I say get LOUD! get PROUD! go to the association. put up a sign. PRIVATE PROPERTY KEEP OUT! powder the rocks with itching powder. put up a bees nest. start keeping bees for the honey. Once that ugly truck gets parked there, call the cops tell them a truck is parked illegally in a neighborhood and is cracking the soft drive way. They will come tow it. Write down his license plate and on days he isnt in town, go to the local law enforcement and file a complaint. plant poison ivy around the deck, and porch. and thorns! I have a row of thornes going down the right of way behind my house. When anyones car drives down in the winter you can hear the screeeeeeech as it rips into the paint. HA! They ignore the DEAD END signs. they ignore the PVT prop tag on the street sign. They ran over my prize rose bushes then stole other bushes. I feel terrorized here too.

We are currently looking at other houses. This is just silly. The rich folks up the street have huge loud parties and think nothing about the smoke or fire that they are not watching. Fireworks aimed at the woods behind our house. Traffic that parks up and down the street. There are folks wandering in my yard most days and think my perfect organic garden is a free for all. I see kids sucking on fresh tomatoes as they walk by, and moms with 8 zucchini under their arms. Walkers with baskets of blackberries, and little kids with folded shirts full of strawberries. I am NOT a public park! just not! I dont want to be a public park. I dont want to stand guard in my yard all day either. I just want to enjoy what I worked and paid for without having to share it with those that think everything in life is free.

The point of my rant was that I am extremely hypersensitive due to MS. I am distrubed by the visual noise of folks constantly walking by. The audio noise of kids screaming. The physical energy it takes to clean up what they destroy. During the spring and summer months here I am a walking bundle of "GET AWAY FROM ME!" I know kids are just being kids, but its the adults that need to step up and be their own baby sitter.

It's not fair you have to be on constant alert for stuff. It gets exhausting. (and it's very invasive)

I kinda know what you are going through. I live in a townhouse and share a common wall. My next door neighbor that I share a driveway with lets her kids play basketball on her driveway. I'm afraid to park in my driveway for fear that my car will get damaged and if anyone is visiting they have to park on the street because they don't want to get their car damaged. My dog goes crazy when she hears the ball hit my garage door or the ball bouncing in the driveway. Growing up my mother never would have went for this. She would have set up the backyard for us to play ball. When I first moved into my house I didn't know the local teenagers used my backyard as a cut through. When I heard and saw them on the side of my house, I quickly put locks on the gates.

I'm sure you are not the only annoyed by this.

I think that MS makes a lot of us really sensitive to noises or most irritations. It's just too bad that people/strangers always seem to be clueless at how rude they are/or can be.

If it were me, I'd probably be planting landmines in my yard.

Our old house, some of the neighborhood kids there used our yard as a pass thru...until we got TinyMonsters! After we got our big monsterdog, suddenly the kids in the neighborhood quit going thru our gates. I dont know if it was because he weighed about 150 for his first four or five years, or if it's because Tiny was planting landmines of his own in the yard?

My DH once put up a sign for a friend (he was a signwriter), that said:

"Private Property
No Trespassing,
Survivors will be prosecuted"

Growing up I remember neighborhood kids cutting through our backyard to go to the 7-11 that was on the road behind us. Our backyard was all thick woods. I can't remember my parents ever getting upset that they used our yard. They didn't damage anything and weren't loud.

I guess times have changed alot. As kids we used to stay out from sun up to sun down and our parents didn't worry. The lady down the street would give us all Kool-Aid and PB&J sandwiches. The old man in the circle would give us rides in the little cart he pulled behind his riding lawnmower. What fun! It never occurred to any of us that any of these people would hurt us. I wish times were still like that. It'll never be like that again.

yes, but in old times you would never have dreamed of property damage, or tearing up gardens, or screaming in the windows of folks you didnt know. Throwing rocks at pets, or chasing wild life. You just wanted to get to the 7-11 and back. These kids are 5! a 5 year old has NO business in a neighbor hood they dont live in, without an adult. Either in todays times or yesterday.

When I was little (I'll be 42 tomorrow) I cut thru my neighbor's yards. Only one of them minded, and after she said something to my parents, I quit doing it.

I dont remember people being so...destructive...when I was little.

No trespassing signs: find out what is required by your locality and post them as specified. Then follow through. Reminds me of the rainy day when I found about a dozen high-schoolers smoking and drinking under our carport . . . I let the school and the police know that wasn't going to become a habit.

My biggest problem with screaming kids is that when they need those screams to alert someone to an emergency situation, no one is going to come. Just like car alarms going off all the time, after a while you just tune them out. When my daughter was growing up we would not have tolerated such noise, and if we did hear screaming we would go outside to make sure no one was being abducted or murdered. Not so much these days . . .

I actually called the local police when one neighbor handed out whistles, the kind traffic cops use, for their kids to pay with. Those things are used by lost hikers, kayakers, and others for emergencies . . . . and I object to "playful children" keeping all the neighborhood on high alert with their noise-makers. And would you believe it took more than one call before we no longer heard whistles being blasted as late at 10:30pm or as early as first sun?

my property is posted. I have a fence around the garden. I have a stone wall blocking what used to be a frequent car path across the center of my lawn. I dont mind if walkers or dog walkers or horses and the like using the right of way. I do mind teenagers in their beat up jalapies going 70 MPH across what amounts to be a walking path. I object to all of the fast food bags, beer cans, cigarette butts, and condoms that are in my lawn. I do mind that the empty cabin behind me has become a hang out to come do a quick hit of drugs, or a prostitute hang out for that "quickie" its not so busy in the summer since loads of campers and renters are here. I do mind the campground guy handing out maps that lead to the lake that CUT THRU my yard. He tells everyone its all public property out here, just set up a picnic and enjoy the lake. We have reported him to the cops many times. He is one of two still living that actually have a deeded right of way to cross the backside of my property. He drives it with his HUGE pick up truck twice a day. He also does hay rides thru my yard once a week just to show he can. I have gone to court to say not fair! its HIM personally that has that ROW, not the campground. He bribes the judges and they say he and the campground are one in the same. To be happy that such a joyful event happens at my home! OMG! So, I cant wait to leave here. I was LIED TO when I got this place. BIG LIES!

I dont want to be rude, and I dont want to be "that lady" but I have no choice if I want any tomatoes for ME. As it is, I have no grass in my yard, from all the walker who cut thru. I get no benefit from the berries that i planted, and I am going to cut them down if I dont get any this year. I go to town hall, and I have no voice. I go to the cops and I get sympathy but have no voice. I go to the folks that own the rental houses and I am told what a harsh woman I am. I go to the renters and they look at me like I am the problem. I am stopping them from enjoying their lakeside dream vacation. so...I am going to move. my nerves are shot. The visual noise and the audio noise, and the jangled nerves are just not worth it. If I had a lake front house and got to enjoy half the amenities the folks that ruin my land get I might be less grouchy, but I am just the gateway to the promised land, and no one holds any karma to keep the gateway clean. Lets dump our trash before we reach the gate.