Our neighbours never return the ball if my 10-year-old son accidentally kicks it over the hedge playing football. It is not a regular occurrence – maybe once every six weeks. We ask for the ball back and each time it has surprisingly vanished.
We’ve heard stories from the shared neighbours that their son’s football was slashed.
How do I get my son’s ball back without causing neighbour conflict? We’ve already extended the height of the hedge with netting.
Eleanor says: These neighbours are telling you they don’t want the ball coming into their space. That might be the wrong attitude to have: it might be mean-spirited and needlessly strict. Or it might be totally fair. They might have carefully tended plants they’re worried about or, who knows, a collection of Fabergé eggs they keep out there. It’s the fact they have this preference that you’ll have to engage with, not whether you think the preference is fair. That’s kind of the heart of living together, whether side by side on a street or as unseen strangers in society. We have to coordinate with other people’s preferences whether we think they’re reasonable or not.
So what can we do in the face of their – apparently strong – preference? Sometimes gestures such as slicing up a football are a sign that the moment is being seen as part of a much bigger story. We all have versions of this. We huff and puff at the guy blocking our way on the train not because we think that’s a huge deal in the scheme of the universe, but because he’s today’s instantiation of a bigger narrative: people are so selfish or I’m always overlooked.
What could the story be here, such that footballs slot into it so easily – and what could we do to disrupt it?
The obvious candidate is that their property isn’t being respected or that “kids these days” expect to be able to trample on anything and anyone. What looks to us like a ball going over the fence might look to them like disrespect in projectile form, coming at their heads, their pet, their garden. In fairness to them, that can be annoying.
How can you make this look more like a football and less like a symbol?
You could tell them what you’ve told me: we’ve really tried to stop it, we don’t want to put you out, we’ve even installed netting to protect your place. “This was an accident and I’m apologising” rather than “Can you pop back there and do what I’d like?” Framing as an ask not an expectation might help mitigate any sense of disrespect.
It might help to look for other ways to contradict stories that the football would otherwise reinforce. Could you perform regard for their home – offer to help out if they’re out of town, or bring them a little gesture of something they seem to like, even invite them to come play?
Of course, it’s possible none of that will work. It’s possible this neighbour is a cantankerous grouch. If so, be careful about trying too hard to “avoid conflict”. Sometimes that’s just code for keeping conflict subterranean where it inevitably causes more damage. One direct conversation about why this is such an issue might feel hostile but, in a choice between that and months of petty revenge, it’s clear which one actually minimises conflict.
You each have different views about how it’s reasonable to treat their property. The question – and probably the key to getting the ball back – is to show them you respect their side of that disagreement. Trying to secure victory without that is likely to mean ever more footballs and ever more punctures.
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