kids & bus stops

[Wheetsin 714]

We've been in our house about 8 years. We're on a corner lot. For the entire time we've lived here, other than a few weeks during the summer, we could never get grass to grow on the side of our lot that runs parallel to the main strees. Never, even when we'd seed & seed & seed. We'd also had some weird things happen to some very pricey landscaping we had done. Various things would be vandalized to various degrees, etc. Our stuff never manages to stay nice for very long, even though we keep an eye out after work and very rarely saw anything happen.

This morning I happened to be in our home office which shares a wall to that side of our lot and... yeap, we're apparently the neighborhood's bus stop. So when I look out the window, what do I see? Kids "balancing" on our brick/concrete landscaping, kicking at the bricks, drawing on them, etc. Kids throwing the river rock from our landscaping out into your yard (one of these flew up and cut my husband pretty well while he was mowing last year)... instead of gathering on the sidewalk they're spread all over that half of our yard, like not a single one of them is on the sidewalk. They're pulling the flowers off my pansies and throwing them at each other. Etc... AND four cars had pulled into my driveway (apparently that's the laziness we've reached, you drive your kid to the bus stop and then park in someone's driveway until the bus leaves)... and about 4 parents also standing in my yard watching all of this happen.

I'm so pissed right now. I'm tempted to call the school district, but I doubt they would do anything. When thigns first started happening to our yard we put up the stake/string barries with "please keep off the grass" signs, then would come home to find them trampled. And apparently parents are watching this happen. And then blocking me in my house. F***ers.

[Pix 4]

Hun, call the school and tell them that if they don't let the kids know that it is unacceptable you will start calling the police for trespass and vandalizing. Give the school and parents a chance to correct it, if it still continues well then, become their worst nightmare. I would. But then again I am mean like that.

[losingjusme 12]

ok, i can understand (not like it but understand) the kids being little shits.

but for adults to sit there and watch it, hell no.

i, too, would call the district. if they dont fix it (move the stop up a block or something) then i honestly do not know what i'd do for fear of really crappy retribution.

[Marimaru 7]

I think I would call the school district, and at least once I would go out and say something to the idiots that were parking in my drive way. After that, like someone else said, I'd start calling the cops. Every. Single. Day. until it stopped. If the cops coming by a few times didn't curb the behavior, I'd start pressing charges. When someone under 18 gets a ticket, their parents have to pay it, and that can be a motivator for some discipline.

[babygrl1234 6]

DO you have a shot gun? Just go sit on your porch with it glaring menacingly at people.

[miztrniceguy 1]

dont sit on the porch...put a rocker on the sidewalk and sit in it with a shotgun...or in your driveway

[Blund 0]

Take pictures and/or video, call the school, call the cops. I don't know your neighborhood, but I've lived in the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes the retrobution is not worth it. If the little shits are behaving that way AND doing in front of adults, chances are they aren't being "parented" in the first place!

We moved away from a place where the "gang bangers" kids were riding the bus with our kids! Yikes!

[*susan* 1,709]

I like the shotgun idea too. I would call the school district as well. And, I would probably park my cars in my driveway in a way that makes it to where no one else can park there. Lastly, I would make a point of being out in my yard every morning and jumping anyones ass that vandalized it until they got the point that I am not going to put up with it.

[want_so_bad 0]

spike strip/nails in the driveway...just remember to pick them up before you drive on them!

Water your "lawn" in the morning. do you have automatic sprinkler system? set it for that time...even if you are watering dirt! even better...water it by hand/with the hose...spray anyone who is on your property "by accident"...oops didnt see you there where you shouldnt be....

be a dear and bake some Cookies and take them out to all of the little asses...make them special Cookies w/ lots and lots of exlax or something...omg, wouldnt that be funny..poor bus driver/parents/school....

[want_so_bad 0]

you could go racing out every morning shouting "Jesus love you", "choose the right path and all will be forgive" or something extra over the top like that. you know, be the CRAZY religious nut job wanting to save everyone... i remember as a kid there was an older couple that anytime they could catch one of us would go into a huge religious speach and try to make us pray w/ them.... can you say creepy?? we did our best to stay away from their house! you could make up little flyers or something to hand to them all standin in your yard...wouldnt that be fun/funny?

or go the other way and promote the dark side...???

[Wheetsin 714]

I typed a bog long response to this, then accidentally clicked "back" on my mouse instead of the button to submit *sigh*

Long story short, I involved the school district about 10 seconds after submitting my msg yesterday. On the outside you wouldn't expect our neighborhood to have crime, we're a mid-class subdivision on city outskirts. But the kids here (obvous outside of this incident) are under-parented. And my husband and I in particular have had problems before. Our neighborhood is saturated with patrons of a near-by mega warehouse type church, I need say no more. (see this post for an example of what we deal with). We were the only ones who didn't have a "Bush" sign in our yard... and got comments on that too... and didn't fly a flag after 9.11... got lots of comments on that one... and refused to sign a petition designed to prevent section 8 housing from being put up within 3 miles of our neighborhood... and had repercussions from that too... etc. etc. nuff said. Our neighborhood pretty much hates us already. :thumbup:

[Shalee04 7]

Having the sprinklers come on, and the spray hitting the top of the fence might keep them off of it...

[annabella 7]

I see this often. Iam 2 houses away from the where the bus picks up. When my youngest now in middle school first started K I was shocked to see that I was the ONLY parent to walk to the stop everyday. I found myself yelling and discipling kids that were acting up, playing in the road, etc. After the 3rd grade I made it clear by writing a letter in our local paper that I was no longer the bus stop baby sitter. For the next couple yrs I would stand in our driveway and when we saw the bus my son would walk the 2 houses and get on. This way we totally avoided the stop and my responsibilities for the other kids' actions. My schedule has now changed and I can take my son every morning to middle school but to this day when I look down at the stop there are only children. NO parents. Parents think they are safe at the stop, don't need supervision and they couldn't be more wrong. I used to yell at the kids b/c they would ring people's doorbells and then run back to the stop. One man came out and yelled at me. I said hey look, he's not mine! I filed many complaints with the bus garage and school. The letter in the paper did help. I think I made parents feel dumb. Elementary and even middle school kids need supervision! I feel for you. I would say something to the kids every morning and file complaints everyday with the bus garage, school and police station. Something will get done b/c they'll get sick of dealing with it.

Good luck

[snuffy65 1]

Having the sprinklers come on, and the spray hitting the top of the fence might keep them off of it...

I was thinking the same thing. The kids would probably laugh but I'm sure the parents would care when their wet children gets into their new cars.

[Scarlett O'hara 0]

you could go racing out every morning shouting "Jesus love you", "choose the right path and all will be forgive" or something extra over the top like that. you know, be the CRAZY religious nut job wanting to save everyone... i remember as a kid there was an older couple that anytime they could catch one of us would go into a huge religious speach and try to make us pray w/ them.... can you say creepy?? we did our best to stay away from their house! you could make up little flyers or something to hand to them all standin in your yard...wouldnt that be fun/funny?

or go the other way and promote the dark side...???

Wait a minute...so the crazy lady on the corner when I was a kid was NOT crazy?? Just keeping us off her property? What a hoot!