Dear Vilma, My neighbors keep sending their kids over to play at my house so I can babysit them…but they never ask me first! I’ll be home only an hour and my neighbors will come running over, wanting to play with me. During this time, their parents run out and do chores. How can I get this to stop happening but still be viewed as a nice neighbor?

Annoying neighborhood children have affected too many of us in the past, and too few people have stepped up and done something about them. As with many houses in our fair town of Wayland, yours is probably separated from your neighbors by a thin to wide patch of woods which children use as an avenue to invade your property. It is in this congregation of trees that you lay your trap. Dig a series of ditches in a straight line between your two yards. Cover each ditch with sticks and then proceed to cover the sticks with leaves. The woods should look just as they did before the ditches were dug.

When the children run over after school to play with you, they will each fall in a different ditch. They will struggle to get out but ultimately will succeed. The parents will soon approach you about these holes and you will say, “I couldn’t afford to put up a fence. Think of this as an inverted fence.” The parents will sympathize with your motives but will stop sending their children over for their own safety.