Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

There is a little boy who lives with his mom in an apartment behind our house. We called him "the menace", like Dennis the Menace. Last year one of the pickets on our back fence fell off partly due to the neighbor's son constantly pushing it open to retrieve his ball in our yard. Then he started to invite himself over to play even after we told him no. We finally thought we had put a stop to it after replacing the missing picket on the fence.

Few weeks ago, I looked out the window and saw Justin and D playing ball with "the menace" in our yard and they seemed to be having a good time. Then things quickly reverted back to the boy coming over everyday begging to come into our house. I also noticed that someone was leaving our garden faucet on all night. One day last week we came home to find "the menace" running in our yard with a wet shirt on, so we asked if he's been playing with the faucets but he denied it. Then we caught him red-handed playing with the faucet the next day spraying water everywhere. We tried to seal up the only access point in our year but putting up obstacles in the way, but he just pushed them aside and sneaked in again.

Unfortunately, since becoming homeowners we've turn into these "Get off my lawn kid!" shaking our fists at the sky kind of people! But something had to be done quickly and cheaply. We came came up with a solution to temporarily seal off the entry point and add a little extra privacy. The whole thing cost about 60 bucks for two rolls of 6 feet tall by 6 feet long bamboo reed fencing and a box of electrical staples and some hammering. We still have to figure out a way to attach the fencing to our garage with stucco siding, it was too hard to hammer the staples in. We'll probably have to get a cement drill bit to drill two pilot holes for the staples to go in. This is not a fool proof solution to keep uninvited people out, but it'll do for now. 

I forgot to take a proper before picture but managed to find this one I took to show the yard and the fence.  

The bamboo reed fencing is pretty see through but it gave the old fence a little face lift, cleaned it up a little. 

A closer look of the new fence.

There is about a foot of space/dirt between the garage and the neighbor's fence.  The boy was sneaking in through this opening, so let's hope he doesn't try to come in this way again. I found him inside our gate yesterday trying to retrieve his "shoe". Argh!