Kim -
Find out who their parents are, and CALL the parents to come get the kids. If you can't contact the parents, call the cops and report unsupervised children.

Some people assume that the other parents are some sort of collectiv ebabysitting pool.

.... I can think of several children who were killed or molested because their parents let them run around apartnemtns at all hours, unsupervised.

A girl who couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 opened our front door and started walking in our house because she wanted to play with my 2 year old granddaughter. This was at 7:30 p.m. We had never seen this girl before. Apparently she saw my granddaughter at the window. We tried to take her home but she wouldn't tell us exactly which apartment she lived in. She pointed out another child who was somewhat older than her who she said was her brother. We waited until she went to her brother. She said that her mother was working and that her father was in bed sick and didn't want to be disturbed. If her brother hadn't been there, I was ready to call the police because anything could happen to a young girl and she was very cute. It did scare me to think that I'd have to report someone.

There are several younger children who seem to be left outside alone and ride their bikes without thinking about the cars on the roads.

Those children should have been reported (first to their parents, if not improved by the next time - police) regardless their age. For example, the girl's older brother who was "somewhat" older than her which I would interpret as at least 4 to 5 years older. That means he could have been about 10 years old which is not old enough to be walking around at night anyway.

Marie26, why was your front door unlocked????? That can be so incredibly dangerous! It might not have been a child opening that door -- it could have been some pervert who could have grabbed your granddaughter.

Lindsey, you are right and we haven't kept our door unlocked ever since. We usually locked it before but now we always do.

Man, these stories just make my eyes roll back in my head! Where do y'all live, anyway?

I live on the seventh floor of a downtown mid-rise. All visitors must get past the 24-hour door staff, the intercom system and the two dead bolts on my front door (which are ALWAYS locked), before they can even look me in the eyes.

It's not a pretty world. Protect yourselves, folks. Otherwise you're a liability lawsuit just waiting to happen.

Karen

In our condo area, there was a nurse and her 3 yr old baby girl that bought a condo. Sometimes the dad/boyfriend moved in and then out with fights. He brought with him a family of 5. His bud and family. These children 4, 5 and 7 would ask me for food. They were always alone and hungry. The dad drank & worked and the mom slept and drank. I took these kids under my wing. After 1 yr they moved. I hope that one day the children will look back and think someone cared....if only for a while.
I would do it again, but I am glad they moved.
They moved because I was a stool pigeon and called the health dept.and the school.
Black mold, no food, drinking, no beds and on and on.