My neighbours just had a row today.
I don’t like it.
Things like that always made me feel anxious — especially when I was caught in between the parties in dispute. Well… not exactly caught in the middle, but was in an extremely close proximity, and definitely wasn’t a comfortable distance from where it happened.
Ah… there’s unfortunately no shortcut to tell this story, so bear with me while I am telling you the background of the story. I will keep it very brief.
I have a very dear neighbour, she is a 80-something year old lady who was a friend of my husband’s late mother. Last year her son died because of medical negligence, and only won the case few weeks ago — yes you can even find the story on the newspaper. In the memory of his son, she planted a beautiful rose bush — understandably she is very particular about that flower bush.
Now, I live in a complex, where we shared communal garden. Even though there is a sign “no ball games”, the sign was only put in a certain area. Two areas that is not covered by that sign was in our back garden (mine and this lady’s), and the neighbouring block’s back garden — where their residences’s kids often plat football games there.
To be honest, there’s nothing wrong with children playing outside. It is good, considering there are a lot of kids whose worlds were only their room and their tv or computer. It is refreshing to see kids being active. But these kids are more than active. They’re slightly… well…
When the summer holiday started, and they were out with their ball, my husband has told them to be careful where they’re kicking. When I came back from Indonesia two weeks ago, two of my tomato pots was broken. My neighbour reported to me that she has reminded them as well, but only two days ago I found my courgette plant was half snapped.
And look… whose ball was found next to it?
The ball has hit my neighbour’s windows and front door several times already at that time — which really worried and annoyed her. But the last straw was today when the ball hit the rose bush. THE rose bush.
My neighbour took away the ball, and the kid’s dad went to her. She refused to give the ball back without giving the father a long speech about respect for other people’s property, etc. The father started yelling at her, and then started to swear as well. I mean… seriously, yelling at a 80 year old lady over a ball?
I am not a kind of person who complains about my tomatoes or my courgette — although both my husband and my neighbour told me to file a complain about it, because direct confrontation often set off my anxiety. But I do feel that the father being angry to us while his kid was the one being unruly? Really?
Do you have neighbour from hell like this one?
x ❤ x
Youch. That sounds horrendous – and your poor plants! I hope you neighbour is better now her son’s there. Some parents don’t take responsibility for their kids. Making the kids apologise would have been a better course of action.
I second the puncture idea. That should sort it…. 🙂
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My husband just had a talk with the father, a very civil conversation. He offered to buy us fencing to protect the pots, which my husband politely refused. But he said that as long as there’s no rule for no ball game, his child will play ball there, but if they do it carelessly he is open for us to come to his place to let him know — so he could ground his child.
I think for now it is okay 🙂 No need for destroying the ball for now 🙂
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That sounds promising 🙂 glad its getting sorted x
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Oh yes, we have a neighbour like that. It came to blows one time and my mother was injured. Very nasty person, but you can’t let bullies win. So sorry to read your story.
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Oh no 😦 sorry to hear about what happened to your mum. That’s why I was worried about my neighbour as she is very old. Luckily yesterday one of her sons came and stayed at her for awhile.
And I agree, we shouldn’t let the bullies win. But I seriously dreaded confrontation with people like those. They don’t think of consequences — bodily harm, jail term, etc — the way we do. So, for now we are just compiling evidence, so that we can file a formal complaint. Hopefully that works better than direct confrontation.
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Good luck with the complaint. I’d love to hear a follow up if you have the time and energy and desire to blog at that point.
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Kids are now behaving, so we don’t have anything to complain (or material for evidence). But my husband had a talk with the father, so hopefully everything will be under control 🙂
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That’s awesome. I think it takes courage to talk with a neighbor about their kids and/or any conflict. I’m glad all is going well!
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I’m sorry to hear you and your neighbor are suffering–conflict sucks!
I wonder if there’s any solution for both groups? Could someone put a fence up so the plants are protected or would that take away from the beauty? Do the kids essentially just need to be careful or maybe play somewhere else?
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Unfortunately it is a communal garden, so we can’t just fence everything. However, this football thing is very recent, usually these kids could play without destroying things. Only when Euro Cup started alongside summer holiday, it seems that they’re building the dream of being a professional footballer.
They could play carefully, there are more than 30 ft distance between our pots and their lawn…
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I would feel terrible if I ruined something of my neighbors, What is wrong with some people…sigh…
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I know, laura! When I was a child, if I accidentally broke someone else’s property I would be so terrified because I know mum would give me a huge telling off — not to the neighbour for having a rosebush. These people, you can’t really understand 😦
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We don’t have neighbors like that. We live on a little dead end street. There are only 6 houses on our block and it’s always been a very nice neighborhood. I do feel for you though. But for that Dad to yell at someone like that is just rude. Like I tell my husband all the time, Some people think that they are exempt from the rules, above the law, more special than someone else and usually they are the really rude people. So sorry you have to live near that.
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Ooh.. you’re lucky 🙂 It is horrible knowing that we have to share our community with that kind of people. Unfortunately, where we live is like a flat complex so our block’s communal garden is just next to theirs.
But we’ll survive 🙂
And thank you for your support ❤ ❤
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Seems like they tend to leave the ball around quite a bit.. Would be such a shame if it somehow became very punctured. Flat, even. Such a shame(!)
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Lol Lauren! My coffee almost found its way up to my nose when I read your comment… yes indeed… it would be a shame XD
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