for him. This friend was apparently very recently arrived from Italy; hell of a nice guy but with a limited grasp of English and, I think, a certain hesitancy to call much attention to himself.

That summer, our neighborhood was overrun by a bunch of kids who hadn’t been there the previous year. I don’t know where they came from. They were certainly old enough to recognize the basic idea of “This is not my yard, therefore I will not use it as if it was.” The problem was, they didn’t care, and neither did their parents. They not only used Joe’s yard for ballgames (which I think he would not have minded, nor would his guest), they pulled grapes off the arbor not to eat but to throw, they broke stuff (including the arbor, which is a wreck now, windows, stuff Joe had in and around his garage), they made fun of the friend’s accent (this is where his shyness comes in–he was afraid of them, these children, and he ended up moving out much sooner than planned), they terrorized our animals when passing through our yard to get to Joe’s.

It was an incredibly tense summer-- no one would do anything! I yelled at the kids now and then, but my parents for some reason didn’t like this. Joe’s friend tried to nicely ask them to refrain from destroying stuff, and got nothing but ridicule and more broken stuff in return. Their parents never stepped in, although I’d be willing to bet they had no idea what was going on, even if they cared. I wanted to find them, but again, for some reason my own parents wouldn’t “let” me (I was an adult at that point, but I felt like my hands were tied-- their house, their rules).

Ok, long post, but yard invasion has always been a sore spot with me. If you ask nicely, maybe people will let you use their grass to play ball or whatever, but just wandering in and messing with other people’s stuff is uncool.

12

Kids live in an awful world these days, which is why I’m voting against the suggestions involving bullets, screaming, or bullwhips.

Next time the kid does this, I’d just very nicely say “I’m sorry, sweetie, but our patio is not to be played on, and it’s not right for you to go through our things. Have fun in the grass!”

I’m as bitchy as they come, but I think kids need to be given a little TLC.

And FTR, not all condo neighbors are hateful. We love our condo neighborhood, and everyone looks out for our son (and our dog and cat).

If it gets to the level like Rosebud is talking about, then it’s time to have a nice polite talk with the parents.

13

Oooh—here’s an idea. Do you know who the parents of SportsBully, Shriekie and Li’l Explorer are? Have one of your more sympathetic neighbors go to them and say, "I don’t know if this is TRUE or not, but there are RUMORS going around that Trikas is a convicted child molester . . . "

THAT should keep those miserable little no-neck monsters outta your hair.

14

The answer of course: adults only housing developments. One of the many things I want to do when I have the funds and the time. A private community with rules set out by an owner who has the backbone to enforce them. My vision: Instead of starting out with cheap rent and periodically raising it, start with rent high enough to ward off families with little Expense Generators, then lower it incrementally with length of stay.

Until then I’d second the cactuses at the perimeter, and maybe an informal chat with parents of wanderers (with wanderers present) - nothing confrontational, just asking them to respect your space as much as you respect theirs.

15

Look on the bright side, trikas. At least the kid wasn’t ruining your sun tanning experience.

16

Unfortunately for your dream, it will run afoul of anti-discrimination laws that ban discrimination in housing on the basis of “family status.”

17

Thanks for the suggestions (sensible and wishful!) and horror stories; nice to know I’m not alone in this . . .

Some days, I am just grateful that I have a firm enough grip on reality and consequence that I can sit my overactive imagination down in a corner with a firm “No, no, you can’t do that . . .” Among other remedies my darkly creative side has suggested:

loaded BB guns in the living room

sprinkling glass shards in the lawn

shotgun loaded with rock salt

encouraging colonies of fire-ants

persistently flooding the area to create a slurping quagmire

perimeter intrusion detection cameras with spotlights and alarms

Star Trek-style force fields (I’m first in line when they start selling force field generators at Best Buy)

Sigh. We are trying to save the astronomical down payment for a place of our own, where I’ll have more of a legal leg to stand on when running outside in my muumuu and hairnet, clacking my dentures while I scream and throw pots and pans at intruders.

(no, I don’t look like that, but enjoy the mental picture for the rest of the day)

18

My new house used to be rented by indifferent tenants. They never bothered to mow backyard, remove weeds, etc. My neighbour’s kids got into the habit of helping themselves to the faucet on the side of what’s now my house and playing in that backyard. Since these two kids are probably cousins of Shriekie and SportsBully, their parents are probably relieved they are holding their screaming contests further from the homestead.

I would come home to find candy wrappers on my deck, nose- and hand-prints on my windows, their toys strewn across my lawn, my garden hose unraveled with the nozzle unscrewed, and my flowerbeds trampled. The kids claim no knowledge how their toys keep finding their way into my yard, and their parents seem utterly disinterested in their children’s lies. I politely explained to the spawn that they are welcome to come over when I invite them, but it’s wrong for them to help themselves to my house when I’ve specifically asked them not to.

So, since “nice” proved futile, I’ve begun confiscating their toys and hurling their garbage back into their yard like the cranky old lady I planned to be fifty years from now. The garden hose and faucet handle get removed and brought inside when I’m done with them. The garden gate also has a new padlock on it. It’s aggravating, but so far it’s the only thing that has kept those whippersnappers out of my backyard – they’re apparently too lazy the climb the fence.

19

Just wait 'til you’re 55 and move into one of those “seniors only” communities.

They’re really creepy, but that’s the price you pay.