Help! A Little Troublemaker Is Roaming and Wreaking Havoc Around My Neighborhood.

by Jenée Desmond-Harris

Dear Prudence, 

I live in a suburban neighborhood, and many of us in the neighborhood have landscaping with numerous flowers that are in bloom now that spring is here. There is one household that has a 7-year-old girl, “Flora,” whom they let ride her bike all over the neighborhood unsupervised.

The problem is that Flora has a penchant for going into people’s flowerbeds and picking flowers to take home with her without asking for permission. Not long ago, she relieved me of some daffodil blooms that came from rather expensive bulbs. Asking Flora not to take flowers without permission and speaking to her parents has gone nowhere. Calling the police on a second grader seems too harsh (my husband doesn’t think so, but that’s another story). Short of that, what can we and the other neighbors do here?

—Flower Girl Frustration

https://slate.com/advice/2025/05/neighbor-advice-child-supervision-flowers.html