How would you handle this? (Aiken, New Ellenton: mortgage, house, purchase)

[trinkit]

Just to set the picture:

• We live in Aiken County, between New Ellenton and Aiken.
• We are purchasing our house on Land Contract (for those of you who don't know -- and please don't take offense because none is intended, but the owner's didn't know what it was -- it is a purchase contract where the monthly payment, along with the interest, is paid to the seller without going thru a mortgage company or bank.
• The house sits behind the sellers house and it was originally landlocked where the driveway to my house was an easement. Before the contract was signed, sealed and delivered a survey was done and recorded with the county that the driveway was deeded to my house.
• My house is completely fenced in; however my property is not. This was a big selling point because we have a dog. The fence for the house is approximately 20 feet from the sellers property.

Now for the problem:

• The sellers have 2 children, approximately 9 and 12 in age, the older one being a boy.
• The boy has a dirt bike that he likes to ride around the entire property, including ours, buzzing and pulling "wheelies" in front of our dog. Our feeling is that he does this deliberately, with full knowledge of the parents, because he will slow down in front of our house, looking to see if my husband or myself are watching. There are even times when he has his sister on the back of the bike -- and as you know dirt bikes are not built for 2 riders, so the sister has no pegs for her feet.
• This aggravates the dog, myself and my husband.
• It's come to the point where we can no longer enjoy a peaceful existence because of the noise factor.
• We've seen the parents outside watching this entire scenario, so they don't seem to care that the boy is aggravating their neighbors or that the sister may become injured.

I guess my question is: what would you do to stop this (short of selling the property -- and it is my feeling that I won't be intimidated into moving from a home that we otherwise would enjoy and plan to live in for the rest of our "senior" lives) and still be able to maintain a good neighbor relationship?

[Rapunzll]

It sounds like you haven't spoken to your neighbors about this situation. Unless you do, they obviously think you have no problem with it continuing on this way.

IOW- politely speak to them, telling them that it is disturbing you and is probably unsafe (if you say it IS unsafe, which it is, it may put them more on the defensive) for their other child.

Unless you talk to them and things don't change, I really don't know why you would worry about doing something else.

[Canerican]

You really can't prevent him from riding, but I doubt that's the problem. I would just ask the parents, "could you please keep an eye out and ask your son not to ride across the yard, it spooks the dog." Or something like that. Most likely they will say yes right away, if they are normal, they want to be good neighbors too.

[trinkit]

Thank you for your responses and suggestions. I will definitely have to have a talk with them and try to do it in a polite manner. The parents are fully aware of what the son is doing because they have been outside when he's doing it. One other point I wanted to make was the fact that my husband is a former biker, so it's not the bike that is annoying -- it's what seems to be total disregard for a good neighbor policy.

[Rapunzll]

I totally get why you are annoyed, and I would be too if I was in your situation, but to the parents, it apparently appears that you don't have a problem with what their kid is doing. Good luck to you, let's hope it is a simple case, of sorry, we didn't realize it was disturbing you.

[Rapunzll]

Is there an update on this situation?