Hi all. I am not a Gran as such but I always linger on Gransnet and decided to join a few weeks back but not had a chance to post anything. I just want to ask if any of you think I am being unreasonable here because sometimes I feel like I am being nasty so please do be honest.
We have neighbours in front of us as well as next to us with children and I am thankful that they play with my child as well, who is 5. Absolutely fine with that. At first it was only 1 neighbour coming over to play, then they asked if it was OK if so and so come I said OK, and now all of them are coming into the garden without even asking. I know I told them it was fine but I did ask them not to stamp on my plants and veg, but unfortunately they did. I don't think it was intentional but, there you go.
Another issue is that they are constantly knocking on my back door, complaining about x, y and asking for ice cream, food, drinks. Every day I'm dishing out ice lollies, drinks, and I'm getting a bit tired of it now. They probably think, oh let's go there because she'll give us ice creams and let us play! But I had enough now. Every day after work I have to deal with it and I am sick of it. I can't sit down and have a cup of tea without them knocking on my bloody door. My husband is getting peed off because he's had a long day at work and travelling, he just wants to chill out.
When I call my child in because it is food time, bath and bed, they're all still outside in my garden playing despite me telling them to go home. We went away for a few days a while back and when I got home, my garden was such a mess it took ages to clean it. They also keep crossing over my garden to go into the neighbours next to mine, and then they knock on my door again saying can X come across? I'm like.. Well you're in my garden now so what difference does it make if I said no! They play in the garden even when my son is not playing outside because he wanted to stay in, and they knock on my door asking to use the toilet.
All I want to do, especially when it is sunny weather, is to sit out in my garden in peace but it never happens because they just help themselves over and if I tell them no, I worry the neighbours will think badly of me and think I'm a right cow.
We only bought our house just under 2 years ago and my husband is now getting fed up and stressed and saying if it carries on we need to put our house on the market and move elsewhere which I do not want because we spent so much money doing our house up.
How can I kindly tell them? Issue is they do not listen. I told one of them to stop climbing on top of my wooden fence, but she carried on and my hanging plant fell on the ground.
I just want peace and quiet! And I don't want to have to sell our house and move over this. I could talk to the parents, yes, but they might think I'm being horrid and say that I'm calling their children ferel