Woman makes poster of 'gremlin' kids who kick doors, they cry, mom is furious. UPDATED.

There's nothing quite like trying to gently call kids out for destroying your property, only to get called the real AH by their mom.

This is precisely what happened to the OP of a recent post on the AITA subreddit, who found herself in a neighborhood conundrum.

She wrote:

AITA for making my neighbour's kids cry because I humiliated them?

For context, I ( F18) live with my 2 siblings, (F22), (M24). Recently, new people moved in right next to us, and they have kids. They were a bit loud, which was a bit annoying, but they were kids and kids do that. I didn't really have a problem with them until they started ding dong ditching us.

I don't even know if it could be considered ding-dong ditching because they literally kick the door like they're trying to impersonate the FBI. They hang out in front of our house and do it every 10-20 minutes, keep in mind they kick HARD. My sister was going to call the police in a fit of rage but I told her no, because talking to their parents or calling the police might make it worse.

I don't know the kid's situation at home, confronting the parents might make it bad for them. But they keep doing it, more often, and harder. There are literally dents and scuffs on the door ( I don't even know how it's possible because the kids look 10), and I'm seriously getting annoyed, along with my siblings.

They clearly don't see the security camera right in front of the door, so I know their intelligence is lacking, so I'm not gonna yell at them. So I wrote a sign in front of the door, kindly asking them to stop because my siblings work from home and it is extremely distracting. But it keeps happening, they rip up the sign and spit on it.

So I can't take it anymore, I slip on some socks and slippers and go next door to talk to the parents. The mom said it's not that big of a deal, my door wasn't seriously damaged, and that they were just kids and trying to have fun. And if it's that distracting, I should put on some headphones.

But my last straw is when these kids mess with my package outside the door and shake it and throw the box against the stairs. I snap and decided to take screenshots of all the security footage of them being little menaces. I make a poster, with their face on it, the damage that they've done to them, and photo evidence of them being menaces.

I type out 'Neighbours be on the lookout! Local doorstep gremlins may terrorize your front door!' which I found funny at the time. I print it out and tape it all over the neighbourhood. My other neighbour finds it hilarious, because those kids have been doing the same to her and she confronted the parent too, and the parent did nothing.

But today I got a giant knock on the door, and it wasn't the little snot-nosed kids, it was the mom! She called me a b-word and an ahole for humiliating her kids, she said that her kids were crying and were now too traumatized to go outside. She yells at me, and drops pieces of the ripped-up poster on my doormat, and walks away. Am I the @$$hole, or did those kids have it coming?

People had a lot to say about this one.

Swedishpunsch wrote:

Her kids were crying and were now to traumatized to go outside.

So now the mother has to deal with them and be a parent, instead of whatever else she has been doing. I found your solution hilarious also, OP. NTA.

TimeGarbageExtreme wrote:

BRUUHHH, NTA. Kids decided to play some stupid games and got some stupid prizes. What did they think was going to happen? Also I'm sad their mom is allowing this, if she's like this now I'd hate to imagine what she'll allow in the future once they're teens. Neighborhood justice was served, good on you and I hope they stop hitting your door completely.

buttpickles99 wrote:

NTA- but you do need to get the police involved.

Alarming_Reply_6286 wrote:

You solved the problem that Mom wouldn’t. She doesn’t have to like the way you did it.

She had the opportunity & didn’t take it. She humiliated her kids by not doing her job. NTA.

Significant_Cat_3 wrote:

NTA. People always talk about gateway drugs, but what about gateway crimes? For now, they do this, but what about when they get older? If they aren’t stopped now, then chances are this behavior would not only continue on, but escalate. The mom’s lucky you didn’t call the cops, as you clearly have mountains of proof.

After lots of questions and comments, OP jumped on with an update:

EDIT: I did not expect for this to blow up! 😅 but I am here to clarify things.

1.) Why didn’t I call the police in the first place? Well because they couldn’t do much more then give the “Don't do this! Don’t do that!” Talk. The scuffs are dents aren’t even that bad that bad, ugly but maybe a paint pen and some rice will fix it.

Another reason I didn’t call the police in the first place is because I didn’t know the situation that these children had at home. Calling the police could have enraged the parents and made things bad for the children, I didn’t know if their home life was troubled at the time. But as soon as I saw what their mother acted like, I saw a reason to humiliate them 😅

I find that younger kids have a giant fear of being embarrassed, and not coming off as cool as they seem to be.

2.) What did I say to the mother? I just said that it was extremely distracting and disrespectful. I told her that there were dents and scuffs on the door and I showed her the video evidence in the phone. I politely asked for her to talk to her children to tell them that this was effecting us negatively, and you already know the answer!

3.) Will I call the police if this happens again? Yes—and no. 911 is reserved for real emergencies, and I’m sure there’s more serious problems than some neighborhood brats. Resources are plenty but thin, I don’t want to take them up. If this does happen again, I won’t call 911, I’ll just file a complaint or call a non-emergency line.

OP is obviously NTA, if anything, she's giving more grace to the kids than most people would.