Pranks seem harmless at first, but can get really annoying over time.

What would you do if kids kept knocking on your door and running away, even after you asked politely and spoke to their parents? Would you wait for them to get bored on their own terms? Or would you take matters into your own hands?

In the following story, one homeowner finds himself in this situation and creates a plan. Here’s what happened.

AITA for throwing water on a kid who kept doing Ding Dong ditch

Due to job opportunities, we recently moved to a new neighborhood.

While most things were going fairly smoothly, around 4 pm, we’d hear a couple of knocks on our door, and when we went to see who it was, to our surprise, there wasn’t anybody there.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that we thought there could be the possibility of someone doing Ding-Dong Ditch. We just never thought of it, as everyone here seemed really relaxed, so Ding-Dong Ditch never crossed our minds.

He found the whole thing very annoying.

Not to resort to any extreme measures, we put up a sign near the door saying, “Please do not trouble the people inside by doing these silly pranks,” which didn’t work.

Since it didn’t work, we resorted to asking people about it, but all I got was that it was some sort of tradition for kids in the neighborhood to do this to the new people in the area.

This kind of irked me because Ding-Dong Ditch is really annoying. So, I set up a camera inside our house to capture who was outside our door.

After a bit of research, he found the culprit.

After reviewing the footage multiple times, I was able to confirm it was some brat who was a couple of metres away.

I went to speak to his parents, but they laughed it off, saying, “Kids will be kids.” So, I decided that I’d do something about it.

After 3 days, the kid came back, but I was hiding behind an unlocked door with a large water bucket.

Then, he got into place.

As soon as he knocked and turned, I opened the door and splashed him with water.

I thought that was that, but the kids’ parents came not even 10 mins later, demanding to know why I soaked their kid in water.

I tried to justify my reasoning, but to no avail.

AITA?

Wow! The kid definitely should’ve known better.

Let’s see how the fine folks over at Reddit feel about the game.

These are actually good questions.

Here’s a reader who doesn’t see anything wrong with it.

For this person, it wasn’t right, but it was deserved.

Hey! He tried to resolve it peacefully, but that didn’t work.

They deserved this.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.