Our Neighbors Don’t Watch Their Child
For the past seven months after moving into my new house with my daughter and dogs, the neighbors’ 16-year-old child, who has pretty severe Down Syndrome, has increasingly been entering my property and home. At first I just talked to the neighbors and they were really sorry and vowed to monitor her more while she’s in their backyard.
However, after a few months they just genuinely do not care anymore and brush it off. But it took a turn for the worse. I’ve installed security cameras in the backyard and front yard purely for my own safety insurance-wise because we do have a pool. She will climb the fence into my yard with a ladder from their shed and let my dogs out.
I’ve fixed her letting my dogs “free,” as she says, by using chains and padlocks on the two gates. Before this became a common occurrence, she even would let the dogs out of the house and then “free” them.
Numerous times if my garage door is open, she will leave their backyard and just walk into my house to “free” my dogs. I don’t know what the purpose is other than it’s something she just has to do for whatever reason.
When she climbs into the backyard (sometimes when I’m not even home) and she cannot get back out, she begins screaming and crying and just shuts down. Before I started chaining and locking my gates because of her releasing my dogs, her parents would just walk in and get her and leave. Now since I’ve chained it, they took it up a notch.
They start a huge fit about me having her locked in my backyard and they have to climb the fence, bring the ladder over and carry her back over. Somehow this is my fault. Now I’m not really blaming her because she mentally doesn’t know any better.
Still, she’s lucky my dogs are super nice. I just honestly worry about her safety in the backyard, climbing fences and her seemingly not being watched as she needs to be.
I have a pool and if she falls in when I’m not home she could very well drown. That’s why I installed security cameras to cover my own butt if that ever happens. I truly hope it never does but it seems her parents just put her in the backyard and that’s it.
I’ve called the local child and family services office (CPS) several times in the past two months to report it because I feel she is at risk with her parents inattentiveness and their seemingly not caring attitude of her just going into people’s yards, garages, houses etc.
I have a full garage of power tools, table saws, etc. that I’ve now had to resort to flipping the breaker off when I open the doors out of fear she may severely injure herself. I feel like I’ve done everything I can, talked to the parents numerous times, called child and family services, installed cameras, locked my gates further.
I just have no idea what to do now? I’ve debated calling the authorities when she enters but I don’t know how that will escalate. Story credit: Reddit / Poksooooso28