Instead of getting a dedicated device like this, just hook up your computer to a speaker facing/just outside the window. Then download a mosquito tone (google for it) and play it on repeat through youre laptop/speaker. Or download it to your ipod and play it off of there. Use a tone that you can't hear.

The kids won't be sure where it's coming from if you hide or have a small speaker, so you wouldn't have to be afraid of any repercussions. Then again, if they can't hear it either, this method won't quite work.

I'd pointed out to them that when they smoke out there, my apartment smells like smoke and that I didn't like it, but they didn't seem to care. More and more kids were showing up to hang out there, and I figure calling the cops put the fear of God into them, at least for a while.

Or they'll start listening to Bach. Try something really obnoxious like Celine Dion (though that's liable to make the neighbors even angrier).

I hear they used music from "Barney" at Gitmo...

CCL (l hope you don't mind me shortening your name), you took the words right outta my mouth.

Might just get your window/etc vandalized. You'd have to set it up so they couldn't identify who did it.

Stick with the police :)

I called the cops on them today and they took off when they saw them coming. Hopefully they won't show up again, but the 911 dispatcher told me to call every time they do show up.

You know, as l said in response to another commenter here, l was one of these kids. lt wasn't a private apartment building, but it was a hallway at the local gas station. Lunch consisted of Maruchan Ramen, a joint, and as many cigarettes as we could suck down until the bell rang.

Surprisingly, it took two thirds of the year for the station owners to finally call the cops on us (maybe they didn't realize we were actually hanging out back there), but when they did, we learned our lesson right quick, because when the cops arrived, the impression they were under was NOT that we were smoking weed, but that us females were turning tricks, and our guy friends were johns. l think l blocked it from my memory for a decade or so because they DID call our parents based on that assumption, and l had to explain to my poor mother that while l wasn't committing the greater of two evils, l was still committing the lesser.

lt wasn't a happy experience, but l learned my lesson when it came to respecting a place of business, just as your kids hopefully now respect private property. And while they will probably find somewhere else to smoke and fuck around (we did...in an abandoned house nearby), at least it won't be at your expense, and hopefully they'll be smarter about it in general. Sometimes, the best way to learn a lesson is to face the possibility of jail. l know that one quite intimately.

It's definitely taken a while (all school year) to get to this point, but I just hit a breaking point. It's going to be nice out soon and I want to be able to feel comfortable opening a window or even my blinds without watching for brats. I definitely got up to the same shit as these kids in high school, but I had the sense to do it in friends' parents' garages or cars or abandoned buildings. This is just lazy.

lf l had to put up with it for that long, l'd have a breaking point too. lf any other kids besides these decide to make your front stoop their living room again, you should take a page from my book and tell them you're going to inform the school they're all prostituting themselves. Hey, it worked for me and mine.

"I suggest that you bring them down little gifts, cool drinks and lolly bags"

Not my downvote, but this is a bit creepy, no matter how well-meaning. Also, l'm not sure why Jessica should invest money in people who are not only not her responsibility, but are, in fact, trespassing on her property and making a general nuisance of themselves. A bribe rarely gets the desired results; it merely transfers power from the briber to bribee. l guarantee you they have other places they could hang out, they just haven't had enough incentive to relocate. l WAS one of those teenagers, and when the cops finally arrived one day to threaten telling our parents, we were motivated not to return.

"Don't try to "be cool", you won't fool them."

lsn't bringing them gifts, drinks and 'lolly bags' doing precisely that?

"If you do believe that they are criminals who threaten your safety, then I suggest making a connection with a local motorcycle gang and having them run off the property and then followed home, so they won't return for fear of retribution. The bikies will know what to do, but clearly negotiate the price up front and specifically state that you do not want anyone killed."

You can't be serious. First off -and really, most importantly- a motorcycle 'gang' isn't necessarily rough and tough, and/or open to the bribe of intimidating young children. l can think of at least four biker friends who would laugh in your face if you approached them with such a suggestion, and then tell you to stop watching so much TV. They would certainly prefer you not call them 'bikies', and if they DID take you up on the offer, be very sure that it would not be you negotiating the price up front, it would be them. Not because they're tough bikers, but because you were using their lifestyle to imply a threatening personality, and they'd charge you extra just for your exploitation.

There's really nothing about this advice that makes sense. First you give them lollies, then you hire a supposedly vicious biker gang to follow them home. Which is it? Naughty or nice?

Lady, (Cristi) either you're crazy, or you just won the weekly sarcasm award.

Looks like pretty standard passive-aggressive-confusing-as-hell Seattle behavior to me. Which could also be called crazy. Or sarcastic in some circles, l guess.