CF couple let neighborhood kids play with their basketball hoop; BAD IDEA

From an etiquette advice column;


"My husband & I have no children, but have a basketball hoop on our garage. Last summer we agreed when the neighborhood kids asked if they could use it. We thought exercise was good. Our bad. They are over by 8am most Saturday's and Sunday's, and play for hours. Our dogs go nuts & so do we. We like them & their parents. We decided to take the rim down & discovered that the previous owners had painted around the backboard. Not wanting to cause unease with our neighbor's we've decided that we're stuck with repainting the entire house or living with the racket. Is there any other option? Also, are we wrong to be cross that their parent's are letting their kid's take advantage of our offer?"


Answer:
Dear Susan,
Your question made me laugh out loud. You all are too
sweet. YES,there are other options!

A) Now that the rim is down,make a present of it to
the other family. "Perhaps you'd enjoy having it over
at your house!"

Renegotiate the terms of use with the parents. "We
love that the children are getting good use out of the
hoop,it's nice to see them having so much fun. We're
finding though that eight a.m. is a little early for
us. Can we get the kids to hold off until ____ and keep
the games to ____ minutes or so?"

If the neighbors are as kind as you two,they will 'get
it' and apologize for having the kids abuse the privilege.
Being parents,they are used to noise and chaos and likely
don't realize how nerve shattering the kids' ball play has
become.

So,deep breath...don't be mad,don't repaint the house.
Give them the information as politely as you can and see
if they won't rectify things for you."

I can't imagine in my wildest delirium allowing the kids in my neighborhood to play with anything on my property. They all have their own yards so fucked up that I hate to live here. Our entire property is fenced, and the easement behind our fence has been blocked off with sticker bushes and large rocks. The used to ride their bikes back there. It's our property, but there has to be a 5 foot easement between fences.

Kids are so damned egocentric and their parunts are so glad to have them out of the house that they don't give a good damn about what they're doing as long as it's not at their house.

This seems rather petty to me. Whoever asked this question should have been able to figure it out by themselves. "OMGWTFBBQ! Do I have to paint my WHOLE HOUSE??!!??!11" Yeash. You don't have to take your NEXT BREATH if you don't WANT to. Talk about telling the BREEDERS to grow a spine... Sometimes a basketball hoop is JUST A BASKETBALL HOOP. Deal with the situation YOU created and move on.

Sound familiar?

Fencing my small yard was the best investment I ever made. Add to that the prickly hawthorn bushes I planted along the front, two wandering dogs, and NO kid is tempted to come wandering into my yard, thank Dog. I like the advice of giving away the backboard, and as to painting...well, did it occur to them to just paint the small area covered by the basketball backboard? So it stands out a bit or isn't a perfect match. Who cares? It'll fade out and look fine in a season or two. Honestly, why are people so helpless? (rolls eyes).

The advice to ask the kids to come over later is useless. You just have to pitch the hoop and be done with it.

Simple solution. They only need to repaint the backboard -- perhaps they might consider a design like a cheerful clown's face and next to it a jolly phrase in colourful letters: "Come Play With Uncle Billy's Pedophile Ring".

See if any of the neighbourhood urchins ever bother them again.

- - - - - - - -
"The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway"
- Cyril Connolly

I like your idea, Amethyst! Seriously, throw the hoop out and forget about it. Not in my wildest nightmares would I agree to let any kids come onto my property.

WTF is the problem?

Take the rim down and paint the damned house. If the breeders or the brats give you grief, remind them that it is your house and you will do with it as you please.

Do not give a breeder an inch--they will take 10,000 miles.

I think these are either very young CF who are naive' to the fact that you can NEVER give neighborhood kids an inch, or they are childLESS and don't want to make enemies for when THEY breed and their kids start terrorizing the neighborhood. I would have never signed the closing papers until that realtor had that shit removed and painted to match. Since they are "stuck", I'd go on and take the whole damned thing down and paint, it's WORTH the expense. I would NEVER give anyone the rim or backboard because it will likely end up at the next door neighbors and the noise will continue.

They could always say, "My insurance man dropped by yesterday and jumped ALL OVER us. It seems our homeowner's policy doesn't cover this....sorry". They need to put a stop to this NOW and in any way they can. Being nice will NOT work.

I like that. "If someone got hurt we'd be in trouble." Simple, realistic, truthful.

CFBitchfromLA Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WTF is the problem?
>
> Take the rim down and paint the damned house. If
> the breeders or the brats give you grief, remind
> them that it is your house and you will do with it
> as you please.
>
> Do not give a breeder an inch--they will take
> 10,000 miles.

I have made it crystal clear that children do not belong on our property- there's all kinds of shit in the garage they can hurt themselves on/steal and they few times they have tried to play on our fairly spacious coner lot I've gone out there and ordered them to go home. I'm so nasty about it the parents don't even approach me. I can't believe these idiots repainted the house. that would be IT for me - take down the hoop, throw it away and fix the house.

Rose Red said:

"I have made it crystal clear that children do not belong on our property- there's all kinds of shit in the garage they can hurt themselves on/steal and they few times they have tried to play on our fairly spacious coner lot I've gone out there and ordered them to go home. I'm so nasty about it the parents don't even approach me. I can't believe these idiots repainted the house. that would be IT for me"


I'm the exact same way. There are really only 2 of my neighbors worth knowing. One has grown children and the other is CF. The rest of them are welfare scum breeders or illegals. The second I see a kid near my property I tell them to move on very firmly. I don't want the little bastards getting hurt climbing on my fence. Not because I give a damn if they get hurt trespassing on my property, but because the welfare leeches around here would love to sue the pants off of me. They all live for those "settlements."

The people in the post are childless, not child free! Otherwise they wouldn't be pandering to the neighborhood children.

All they had to do was paint a picture encompasing the backboard space on the side of the house.
A mural, whatever.
You cannot let kids play on your property anymore. Even somebody elses sprog visiting your own.