How to Tackle the Youths Gathering Outside your House

Some teenage gangs will often congregate on parks and street corners for want of having no better place to hang out. Quite often, this will be perfectly innocent and there will be nothing sinister about it. However, it can create a problem if they are constantly congregating outside of your own house, with issues such as noise and litter just two of the less serious problems this can cause.

Don’t Overreact

The chances are that any gangs of teenagers who happen to be congregating outside your house will not be there for long. Therefore, in the vast majority of cases, you should simply ignore their behaviour as it’s likely that they will move on before too long. However, if you’re starting to find that this occurs regularly, there are a few things you can do.

Speak to Them Directly

In deciding to speak to the teenagers directly, it’s important to assess the situation first of all. If, for example, they have been drinking alcohol, the situation might get out of hand. There have been so many cases where adults have been attacked when confronting youths, so if you’re unsure of your own safety, Call The Police.

If the teenagers are just outside your house but not threatening anybody’s safety or damaging property, the best thing would be to call your local police force and ask them to send out an officer out to investigate. In most cases, a stern word from a police officer will see them move on, but the police also have the power to issue a dispersal order and to take other action if necessary.

If you do decide to go out to talk to them, avoid any confrontation, keep a safe distance and ensure you can get back into your house quickly if need be. It’s often very much a judgement call but if you’re polite and simply ask them to move on because you can’t get to sleep or your baby’s crying, for example, they’ll usually comply with your wishes. You should go back inside and call the police at the first sign of any hostility or abuse. Don't make the mistake of 'rising to the bait' or being drawn into an argument which could escalate the problem.

Sitting on Walls or Fences

If teenage gangs are congregating by sitting on your wall or fence, they are trespassing and there are laws against this. Equally, there are Anti-Social Laws relating to noise, litter and damage to property, so the police have a duty to investigate these matters if you are concerned.

Community Initiatives

For many kids, the problems caused by congregating outside of people’s homes is because there is nowhere else to go – at least in their eyes. If these kinds of problems are occurring in your neighbourhood, it can be a good idea to get together with other residents and with local community groups and community police officers to see if there is anything that can be introduced that might help to alleviate the problem.

Many teenage kids feel marginalised within their local community. By getting involved in community initiatives which demonstrate that you care about teenagers’ opinions, you may learn a lot. Maybe you can help to set up some kind of youth group in your area? It often helps if you speak with the heads of local secondary schools who may also be able to shed some light on the causes of the problems. This might also enable you to jointly come up with some kind of initiative whereby the youths will have a safe place to go to socialise and to engage in some types of sporting or leisure activities.

If residents collectively give up a little of their own free time to address the concerns of the youths in conjunction with local community groups, this can often have the effect of helping teenagers to find a suitable place to meet up and to participate in stimulating activities, which will help them feel a part of their own community and Make The Neighbourhood A Nicer Place To Live.