Maark Abbott, on 01 June 2023 - 11:10 AM, said:
A tricksy situation at my mate's on Sunday. Went over for a BBQ.
They've had a family move in next door with two lads who have severe LD. One is quite aggressive towards people he doesn't know and has a tendency to fling stuff over walls / steal things he wants from front yards.
So we were sat in the yard eating, mate's 8mo is out there (pending heart surgery as he was born with a duff valve). The child (who we'll call Launch Kid) throws a bag of hard candies over the fence directly at us - it hit my mate's brother in law in the back of the head, split and some of the stuff (it's that hard candy stuff you find at the seaside that looks like little spiky balls) went over us, the table, and the said 8mo.
They've had words due to other incidents like this and the parents seems to have just resigned to their child doing this due to their LD. Which seems to me like a fast track to a safeguarding issue, because it'd only take one thing being thrown wrong to put the baby into the hospital, and this family can't expect the neighbourhood to stop using their yard on account of their son's LD.
As much as I sympathize with how hard it is (Wife's brother has severe autism so I'm used to behaviours and such) I'm not sure that I'm being the asshole when I'm telling them that if it keeps on they'll need to escalate, especially as this family are moving into the street and aren't seemingly taking any precautions to let folk know or mitigate what's happening at all. Maybe my angry uncle instincts are kicking in a bit...
No clue what the law looks like where you're at, but pretty sure the parents are responsible for the actions of their minor (or legally immature) child, including, oh, i dunno, not letting him have things he can throw over the fence and hurt people with. 'Bag of candies' sounds pretty harmless til one nails someone in the face at speed, if the ones he threw are what i think you're referring to they're basically small rocks.
I understand the reluctance to go full adversarial on a neighbour they have to live with, but from what you're describing the alternative seems worse.
Were it me, i'd go 'polite but clear conversation with email or letter follow up reminding them of what was discussed and what you're going to do if it doesn't improve', then bylaw services or whatever the local equivalent of one step below the cops is. Then... trebuchets.