Imagine living in a neighborhood where there are lots of families, but you don’t have kids. If some of the neighbor kids knocked on your door to ask a favor and kept coming over day after day, would you be happy to entertain them, or would you want them to leave you alone?

In this story, one couple is in this exact situation. They feel bad shooing the neighbor kids away, but they also want to be left alone. They’re not sure what to do.

Let’s read all about it.

AITAH for not wanting to hang out or entertain the neighborhood kids?

My husband (27M) and I (27F) have been living in our house with our 2 dogs and 2 cats for a little over a year. The street is pretty quiet, some families, nothing unusual.

In the last few weeks as the weather has warmed up, two kids (maybe 9 and 5?) have been coming to our house and our neighbors’ houses.

The first time, they rang our doorbell three times (it jammed, but not really a huge deal) and asked for: a stylus to play games on their phone with, a tissue, and a pen.

I answered the door the first time, gave them a tissue and pen since we didn’t have a stylus, and thought that would be sufficient.

It wasn’t just a one time thing.

Now, they keep coming to my house.

Honestly, I’m not super great with kids and when I come home from work, I just want to relax and play The Sims on the couch.

These two kiddos don’t seem to take ‘no’ for an answer?

The younger of the two comes up onto our porch and samples the birdseed. When they knock on the door, and I don’t answer, they come over and peer into our front windows.

The kids always seem to be around.

My husband has tried to gently explain that sometimes adults don’t want to have to answer the door 4+ times in one evening.

The knocking freaks out the dogs.

They hang out on our neighbors’ porch and ride their bikes into our neighbors’ back garage.

One night, our neighbor asked us if we had any ‘chores’ the kids could do to earn some money (presumably for a stylus for games), but I don’t feel super comfortable with kids that young doing stuff around my house without direct supervision.

Where are the parents?

I can’t go outside or do yardwork without them seeing me and coming over.

However, with all this, I feel kinda bad that

1. I have no idea where the parents of these kids are

2. they seem nice enough, they’re just typical kids – when I was coming home one afternoon, the older girl saw me, and kinda cornered me into my porch and asked me ‘what’s your favorite thing to do?’, y’know, like kids do.

AITA for not wanting to hang out with them?

They need to track down the kids’ parents and talk to them. It’s not okay for the kids to be wandering around the neighborhood by themselves knocking on doors.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person suggests ignoring the kids.

Here’s a vote for talking to the parents.

Here’s a similar thought.

One person shares how they entertained themselves as a child.

Just because your neighbors have kids doesn’t mean you have to babysit.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.