Keeping an immaculate yard is a hard job. But if you have kids who like to play outside - well, it’s rather impossible. So most people usually wait till their kids grow up, move out and start to fulfill this long-awaited plan to have a perfect yard.
Unfortunately, sometimes this perfect plan is upset by entitled neighbors who have young kids. They also want to have a perfect yard, so insist that their kids go to play in the neighbors’ territory. So, how do you deal with it? Well, one person shared that he simply pretended that there was a rattlesnake around and kept searching for it, scaring them to no end.
Having your kids ruin your yard is annoying, but seeing neighbors’ kids playing in your yard while theirs looks perfect, well, that’s another level of entitlement
Image credits: Max Rahubovskiy (not the actual photo)
A person asked for advice on dealing with a neighbor who kept sending his kids to play in their yard while keeping his own immaculate
Image credits: Allan Ma (not the actual photo)
In response, a man shared his story of how he came up with a different idea after his requests for kids not to play in his yard went ignored by them and their parents
Image credits: Alexis Chateau (not the actual photo)
He invited all of his friends to come over and act like they were searching for a rattlesnake
Image credits: Chuck Andres
It caught the neighbor’s attention so the man explained that there was a snake somewhere in his yard, and after that, the neighbor’s kids kept their distance from the yard
One Quora user asked people to share advice on how to deal with an entitled neighbor who insists on telling his kids to play in their yard. Due to that, the neighbor's yard looks perfectly neat while theirs is always messed up. Well, someone replied with a truly ingenious solution and a story.
To begin with, the man shares that once his kids went off to university, he decided that it was finally time to grow grass again. He asked his neighbors’ kids to stay out of his yard, but as it turned out, the neighbors had different plans - they constantly told them to go play in the original poster's (OP's) yard.
Then he came up with a ‘revenge’ plan - he invited friends over and decided that they were going to spread out though the whole yard carrying sticks, baseball bats and long-poled fishnets. It didn’t take long till it caught the entitled neighbor’s attention and he came asking what was going on over there.
As rehearsed, the OP shared that he had seen a rattlesnake the night before, so he and his friends were trying to remove it. After a few more questions, such as if he was sure and if he had seen it that day, the man mentioned that this could be dangerous for those who have pets. So, as you can imagine, it was the end of neighbors’ kids playing in the man’s yard or even their own yard.
This story received a lot of attention, collected more than 450K views and over 11K upvotes.
Image credits: Tom Fisk (not the actual photo)
While it’s nice for parents to see their kids happy and playing in the yard, if it’s happening on a neighbor's property without their permission - well, let’s say that not everybody likes that. Boundaries are important, so if you allow or even encourage your kid to play in somebody else's yard, We Have Kids notes that you need to recognize you are teaching your kid to ignore them.
Also, no parent wants somebody else screaming at their kid, right? But sometimes, if parents fail to respect a neighbor's property, it may happen. For some people, crossing a property line is the same as crossing their personhood. It's okay to be angry that your child was yelled at, but you should have never allowed them to be in the neighbor's yard in the first place. It is deemed trespassing if you did not obtain the property owner's prior, unambiguous consent for your child to be there.
As it was visible from this situation, sometimes friendly chats with neighbors and trying to set boundaries don’t help, so Yard Blogger shared a few tips that could actually stop this from happening.
Firstly, you can physically mark your yard with plants or fences. These borders will give your yard a certain elegance while keeping the kids out. Unfortunately, there are situations where setting physical boundaries works better than setting verbal ones.
In addition, if you don't completely mind if your neighbor's children play in your yard, you can establish more detailed guidelines to maintain harmony, like no bicycles on the lawn, no tearing the grass or flowers, picking up all the toys after playing or no playing in your yard when you are not at home.
Having people walking or playing in your yard without consent is annoying and disrespectful, so sometimes speaking is not enough and it’s time to get creative. Now, have you been in a similar situation? How did you deal with it? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
People online applauded the author for this solution and shared their own suggestions
