#1- If it’s just the fact that the doorbell ringing annoys you; disconnect the doorbell. It’s easy, and will save the children from much pain. #2- if you’re trying to find out who this child is, lay down a pan of fluorescent paint in front of the doorbell. He’ll step in it to ring the doorbell, then you (or your man) can just follow him to his doorstep with a blacklight. Case solved. #3- If you have really developed some feelings of hatred towards this particular child, there are many routes you can take.
Considering your porch is dark: lay down a large bed of nails in front of the doorbell. #4- IF your doorbell is unlit, tape a couple thumbtacks to the doorbell, case solved. #5- if your doorbell is lit, go to the store and grab some fishing hooks. Cut the backs off of them, just leaving the barbs in the front. Tape them, in the same fashion as a thumbtack, to the doorbell, as these reduced fishing hooks will be less visible. #6- Since your man is an engineer, I doubt it would be hard for him to link a metal wire from the electric terminal, around the front of the doorbell, and back to the terminal, leaving some of the wire exposed on the doorbell. Sit back, and laugh everytime the lights dim.
Of course, the last 2-3 methods are highly immature, but what better way to show the kids in the neighborhood that you don’t fuck around?! Or you could just get a “No tresspassing” sign, which would make it illegal for these kids to go onto your lawn, or less illegal for you to shoot them with BB guns.
I’m really not curmudgeonlyv, I just hate annoying things and wish great pain upon them. Let me know if they start to retaliate, and I’ll let you know how to take care of them.
Your second notion was correct—you’re being the grumpy old lady. Ignore it and they’ll stop. Otherwise, you’re just giving them more excuse to do it. And remember—they’re kids .
epraz, I disagree with you. Kids or not, they don’t need to annoy someone to amuse themselves. And who’s to say that their parents wouldn’t sue if they got hurt one while trespassing?
I’d leave a porch light on or use a motion sensor to set off the light before they got to the door. Cowards don’t like light. I’d also ask neighbors if they were being annoyed by ring-and-runners - I know in my neighborhood, that would go a long way to stopping the nonsense.
On the less-mature side, I like rigging a hose to soak 'em when they push the doorbell.
Don’t get rialed and they won’t try to rial ya! I used to ring doorbells when I was a kid (I didn’t make a career of it or anything). After a couple times, we wouldn’t do it if they didn’t answer the door. If you’re not expecting anyone, don’t answer your door! Especially later in the evening. Heck, I don’t open my door to strangers in broad daylight!
Please keep in mind before booby-trapping the doorbell, the trap you set may well be sprung by an unintended victim. I don’t know about you, but I would certainly not want to cause injury/discomfort/embarrassment to the pizza guy; my in-laws; FedEx; the local constabulary coming around to check out reports of mischief causing juveniles; etc., etc.
If you really want to identify/stop the culprits, I would go with a motion detector set to turn on the porch light and a video camera (webcam) setup. That way, legitimate visitors are not inconvenienced but you will have made yourself a much less attractive target for pranks.
Good Lord people, security cameras? Booby traps? Wasn’t anybody here ever a kid?
I agree wholeheartedly with epraz and echokitty. Ignore it. I did the same thing at about twelve years old. We wanted to “get a chase”. It was fun to use our twelve year old legs and the cover of night to outrun the adults. Security measures heightened our interest. It made it more of an interesting challenge.
If they didn’t bite… well, it was no fun.
Get a peephole. The doorbell rings, look through it. Nobody there? Don’t open it. It is really, truly, no doubt about it, that simple
Nothing beats the satisfaction of hitting your target with a water balloon, though. All you have to do is keep the downstairs lights on and sit in your darkened bedroom with a bucket full of 'em. You hear the running and giggling, get the screen open as quick as you can and dump the whole mess on their unsuspecting heads.
After that, get a peephole and don’t open the door if you don’t see anybody.
Ain’t no law that says you can’t have your Hayduke moment and do the sensible thing at the same time.
Food for thought – if you do anything retaliatory, like booby traps or water balloons, the brats may end up targeting you for retribution. Right now they’re ringing your bell, make 'em really mad and they may end up tossing rocks at your window.
We had some dumbass kids vandalizing our cars. We set up lights triggered by motion and a big, fake camera (gotta love arts 'n crafts). Worked like a charm. We built the bogus camera to look like the huge security cameras you see in movies. It had a little red light for authenticity and was set up really, really conspicuously on a cheap platform-hook kind of thing outside the second floor window. The “camera” was illuminated by a dinky, little floodlight so you could see it from the sidewalk. From the ground, it looks quite convincing (up close, it looks quite stupid – but you need to see it from the second floor window to realize it was made from bits of things recycled from the Slavation Army Thrift Shop).
The little, red light burned out ages ago, but everyone on the block still thinks we there’s a high-tech security camera aimed at the driveway. We eventaully moved away for job reasons, but I did see that the phoney camera was still in place (though looking a little weather worn).
Step 1. Ignore a good 50% of the dumb suggestions in this thread.
Step 2. Ignore the bell. Disconnect it if you have to.
They’re kids. They lots of time on their hands to devise ways of foiling any preventative schemes, and the more you want to try the more fun it becomes. So unless you are willing to spend more time and effort than them on this nonsense, you are going to lose, and spend months of misery in the process.
Ignore it and it ceases to be any fun. Once it is no fun it won’t get done.
Lots of interesting points…lots of food for thought…
I was thinking last night, “What if I catch the kid and walk him to his house and the parents end up being wackos who end up harassing me as well?”
Having the porch light on doesn’t deter them, I tried that last night. Our next door neighbors also have a bright light that shines partly into our yard, and that doesn’t seem to matter either. I’m expecting that they’ll ring the bell again tonight because my husband is on a business trip until tomorrow night. I think I will just ignore it.
I thought about walking down to the bus-stop tomorrow and talking to the moms that wait there, to see if any of them have the same problem, and hoping that if the culprits see me talking to some of the moms it will psych them out.
We probably will end up disconnecting the bell and telling our friends and delivery people to knock. Hopefully if we stop coming to the door, the kids will get bored and stop bothering us. I would like to catch the kid, but who knows what would happen? If he’s out on the street past 9 pm on a school night, I’m guessing that the parents probably don’t care very much what their kid gets up to.
Do not, under ANY circumstances, put something on your bell, your porch, or your door that could cause injury, no matter how slight or inconsequential. In many municipalities, it is illegal to knowingly cause even a small injury to deter theft or nuisance activities. A couple of years ago, a yard decoration was stolen out of our front yard four days after we put it up. I thought about buying another one and putting carpet tack strips on the back, but, after a bit of research, my hubby discovered that doing so would leave us open to some serious legal problems. I don’t know the designations, or the consequences, which I’d think would vary from place to place anyway.
Was I ever a kid? Of course. But I was a kid who knew better than to 1) trespass on anyone’s property, posted or not, 2) play annoying pranks, and 3) be out on the streets at that hour.
How do you raise decent adults unless you start when they’re young?
moggy,
FWIW, when I was about 10, I was mixed up in a group of neighborhood kids who decided to play ding dong ditch on a particular house one night.
We all crept up to the victim’s home, one of us rang the bell, and we all took off running (laughing) to hide and watch the reaction. Yep, the householder man was agitated as he opened his door and looked around knowing he’d been had one time too many.
Minutes later a police car showed up at his home. After exchanging a few words with the officer, the police car started slowly cruising our way (we were still hiding) looking for the perps. It slowly cruised up and down the street…
It was the longest five minutes of my life. As soon as I realized the police were involved, all I could think of was them catching all of us and escorting each of us to our homes where our parents would find out everything. I was scared to death as I kept quiet and hidden behind a certain house waiting for the police to clear.
I learned one of the greatest lessons that night, at ten years old.
…and never since have rang and run again.