Imagine owning a home in a neighborhood where there are quite a few teenagers who like to play in front of your house. They kick a ball around, eat snacks, leave their trash behind, and make a lot of noise. Would you figure it’s just kids being kids and think nothing of it, or would you desperately want them to leave?

In this story, one homeowner is in this situation, and he doesn’t understand why the kids are playing in front of his house instead of one of their own houses. He doesn’t want to be rude, but he also wants the kids to move their game somewhere else.

Keep reading for his full dilemma.

WIBTA for telling the neighborhood kids to play somewhere else?

There’s a few kids, maybe 5 in total, in my neighborhood that always play in front of my house for some reason. They’re maybe 14 years old.

It’s been going on for the past 2 years where I started to notice them hanging out in front of my house all the time.

They like to ride their bikes, toss around a baseball, or play touch football in the street.

The teens need to stay off OP’s property.

The issue that I have though is that, quite frankly, they’re just annoying.

They used to jump all over my hedges when they chase each other around.

I’ve approached them about this once and asked them “please guys, just don’t be jumping over this.” To which they replied “ok.”

Fair enough. Until they keep doing it. To which I approached them another day and said “guys…” and immediately they respond “sorry.” and keep playing.

Then there’s the trash.

Other times they leave trash (bags of chips, water bottles) in my front lawn for, yes, me to find and pretty much clean up.

To which I picked up 2 water bottles and approached them with them again, and said “I don’t appreciate this. Clean up after yourselves.”

To which they said, again, “Sorry.” and just continued to hang out and do what they do.

He’s thinking about asking them to play somewhere else.

They’re generally loud even into the night, playing football in front of my (and my other neighbors’) lawns.

WIBTA to ask them “Could you guys kindly take it somewhere else? Tbh I don’t feel comfortable with you guys in front of my house all the time.”

I get that I come off as a “get off my lawn” guy, and I was a kid at some point doing what they do too.

It does sound annoying.

But quite frankly, it gets annoying that they keep diving onto my lawn 5 feet from my window where I hear them yelling all the time.

I can sometimes hear balls being tossed against my garage door or up against my car.

Also, these guys are teenagers. I really don’t want to approach these people’s parents. I would expect that they know better to just be respectful of other people’s homes.

I honestly don’t even know why they don’t just play in front of one of the other kids’ houses, probably 6-7 houses down from mine.

Sure, kids find it annoying when adults grumpily tell them to get off their lawn, but then those kids grow up and understand. The teens are being disrespectful. They need to leave.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

This person thinks it would be different if the teens were respectful.

Another person agrees that the teens need to leave.

This would be a bold way of handling it!

This person thinks he’s too nice.

If he doesn’t want to tell the teens to leave and doesn’t want to deal with it by talking to their parents, his only other real option would be to put up a fence. That would keep the kids off his property. He could also install security cameras. Basically, force them to stay out.

Or, he could try telling them to leave.

The reason they keep playing in front of his house is because he’s too nice to tell them to leave.