Can you relate?
Trampolines have become the must-have outdoor toy for many, many families with young children.
And while I applaud any play that doesn’t happen on a screen, there is no denying that things can get both loud and wild when a gang of children get on a trampoline together.
Especially loud.
A UK homeowner recently took to Mumsnet to share her unhappiness over the place her next-door neighbours have positioned the trampolines for their kids – and how the noise has pretty much ruined her summer.
In her post, the woman says the trampoline is just on the other side of the fence, near where her back door and patio are and she’s struggling with how “loud” the children are.
Writing on the forum-based parenting site, the woman says she has asked her neighbours to move the trampoline before and they’d refused.
Now she’s unsure of what to do as all the noise is making her home life miserable, so she asked fellow users if she was being unreasonable.
“My wellbeing and happiness are being severely impacted by my neighbour’s noisy children,” she writes.
“They scream, argue, shout and kick footballs at the fence all day long. They only have one volume and it’s loud. The whole family just shout at each other.”
She adds:
“Last year they got an enormous trampoline and positioned it right up against (their) fence bordering our garden. We are a terrace row, but each house is staggered, so our back doors are not aligned. Our back door and patio area is about a third of the way up their lawn.”
The woman explains she was shocked when the neighbours chose to position their trampoline right in line with her back door and patio table.
“When the kids use the trampoline they stand higher than the fence and stare straight into our kitchen window, and they used to call out to us all the time until we asked them to stop.”
‘My patio feels unusable’
She goes on to say that her patio now feels “unusable” as a result and she’s constantly worried about her plant pots being smashed.
“We can no longer eat or read at the table because of the noise and the risk of a ball hitting you on the head,” the woman continued.
“We did ask them not to put the trampoline there and brought them round to show them how much it overshadowed our patio and removed all privacy. They declined to reposition it saying that there was nowhere else in their 80ft garden they could put it.”
“Given that there is nothing in their garden apart from lawn and garden toys this is blatantly untrue, so I have no idea why it cannot move a few feet away from our patio door. What do I do now? Ask again? Beg and cry? Puncture every ball that comes over and wrecks a plant? Write a letter? Build a cage over our table to protect ourselves? How can I make them understand what they are doing to us?”
Needless to say, people had thoughts on the woman’s post – and hundreds replied to the thread on Mumsnet.
One person said: “Complain to your local council. There are actually restrictions on how close to boundaries trampolines can be placed when they imping on privacy in this manner. I know people who have gone this route and have been successful in getting them moved.”
Another one replied: “Whilst I understand your frustration I don’t think there’s anything you can do. They refused the first time you asked. And the noise is just what comes with kids.”
A third added: “I think I’d be putting a 3ft solid trellis on top of the fence and then putting something sharp on top of that… or starting a very smoky BBQ the other side of the fence every time they get on the trampoline…”
