How To Stop Annoying Neighbor Kids From Going In Your Back Yard

How to stop annoying neighbor-kids from going in your backyard. I love kids. I’ve got a couple of my own, and I don’t mind kids playing outside – my goodness, get off of the video games, the tablets and all that stuff, and the phone, and get out and get some sun, some exercise. That’s perfectly fine.

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However, I don’t really keep good care of my back yard. It’s even in some of my author bios that my overgrown backyard – it’s not very safe, and quite frankly I wouldn’t want my own kids back there because I fear for their safety. I mean, I know for a fact there are critters back there, but there are also some weeds.

There’s even Nightshade growing back there, of all things, which was used as a poison a long time ago, and the last thing I want is some kid coming around playing with those berries. Yes, I know I could take care of it, but I could also just make sure nobody goes back there in the meantime, until I can get to it.

So, a little trick that I found out that works – phenomenally well – is, you know how they have the single latch on your gate? If all you do is go to Home Depot or Lowes or whatever, and buy one more of those latches, take four screws, and put it at the very top of the fence, so now you have two latches, that alone is enough to stop any kid that’s under thirteen and adults too because they won’t be use to it. They won’t expect a latch up there.

Now, if they inspect it a little bit further, they’ll see it. For instance, I did have an early-twenties kid – I guess that’s not a kid anymore – kept coming into my backyard, and I would find cigarette butts, and corks to big wine jugs and even a burnt cushion back there on some of the outdoor furniture. It’s, like, really? Really? You’re climbing over a fence to do some of that stuff in my backyard?

And this is Texas, ok, so you can understand that the fact he’s still alive is a bit of a miracle itself. Not for me, but I had to end up putting a padlock on that secondary one, and posting no-trespassing signs, so at least he has a warning, and I did talk to him, of course, and he understood. Just thought it was weird. Just weird, man – I don’t know, something wrong with that, but the padlock was the ultimate step of going, “Hey. You’re not going on through this gate anymore.”

But try that second latch alone if you have a problem of kids that just don’t like following your rules and recommendations, and it costs maybe five bucks max and fifteen minutes of your time. It’s a piece of cake. So, there you go. I hope it works, and be nice to kids, except for the ones who figure out your latch.