'A little kid keeps coming into my house. AITA for how I reacted?' MAJOR UPDATE

"A little kid keeps coming into my house. AITA for how I reacted?"

I live out in the country, near a big main road and on a county road. I’m the closest property to the main road, but as you continue down, I have a couple of neighbors.

We live on 40 acres and have a little farmhouse, where I live with my husband and dogs, along with some farm animals outside. I do not have kids. We live a calm and peaceful life—however, there have now been two occasions on which a young child that lives a third of a mile down the road has come into our house uninvited.

The first time, I was home alone and had just showered, doing my nails and watching a show in my makeup room. Next thing I know, I see a small shadow—looked like a preschool-aged kid—open my fence gate and open my front door. I had no idea who this was and I FaceTimed my husband in case he knew who it could be, but as we checked the cameras, there were no cars or other adults around.

I was in my underwear, with my door closed and freaking out. Like I mentioned, I live out in the country, and due to my neighbors all being so far away, I had no idea who this kid was or where he came from. I put some pants on and went out into my living room, and this kid was running around my living room and kitchen, playing with my dogs without a care in the world.

I tried to get him to calm down and asked him what his name was or where his parents were—nothing. He ignored me and kept playing. After a couple of minutes, I think he got bored, and he opened my door, went out the gate, and ran out to the back of my house. I lost sight of him and kept looking toward the road in case I could figure out where he came from.

Finally, I saw a young girl approaching from the neighbors’ side of the road and she shouted at me, “Where is he!?” I told her I had no idea where he was, but that I had seen him go towards the back of my house and she could go look for him. She looked annoyed but I guess she was able to grab him at some point and took him back toward the direction of the neighbors’ house.

At that point I was honestly super upset and yelled, “Keep that kid out of my property and out of my house!” She just yelled “Sorry” over her shoulder. No one ever came back to apologize. My husband eventually went to the family to ask what had happened and was told they had been unloading groceries and the little boy had managed to run away. (How they didn’t realize this until so much later, I’m not sure.)

A year later—this little boy is now 5 or 6—I get a call from my husband while we are at work. He tells me there’s a little boy in our house and that he came in through our dog door. Immediately, I ask if it’s the same one as last time. He says he saw them on our cameras but can’t be sure. He tells me that before calling me, he already called the cops and they are on their way.

The footage shows this kid opening our closed, fenced gate and coming to our front door. Our dogs are barking at him in the yard. He attempts to open the front door, sees it’s locked, knocks, and then just stands there thinking. THEN—he crawls in through our dog door. Our dogs can go in and out of the house as they like since their fence is closed in, but I guess this kid figured he could do the same.

He comes in, opens the dog door to make sure the dogs can come in too, takes off his shoes, jumps on my couch, and plays with my dogs. After that, he turns on my TV, goes into my fridge, grabs ice pops, and eats an orange from our fruit basket. He’s in our house unsupervised for about 15 minutes until the c*ps arrive and get him out (he crawled out through the dog door).

The c*ps ask him his name and where his parents are—he tells them. They tell him he is not allowed to do this, that it is not his house. A couple of minutes later, a car pulls into my driveway—it’s the parents. The c0ps talk to them for a bit and they all leave. My husband had left work to get home, but by the time he got there everyone was gone. The c0ps basically just said it was “a kid being a kid.”

My husband then went down to the neighbors and told the parents to take care of their kid. (I was upset because he didn’t wait for me to go talk to them—he knew how upset I was.)

The dad apologized and said the boy had been grounded and snuck out through his bedroom window. Apparently, he just likes to play with my dogs. The dad told the little boy to apologize to my husband—at which point the boy SPIT at his dad.

A week later, my husband got a call from the parents asking if, by chance, this kid was in our house again because they couldn’t find him. We were both at work and didn’t see him on any of our cameras. At this point I’ve calmed down quite a bit, but as soon as I think about it I get mad again.

I think it’s insanely upsetting that I’m more aware of where this little boy is than his own parents are. Once again, he is not right next door to me—he had to be unsupervised for at least thirty minutes to make his way to my house (about a five-minute walk), be here for 15 minutes, and have the cops arrive before his parents found him.

He knows what he’s doing, the parents are aware, but no one truly takes accountability for it. The little boy says he likes to play with my dogs, but instead of playing with them in my yard, he comes into my house and makes himself at home.

I feel bad for calling the c*ps, but I truly feel like there’s a need to report this because I’m scared for my safety and that of my animals and property. If he were to leave the gate open, my dogs could run into the main road and get run over. My house is not childproofed at all. We had a flamethrower on the kitchen table the day he came in (my husband had killed a spider outside with it).

I am concerned for this little boy’s safety, but at the same time I do not want to be responsible or liable if anything were to happen to him on our property. I also want to feel safe in my own home. I don’t feel like I should have to keep my dogs in a kennel all day and close their doggy door just because there is a kid out there who is not monitored and has never been taught to respect people’s privacy.

If he snuck out through his window, I’m sure he could sneak in through one as well. There are so many “what ifs” in this situation, and maybe it’s just my anxiety, but I am definitely upset. I guess this is more of a rant, and I just hope this doesn’t happen again—because I do intend to have the cops on speed dial. But again…AITA?

The internet did not hold back one bit.

Cute_Leader3735 wrote:

OMG - I WAS FLABBERGASTED just with the title and one pic. Got to the first pass of the initial story (ew and yikes), then the next (wth), and the next (ok, wtf) Sheesh! I'm just besides myself - can't imagine this (but why am I surprised with what can happen with kids these days). Just floored the kid acts like this is his second home!

You have EVERY RIGHT to be concerned! If something happens to him on your property (HUGE PROBLEM) and if something happens to your pets/livestock home, or even you, also a HUGE problem. But I have a terrible feeling only you will be stuck held accountable for anything that goes wrong 😭and it's not your fault!

You live out in the country! For a reason. This should not be happening (obviously). I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. My daughter is shopping for a home (just the way you describe yours) and I'm putting myself (us) in your shoes.

I am grateful the cops are assisting when you call them. These people are eventually going to get a CPS call - c*ps will probably report this "wandering." Sad for the child. He must not like it at home but still this shouldn't be on you and your husband. Hoping you get some great advice and support here for dealing with this.

OP responded:

Thank you, it is insane! most people do agree with me and confirm that i am NOR. some think its a funny situation or are trying to blame me for it which is crazy but ill make sure I take some necessary steps to protect my space and also I hope the child and family get the support they need.

Although I do not think there is too much I can do in that aspect besides make the necessary reports and continue to monitor the property.

soggy-basket-7154 wrote:

Umm did I miss something in OP's post that said the child was on the spectrum? If not, people need to stop speculating. And even if he is, it is the parents' job to get this situation under control. My 6-year-old son has autism and I would NEVER allow a situation where I'm not actively aware of where he is 100% of the time.

I'm a single mother and work, plus I'm in school full time, and I have another child to care for as well. Still wouldn't allow this type of thing to happen. People are also speculating that the parents must be overwhelmed. Would it be stressful for your child to be doing this? Sure. But let's not assume they are overwhelmed and under-supported and lacking resources. It's quite possible they are just bad parents.

There are PLENTY of them out there. Plus - if they ARE unable to manage the situation for any legitimate reason, then the police probably would have come to that conclusion when speaking with the parents about how this happened, and would have provided them with the appropriate information. If the police didn't get that vibe, then it probably did not come off that way from the parents.

Still, in case it got missed and the parents do need resources for extenuating circumstances, but they are not seeking it on their own, then that's a problem for that child. Whether they are just bad/lazy/inattentive parents or DO actually need help, either way you are totally justified in calling CPS as your concern is for the child (and it's a totally valid one).

Of course your concern is also for your safety, your dog's safety, your property, etc, and keeping the child from affecting others' safety is still a valid reason for calling CPS to avoid that. I have dealt with CPS as my psycho ex wanted to get back at me years ago and called them on me for much less than this.

Although nothing came of it bc there was nothing actually wrong with my household, I can tell you that CPS is super thorough in coming for a home visit, taking a complete history of the child (medically, emotionally/behaviorally, etc), gathering info on the household situation, what supports the parents/child have, etc.

So if there IS something lacking there, CPS will find it and offer help. Please call them to protect everyone involved. People call them for a lot less and this is sooo justified.

Impressive-Ball3716 wrote:

Okay, I love how people are telling you to spend a lot of money to upgrade YOUR security when this is the parents’ problems. Whether he’s autistic or not, they are responsible for their kid. I was a teacher for about 10 years and I’ve dealt with autistic kids. Yes, autistic kids have their deals, but that’s not an excuse for the parents to stop parenting.

I’d be telling them that I’m really jumpy, and I can’t be held responsible for what gets thrown at him when I hear a stranger in my house. Call CPS, call the cops, and tell the parents that they need to upgrade THEIR security to keep him in. And if you pay for new locks/dog door, etc, send them the bill.

OP responded:

That's exactly where I'm at with a lot of these suggestions. Yes I can invest in more security, special dog collars, doors, fingerprint coded gates…A SPRINKLER SYSTEM? Some people are telling me to get a bigger dog?????

They're mostly great suggestions and we are definitely going to be taking them into consideration, but why is it my responsibility to keep the kid out of my home when he shouldn’t be here in the first place? Shouldn’t they be the ones more concerned with his safety and making sure he never makes it all the way here?

SouthernSentence6476 wrote:

I don't think you're overreacting and I feel like most of the comments on here are talking more about the little boy and family and whatever made up anecdotes these ppl have about them than the details provided and an answer to that actual situation at hand. Not one adult in that child life handled the situation properly, even the authorities.

I'm sure these are yt ppl cuz not one child of color would be able to break into someone's house, steal things, disturb property and just be described as "a kid being a kid." Get the child a dog and some supervision. All of the other made up scenarios about how he might be on the spectrum is really just another dodge of accountability.

Them being overwhelmed, another accountability dodging accusation. You're not overreacting when even the authorities don't take you not being safe in the privacy of your own home seriously.

OP responded:

Okay thank you! I appreciate the insight a lot of people are giving me on autism. But how am I supposed to figure if all i see is an unsupervised child coming into in my home, and the parents never care enough to follow up with any details. Additionally, HE HAS A DOG! HE HAS ANIMALS ON HIS PROPERTY.

crystalrock1974 wrote:

They are very lucky your dogs are so accommodating 'cos ill bet anything they would try sue if he got bit. Its totally unfair for you though in case your dogs are let out id keep calling the cops every time they will soon get fed up and call CPS.

OP responded:

That's what I keep thinking! Overall they're very kind, sweet small dogs and while they do bark they have never been reactive or anything. But if they ever got to bite him or something I'm sureeee the parents would find a way to blame us which is crazy.

Two days later, OP shared an update.

I was able to look through a lot of the comments on this post and I was able to respond to some but I did want to say a few things. I commented on the original post but I was not able to edit. Thank you to all that have provided helpful advice and suggestions.

To those that think this is funny, I really do wish I could have a sense of humor about it but I’m unfortunately stuck being frustrated and stressed. And to those who think it is fake, I WISH I could make this up. Given this situation has occurred more than once at this point, I do feel like calling the cops was the right call and we will do it if this happens again or if I even see him on the property unsupervised.

I do not want this little boy to get hurt, go into the property of someone who does not care that it is a child, get run over, etc. A lot of the comments made sure to let me know of our liability if something were to happen on our property and I want to make sure there is a record of this. I unfortunately did not call the cops when this happened the first time since it was such a random incident.

A lot of people suggested he could be autistic or neurodivergent…I understand it could seem that way but I don’t think it’s correct to just assume or diagnose him based on a post.

Regardless, I think for me it goes back to the parenting. If the parents were aware that his running away/hiding/ etc, was a problem, I think the most responsible thing to do would have been to let us know and address this so it did not catch us by surprise. Neurodivergent or not, what he is doing is not okay or safe.

We will definitely be putting a lock on our gate and will look into getting our dogs some sort of chip /collar sensor dog door so they can continue to go in and out but also lock that way in. I really hope the family ups their security in the home as well.

While these are the only times we have had a problem with their child, we have unfortunately also had issues with their animals coming onto the property. Their horses would break free of their enclosure and come onto ours and eat our hay. I get it, they are animals, but from the looks of it they were very hungry and this happened more than once. The owners never really took any responsibility for it.

Secondly, we had recorded incidents of their big dogs coming onto our property and attacking our farm animals. They would let their dogs loose and they killed a couple of our chickens and some baby sheep as well. We did contact them on several occasions, as soon as we saw the dogs on the cameras, and while they eventually did end up keeping them tied up, the dogs kept getting loose.

My husband called the c*ps to ask what he could do to protect from the dogs, and he was told that since they were on his property, he could shoot if he wanted. My husband and I love and care for our animals and wouldn’t ever want something like that to happen to them, so obviously we never did anything to hurt the dogs.

It was hard to tell whether they were killing out of hunger because they weren’t fed or just out of instinct? We also just wanted to keep a normal relationship with our neighbors and harming their animals wouldn’t be a good way to do that. But it was a very upsetting situation. I am unfortunately not sure what happened to the dogs, I have not seen them around.

A lot of people were surprised by my dogs being so chill about this. I forgot to include a picture but they are two maltese/shitzu mixes and one small mutt (potentially schnauzer??, he was a rescue).

Overall, small, loving dogs. all bark and no bite and very excited to play. Therefore, I am glad they are not a huge concern in terms of causing harm. But one can never be too sure and like many said, they are animals after all and can be reactive unexpectedly.

There was a comment that said: and honestly I really do agree.

I have never had this kid or his family over to my house, much less inside. We have had very limited interactions, most of them have been to address problems caused by their animals, which my husband has mostly dealt with. I am perfectly fine with having a good relationship with my neighbors but we truly do all live so spread apart that it is hard to connect with them.

Some suggested I make this kid my friend and have him over but truthfully I do not feel comfortable having him come over or doing play dates with my dogs. maybe if we had had a proper introduction I would have been open to the idea but at this point it just makes me feel like the more comfortable he feels to be here the more he will, and i personally do not want to deal with it.

He intruded on our privacy more than once and I am not inclined to be more involved with this family than necessary.

The flamethrower: my poor husband was getting so roasted (get it? pun?) for this, and I just want to say, no he is not crazy. That was my bad, we call it a flamethrower (I am not sure why, because I googled it and those things are INTENSE), IT WAS A PROPANE TORCH.

We have a woodstove and keep a torch inside to help light it. We just got done cutting hay in the field and have noticed more spiders near our house since then. The reason my husband used the torch it was that he saw huge wolf spider, carrying their babies on their back, on the pavement outside our front door.

If he would've squished it they would of all ran off everywhere and I personally prefer them out of my house. This is not our preferred method of spider k*lling and the torch serves a more normal purpose! He left the torch on our kitchen table before he left for work. Either way, it is kept inside the house and i would assume its not necessarily a child friendly device.

My lack of paragraphs: I completely understand why people are so mad, that wall of text is horrible. I am sorry, I promise I know how to write. It was just very late at night, I was typing as fast as I could, and I only hit “enter” once instead of twice. I just didn’t realize how it would post. Oops.

And the comments kept coming in response.

lilo213 wrote:

I feel your pain. We had neighbors in our old home who allowed their child to not only go on our property but intentionally cause damage. The boy was about 10 years old and did not have any (known) medical conditions (according to his mom) that would cause this behavior.

Trust me I tried to sympathize with that and flat out asked the mom if there was anything going on that we could help with. Thinking maybe if he did we could approach him in a better way when we would have these issues. She said “he’s just a boy!” He was just the product of bad parents and his parents were also AHs.

The final straw was when it was 11pm at night and I was home alone while my husband was deployed in another country and I saw a face in my window. Then saw what looked like a gun. I had absolutely no clue if it was a child with a toy gun or some lunatic about to do a home invasion. I screamed and hid in a closet until police came.

The cameras didn’t pick up anything but when police pulled up they saw the kid sitting in front of my house drinking a white claw…he got from a mini fridge off my deck. The parents came at me for not having the fridge locked with kids in the neighborhood. The c*p was just as blown away by their sh#$ty parenting as we were. They drove us to move.

The parents were very “boys will be boys” about his behavior it was crazy. What I wish I did was call the police more on him to he honest. He crashed into my car with his bike cause damage, he broke a window with a soccer ball, he would tease my animals if they were outside, he peed multiple times on my property in my flower beds, and would help himself to any food deliveries we had.

I let it all slide trying to work with the parents but they didn’t give a s#$t. His mom once said I would understand when I became a parent. I’m now a parent and couldn’t f#$king imagine letting my kids act like this. I should have called the cops and had it documented after every damage to property and held them accountable for damages.

OP responded:

That experience must have been so terrifying! but the parents’ attitude makes it so so much worse. Looking out the windows when its dark is one of my biggest fears!!! Its so unfortunate he continued with his behavior too.

I am childless and can’t imagine how difficult it would be to be a parent but at the same time it is very hard to not to get upset when kids feel like they can get away with things because their parents don’t intervene.

Impossible_style5785 wrote:

Given how dangerous the dog seem to be, you may have to take a little more action on that front. If Animal Control will not catch them and deal anything with them, you may have to do so yourself. It's only a matter of time before those dogs, unfortunately, attack a small child. Nobody wants that, at all. At minimum you need to protect your animals from them, however you can.

OP responded:

I will definitely keep that in mind! Like I mentioned I have not seen the dogs around for quite a bit now, when my husband went to speak to the parents after the latest incident he did see a small white dog, similar to the ones we have, but as far as I know he as not made it to our property.

Slinkenhofer wrote:

Honestly, as a man in my 30s that has a LOT of black widows on his property, I didn't think twice about your husband having a flamethrower. Sometimes you gotta go full scorched earth on those bastards.

OP responded:

There were a lot of spider lovers surprisingly, saying we were horrible people for k#*ling it and that we deserved everything that was happening because of it which was insane 🤣

JTBlakeInNYC wrote:

As an attorney, a parent, and a fellow animal lover, this is a disaster in slow motion. These people are completely irresponsible parents and animal owners. I wish there was some way to hold them accountable, but short of investing significant funds to secure your property via tall fences and locking gates, I don’t think it will stop.