Person Seeks Advice After Neighbor Refused To Move Their Trampoline Because Of Their Nosey Children

We’ve discussed many stories people have shared online about their horrible neighbors, and they just seem to keep coming.

A woman turned to Mumsnet, a popular forum for discussion between parents of children and teenagers to ask for advice about how to handle a bad neighbor situation. Particularly, her neighbors’ nosey children.

Her neighbors installed a new trampoline that’s a bit too close for comfort to her property.

Here’s what she said:

AIBU to ask again for neighbors to move their trampoline

— Jynxed

OP Explains:

My well-being and happiness are being severely impacted by my neighbors’ noisy children. They scream, argue, shout and kick footballs at the fence all day long. They only have one volume and it’s loud. The whole family just shouts at each other.

Last year they got an enormous trampoline and positioned it right up against (their) fence bordering our garden. We are a terrace row, but each house is staggered, so our back doors are not aligned. Our back door and patio area are about a third of the way up their lawn. We were aghast when the neighbors chose to position their trampoline right in line with our back door and patio table, where I also have lots of pots and plants.

When the kids use the trampoline they stand higher than the fence and stare straight into our kitchen window, and they used to call out to us all the time until we asked them to stop. The noise and shouting make the patio unusable, and as I write this yet another ball has come flying over. I daren’t go and look as I heard something smash.

We can no longer eat or read at the table because of the noise and the risk of a ball hitting us on the head. We did ask them not to put the trampoline there and brought them around to show them how much it overshadowed our patio and removed all privacy. They declined to reposition it saying that there was nowhere else in their 80ft garden they could put it.

Given that there is nothing in their garden apart from lawn and garden toys this is blatantly untrue, so I have no idea why it cannot move a few feet away from our patio door.

What do I do now? Ask again? Beg and cry? Puncture every ball that comes over and wrecks a plant? Write a letter? Build a cage over our table to protect ourselves? How can I make them understand what they are doing to us?

For context, I do have kids myself, all teenagers now, so I do understand that children need to play. However mine were brought up not to scream and shout, and I would not have dreamt of refusing a reasonable request from neighbors such as this.

Commenters chimed in sharing similar stories, and advice on how to handle OP’s situation.

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