A single mum of two has been left feeling anxious and intimidated by her neighbours over her kids playing in the garden.
While you can choose your home, you sadly, can't choose your neighbours. One woman has taken to parenting forum Mumsnet to seek advice after she received rude messages from her neighbours who are fuming as they can hear the kids play football in their own garden.
She explained on Mumsnet: "My neighbours have sent me a couple of very unpleasant text messages telling me to stop my boys playing football in our garden as they don’t want to hear it.
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"I don’t know what to do. I’m feeling really anxious to be honest. They’ve never raised it as a concern before the messages, and the tone was intimidating.
"I replied to the first one suggesting we reach an agreement where we can all enjoy our gardens, and this was responded to by them telling - not asking - me to send them to the park down the road. Those were their words - telling not asking. They’re in their early 50's. Boys are 11 and 15. We have a decent sized garden.
"I’m a single parent so feel I’m an easy target."
She added: "They talked about the sound of the ball bouncing. The boys do make a noise too to be fair, they’re calling to each other like you do when you play.
"It was about 7pm on a Sunday when the message arrived. They’d been out there for half an hour. That was the only time that day they’d been outside. We’d been out all day.
"For context they spend every other weekend at their dad's house and half the school holidays. Do I have any options other than moving house?!"
The post quickly gained nearly 300 comments with hundreds of people offering advice and their two-cents. Some told her to stand her ground, while others sided with the neighbours.
"Moving is a bit dramatic, send them to the park", one replied.
A second said: "Send them to the park. That's why parks exist in residential areas."
Another agreed and hit back: "Your 15 year-old is probably too big and noisy to play in your garden. I send mine to the park. It's not safe having him play with a ball in our garden!!"
"Honestly, the sound of a ball repeatedly bouncing is incredibly annoying. I have a neighbour (adult not child) who shoots netball goals every day and it’s driving me up the wall. I won’t say anything as she’s not doing anything wrong per se, but it is really grating, so I do sympathise with your neighbours", a third piped up.
But many agreed the mum was being reasonable and her neighbours were being unreasonable.
"If they want dead silence at the weekend, they can move to the countryside. Live next door to somebody and you will hear them in their garden, that is part of normal life", said a Mumsnet user.
Another agreed that we only have a limited time of good weather in the UK: "Don't let them bully you, as long as you don't let them play to early or too late, I don't see a problem. We can only go out in the garden a few months a year."
"This sounds like your neighbours problem. As long as they aren't out there 7am in a morning or 9pm at night then let them play", a third said.
While one sympathised with the neighbours, she acknowledged how reasonable the mum was being: "I hate noise and I'm really sensitive to stuff like this, but you sound as though you've been entirely reasonable here, op, in your willingness to reach a compromise. I'd be more than happy if my neighbours were a little more like you!
"I think this borders on bullying on their part. My advice would be to not engage in this any further. You've tried and sometimes that's all you can do."
And one rallied round the mum: "I'm surprised by the responses you are getting! Why shouldn't your boys play in the garden? Really sad that you should be made to feel uncomfortable with it."
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