A couple recently moved into their new home, where things seemed peaceful at first.

But their neighbors’ three sons have been getting dangerously close to the property, throwing trash, digging in the yard, and even trying to break into the house.

Despite multiple warnings, the parents weren’t taking action, and the homeowners were left with no choice but to “teach” the kids a lesson.

Check it out.

AITA for potentially traumatizing my neighbors children after they kept coming onto my property and trying to get into my house?

Me and my now fiance have lived in this house and neighborhood for a few months now.

I have a 1 year old son myself, so I know how kids can be.

However, my neighbors have 3 children.

A 9, 12, and 14 year old. All of them are boys.

At first they weren’t too much trouble, I would just seem them running around, throwing sticks, riding scooters across the street.

But as of recently they had started getting a lot closer to my property.

This all started with the oldest one throwing various trash into our yard that my fiance would continually have to pick up.

Ah yes, boys will be boys—and apparently, part-time garbage collectors.

Then, all 3 children started digging holes in our yard, banging on the door, and I even caught them trying to “lockpick” my front door with a bobby pin.

This had happened 4 to 5 times already.

Of course, I brought this up to their mother who has done little about it.

They seem to have very little supervision and apparently CPS had already been called numerous of times because of how often they seemed to be left alone.

I warned the mother that we have 2 big dogs, whose sole purpose was to protect against intruders.

So if their sons happened to actually get into my house they would probably end up hurt.

Nothing says “neighborhood bonding” like a game of “how far can we push the homeowner before the dogs get involved.”

I did not want these little children to end up hurt of course, which was why I was warning her.

She brushed it off, saying if anything happened to her boys she would have me promptly arrested and my dogs put down.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands, to “ensure” the safety of these boys.

As expected, the oldest one and his brothers were sneaking around my yard again.

I waited until they got closer to the front door.

When the second youngest opened the door, I said a command to my dogs and they immediately ran out, barking and growling.

All the boys screamed and start yelling.

They ran and ran all the way until they got to their house, getting wet by the lawn sprinklers on the way.

I called my dogs back (they stopped at the end of the lawn like I had trained them to) and we didn’t hear much for a few days.

Guess the dogs gave them a “ruff” reminder of what happens when you ignore boundaries.

Their mother and the police came knocking at the door.

She said some stuff about how my dogs bit her children and I was a danger to the neighbors.

But I showed the security footage from my camera to the police and it pretty much died down from there.

She’s still trying to keep the case open, but I feel as if I’ve done little to no wrong.

Her boys don’t bother us anymore, and her children aren’t hurt and were never going to be.

AITA?

Sure, the kids aren’t bothering them anymore, but the homeowner wonders if they were too harsh.

Reddit thinks they weren’t.

In fact, this person thinks they didn’t really have a choice. 

This person has some good advice on what to do next.

And this person came with the jokes.

Sometimes, a little bark is all it takes to make them heel.

The mom needs to learn a lesson of her own.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.