How Do You Create Boundaries with a New Neighbor?
Over the last few weeks, we’ve watched daily as our new neighbors have been moving load after load into the house next door. It wasn’t until this last weekend that they were able to stay here permanently.
It’s not that I’m a bad neighbor. I am a respectful neighbor. I give my neighbors their own privacy. Of course I’m one of those neighbors you’ll never see chiming in with an “if there’s ever anything I can do…” because I’ve been there done that and found myself in the position of being taken advantage of just because I was unable to say “NO!”
For the life of me, I can’t imagine being a person that would impose on people and recruit them into my own personal unpaid slave! There are many people like me out here who don’t like to say “no” and will feel guilt ridden for days if I do – so rather then being THAT person, I have become the anti-social neighbor. People need to remember people like me before imposing. And that’s exactly what it is in most cases, an imposition.
Regardless, our new neighbors have four kids. The oldest child is comparable to our kids age. It’s an obvious fit that they would want to hang out together – I don’t have a problem with that. BUT the big problem is, they have two little ones and one that’s a few years younger then our own that seem to find their way over to our property allot.
Our kids have been gone this long weekend and while enjoying our early morning coffee, our dogs started throwing a horrible fit. Upon investigation, we see two kids parading around in our garden, wading through our field of pumpkin vines and proceeding into our yard, looking in our barn windows and checking everything out.
I didn’t feel comfortable with that one bit. First, those pumpkins are a form of our income. We sell them at a Fall Festival and we don’t let our own kids walk around in the garden.
There have been a few times where we’ve come home to find the smaller kids hanging out in the barn where we keep some of our animals. While I don’t want to sound like an over paranoid person, I don’t like our chickens being handled, especially when we aren’t around.
We’ve just found out the neighbor kids have reptile pets. The concern I have is Salmonella – reptiles carry it and I certainly don’t want it to make it’s way to the eggs we eat.
I’ve thought about composing a nice “Welcome to the Neighborhood, These Are Our Rules” type letter and delivering it with a nice welcome basket of some sort. But then again, I don’t want to seem rude.
However, isn’t it rude that parents wouldn’t keep an eye on their kids and teach their kids how to be respectful of other peoples property and space?
Advice? Anyone?
Shy of calling on SuperNanny Jo Jo to come visit and set the neighbors straight, I wasn’t sure what else I could/should do to put a stop to the bad habits of our neighbors before they get too far out of control.
Tags: neighbors, kids, teens, tweens, neighbor problem
I think that the basket and the “welcome to the neighbourhood – these are our rules ” thing is fine. But have the courtesy to do it face to face, not in a letter.
Think about it – if it were YOUR kids going into the new neighbour’s backyard and messing around with their stuff, and the neighbours came and calmly told you what was happening and that they’re not comfortable with it… you’d apologise for the imposition and then thank them for being honest.
How are you supposed to give your kids boundaries if no-one tells you what’s going on? It’s just information: please don’t go into our chook-house. Please don’t walk on our vegie patch. That’s pretty straightforward to my mind.
I would tell the children to play in their own yard(s) nicely, but firmly. I have this same problem in my neighborhood. The children don’t even ask permission to play football, soccer, softball on our lot–they just do it. I am almost ready to confront the parents as to why they are not watching their children, why we are the children’s babysitters when we are not the parents, and why they have not taught their children neighbor boundaries and respecting other people’s property. The neighbor shouldn’t have to go to the parents of these children. They should be taught not to do this by their parents. I hear ya on this one–we can’t have fences and people, even adults, cut through our yard all day.