We have had a conversation with the neighbors, both the kids and the parents. Verbally they have agreed to knock on our door and ask for the balls back. In the event we don't answer they are to wait until we get home or are free to grab them and then we have no problem throwing them back over the fence.

Today, 1015PM to be exact, neighbor mother and son ring our doorbell twice in 30 seconds and start banging on our door. We have a security camera doorbell that allows us to talk to anybody at our door. I asked what she needed and she said she wanted the ball back that her son threw over. I said, "now isn't a good time, we will grab it for you in the morning." And she said "f*#% no you won't, we are getting it tonight." And proceeded to instruct her son to jump our fence and get his ball.

What are our legal options? Clearly the parents don't respect our property lines or us. We have already had this conversation with the children when we catch them in our backyard and with the parents. HOA won't get involved with neighbor disputes. We also have signs posted that state no trespassing. So what do we do next?

Thanks in advance!

[EDIT]... here's some more context to explain our standpoint here.

Our fence is 10 feet high, we have security cameras posted because we have already had theft from property- packages from doorstep, vehicle from driveway in broad daylight.

Thanksgiving: while prepping dinner we had three basketballs come into our yard-this was after our conversation explaining that we would get the balls if they would simply knock on our door to retrieve them. Instead of knocking, they began throwing rocks at our windows to get our attention- it was maybe 1 in the afternoon. 11:45 that night, Thursday night where we both have work the next day, two kids start pounding on our door. My brother in law was in our kitchen and flipped our back light on and 4 of them scattered like cockroaches. There was 1 ball. It does not take 4 teenagers to retrieve one basketball.

The goal here is not to become the asshole neighbor but at some point we have to. A few months ago someone broke into a neighbors house and was walked in on. He took off and started hopping fences to other neighbors- he slipped in one yard- hit his head just right and died. The family of the criminal sued and won a settlement of more than a million dollars. They had "no trespassing" signs posted.

My husband and I have no problem retrieving these basketballs but on our terms. We feel we have a right to restrict access to our yard- we are not in farm country- we are in Las Vegas. Big city, big crime. My post was not intended for anyone to berate me on my unneighborly tendencies. It was for legal advice on how to protect MY property and what options I have.

My city's law enforcement is more concerned with the daily shootings that preventing children from hopping fences, however, I want to prevent this from becoming a shooting situation because they're hopping our fences in groups, and appear to be a threat.

A few of you suggested a net- wonderful idea! They actually installed one about 3 months ago and we had some nasty windstorms that destroyed it. So it was an okay temporary fix but our weather will destroy it.

If we had a larger property (we live on a 1/4 acre lot where we can touch our neighbors house with the window open) and we weren't concerned with break ins and theft- this would not be a big deal. However, I should not have to sacrifice my right to privacy at all times to accommodate these kids who can't make the all in their hoop.

[EDIT2] We have security cameras installed and have at least 65 instances since February 1st when we installed them of them going into our yard. In most cases, they just hop the yard. We can see them peering through windows and doors to make sure we can't see them. We would be more reasonable if they would knock on the door, realize we aren't home, and then retrieve the ball. But that isn't the case here. They are just going straight to our yard.

As someone mentioned below, this type of behavior seems like casing our property. We want to prevent another break in and protect these kids from getting hurt. I'll see these kids actually running drills in their backyard and setting up cones and various other tools to better their game. And I LOVE that! I don't want to diminish their passion but at some point, they have to respect our property. We are not malicious towards them. We only refuse to get the balls when it's after quiet hours (10 on weekdays and midnight on weekends).

We have tried to be amicable with these people. We really have. We brought them baked bread at Christmas and we offered to have the parents over for dinner. There's been a lot of assumption that we refuse to get any ball that comes over and that's not the case. We get lost balls that come over. Our preference is that we would rather OURSELVES retrieve the balls as opposed to them because we want to reduce the liability of any physical bodily injury and property damage.

Also, we are not the only neighbors with these issues. Our immediate neighbors to the left and right of us share the same concern. One has given up trying to stop them- they have now broken his pool and his glass patio table. The other destroys the basketballs and throws them away. So I feel that we have more than reasonable in agreeing to give any of them back at all.