Grr! Ball constantly coming into back garden

Hi,

Not sure if this is in the right forum or not but here goes:
We live in an end house, our side wall runs alongside an estate road with a large green opposite it. There's a group of about 9 14/15 year olds who insist on playing footie on the road using 2 pillars from our side wall as goal posts. No matter how many times we argue/plead/ask nicely, they will not use the green. Cheeky little so & so's too!!

This means that the football is constantly coming over our wall, sometimes at a fairly decent speed. We have taken great pride in our garden and have spent quite a bit on making rockeries, flower beds and hanging baskets. The ball is continuously breaking flowers etc. and even hit my father on the head once. We attached trellises to the wall and about a foot above it for creeping bushes and some of these have been broken.

They either ring the doorbell, sometimes 5-6 times on a sat or sunday (we're both out mon-fri 8-7 so dont know what goes on then) or hop over the wall to get the ball. Hubby has seriously warned them several times to never come into our garden but it makes no difference.
We've refused to give back the ball (I never thought I'd end up like this) but again, no difference, another one comes in.

I've heard about a tar type product that can be put on the wall, it may put them off hopping over for the ball.
Has anyone any other suggestions on how we can deal with this??

Might sound a bit drastic but I (almost) dread the thoughts of the long days coming.

Sorry to hear about your situation.

Just a note about the sticky paint that you can put on the top of the wall, we looked at using this in the past as well until someone pointed out that they get this sticky substance all over their hands and then promptly wipe it all over something, sometimes something rather important.

Just a thought.

Best of luck with the situation

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This topic (or something along similar lines) has been covered before. The product you refer to called "anti-intruder paint":
[broken link removed]

If you decide to go down this route you may need to put up a warning sign! I know of someone who had similar problems with adults accessing his property; he bought some cartridges of axle grease from a motor factors (it comes in different colours!)and found this worked to good effect! But don't expect to be popular with the neighbours if you go down this route. You shouldn't have to endure trespass but these "solutions" will almost certainly escalate matters, particularly if the children are resident in your estate.

can you put some kind of sharp thorny plant on a trellis so that if they try to come in over the wall they will shred their hands and clothes?

get a lump of car grease you get big tubs of it in the car store for like 5 euro and smother it on you could always get a dog.

would you not talk to the childrens parents? This is what i did when i had this problem. I was very calm and said i understood they meant no harm etc.... but told them of the problems this was causing us. It never occured again and the boys came to the house to apologise. Then i felt like a meserable old so and so!

dempster said:

would you not talk to the childrens parents? This is what i did when i had this problem. I was very calm and said i understood they meant no harm etc.... but told them of the problems this was causing us. It never occured again and the boys came to the house to apologise. Then i felt like a meserable old so and so!

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That's a pretty civilised way of dealing with the matter. Well done. I'm sure that it might not work in all circumstances but it's a good place to start. Far from sounding like a miserable old so and so you sound like a perfectly reasonable individual to me.

I would also suggest talking to the parents before taking any other action. It costs nothing and the problem could be solved within minutes.
If that doesn't work, try the car grease, that should keep them away, as it is quite messy stuff. Otherwise, consider a dog and train him/her to love to chew footballs ;-)

Thanks for all the replies and advice about products.
I don't think these teenagers live in the estate. At least I've never seen them go into any of the houses, in the evening they head off out towards the entrance.
At about age 15 they can be intimidating. Last sat I had all the windows open upstairs and down and I kept the 2 balls for a couple of hours but actually went around closing all the windows as I was a little bit nervous. Hubby went over to them when he came back and had words but water of a ducks back.
Maybe we could follow to see where they live but I'm not sure, would that be dodgy?

Would really love a dog - an alsation maybe, but working all week wouldnt be fair.

Chris said:

I would also suggest talking to the parents before taking any other action. It costs nothing and the problem could be solved within minutes.
If that doesn't work, try the car grease, that should keep them away, as it is quite messy stuff. Otherwise, consider a dog and train him/her to love to chew footballs ;-)

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If the chat with the parents doesn't work would recommend having a word with the community garda before the other options.

Would definitely not recommend a dog as he/she would be alone Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. which would be very unfair and lonely.

Talk to the community gard about the damage that this is causing to the garden and people in it.

If you have spent money on buying fences and plants (not cheap I'm sure) which are getting damaged and there have been instances of people being struck by flying balls coming over the fence, then this is a bit more than a ball bouncing into the garden now and again.

I think the key to this is to impress upon the young people themselves that its not acceptable to play soccer in a way that is causing damage to your garden.

I think its the wrong move to involve their parents at this stage or start an over-the-fence slanging match with the young people... which they may start to enjoy more than their game of soccer. It's common enough for parents to seem a lot less than reasonable when others make complaints about their children.

I know of a situation where petty harrassment by some young people was swiftly dealt with by a community gard who knew the youngsters involved and who let them know that their bit of fun was actually an offence. He told them it could be dealt with in a more serious way if they didn't catch themselves on and that seemed to work very well.

My understanding of it is that the Gards are keen to help before it gets more serious. You don't want to have to deal with deliberate damage, ongoing harassment or unreasonable parents, and the involvement of the Gards in an 'unofficial' capacity will make sure you're doing all you can in the right way.

I have three boys who are for the most well behaved but are no angles! if i thought that they were annoying people they would be in big trouble and i would appreciate it if the person came to us first rather than the gardi. Some parents including myself really dont know every move their children make. Kids dont always see the upset that their actions cause until they see the upset that it causes their parents

Fair play Dempster,
You clearly want your children to act as responsible individuals and are concerned to make sure that they do when you can.

However and all too often, approaches to parents have resulted in verbal abuse and threats. I know of two recent examples where approaches to the parents over the silly issues of kids coming into a garden and over-boisterous play resulted in the complainer being chased up the path followed by a stream of obscenities.

The idea of the community gard or the juvenile liaison officer in this instance would not be to single the kids out, take their names and threaten prosecution, but rather have someone in a uniform come up to the group and tell them that they have to tone their game down or move it - because its ultimately their game, not their parents.

If they're decent enough youngsters they'll get the message and hopefully games of soccer there won't cause more problems.

I actually like that idea. My father is a retired garda so maybe he could 'pull some strings'. Its more than strings pulled I want - ha ha!

I think the fact that I dont know where these boys live and that I'd feel odd and might attract more trouble if I followed them, that a casual chat from a gard might just do the trick. Maybe wishful thinking.

I've honestly tried reasoning with them and at the start was all nice and neighbourly and no probs. I never thought I'd actually be like this. I was brought up in a similar house with 3 brothers so we were always playing football or squares etc outside but we were always afraid of hitting the ball into a neighbours garden. Not the case now it seems.

I hate the idea of getting someone into trouble with their parents or worse still the gards but after 2 summers of this (new group of lads this time in fairness) I'm sick of it and as you pointed out Paulone we have spent a bit of money on it and I dont appreciate my father getting a rap on the head.

I grew up in estate and our house was in similiar position. The side of our two storey house looked out onto large green and like the thread starter the ball kept coming in over the wall.
My parents did the opposite to ye though. They would throw back the ball anytime it came in. It got annoying at times but it was never an option to confront parents or a guard for that matter. Kids are kids.
If you say no they will come back and retaliate. We all did it! Eventually they got sick of playing on the green and that was years ago. My parents still live in the estate and the younger generation never play ball there now.
Maybe an option would be to put up for a while and see if they get bored - i'd rather this than confronting parents as the parents will be living there long after the kids - just my opinion.

remey said:

Hi,

They either ring the doorbell, sometimes 5-6 times on a sat or sunday .

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x 1 month, thats alot of balls they have to buy if you dont give them back! Im sure they dont have the money to be shelling out for ~25 + balls/mth!! Id keep them, say "ball??...nooo sorry havent seen any balls around today" and see what happens!! Id get pretty conscientious if a)i had to pay for a new ball each time or b)had to go home to the parents and ask them for the money!

Thats a good one alright!!! I used to throw them back over late at night when they're gone but whats the point. I'm kind of afraid they'd scrape the car or do something nasty though. I just got a new car and sooo love it. I'd burst them and the balls if they touched it

This topic has been covered a few times before. You may get some further advice from the .

When we had this problem ourselves in the past I found it best to tread carefully because of the possibility of damage to property also.

My house is in an identical orientation to the original poster's.
Boys using my house and wall climbers as a goal. They managed to break the grill that fits over my gas outlet and thats when I let roar at them. They also hit our cars in the drive quite forcefully with the ball several time. I told them that their parents would have to pay for any broked windscreens ! Then they started using the area as a putting green, picked up several golf balls in the garden. There is a huge green right in front of my house, they can never give me an answer when I tell them that. They stopped knocking for the ball eventually and I stopped throwing it back over the wall to them. Seems to have stopped now, but God knows what Summer will bring.

A putting green?? Oh my god! Maybe the little brats arent that bad after all....

Last night the ball came rocketing over the wall and hit some ceramic plant pots. We heard it while watching tv in the front room. Husband went out to them and had a 'quiet word' told them they have been warned, they've broken some of our things and there'll be trouble if it happens again. He said they are all smart @rses and said it wasnt them. We kept the ball.
I am afraid of them damaging the cars or some other property so I dont know where to stop but then I dont want to be held ransom by these teens. (Slightly drastic I know...!)

Some interesting points on the other posts. I know kids will be kids but I would be a little bit more tolerant if there was no green And even if they were locas but it seems they're not. maybe the community gard needs to be called.