I wish I had something positive to say. Some helpful hint. But I don't. I have the same problem with some neighbor kids and parents (no examples as bad as yours) and I still haven't figured out how to deal with it.
The 13 y/o boy I have video of him prowling around my property on multiple occasions. He didn't take or damage anything, but he didn't look like he was there to clean up or fix anything either. It was kinda weird, maybe he was just bored? The conspiracy theorist in me says he was casing the place.
The 8 y/o boy has thrown rocks at my shop, chipping the paint, and thrown rocks at my cameras, and sprayed my cameras with a can of superlube I left sitting by the door. My inner conspiracy theorist tells me that he did this at the direction of his older brother after I presented video evidence of his trespassing, although the the events were far separated on the timeline. He probably thought I was inside and was just escalating his attempts to get my attention. He's obviously starved for attention and intrigued by what I do in there. If I don't lock the door he'll walk right in and start asking 1000 questions and moving levers on my machines, pushing buttons, walking across metal chips in bare feet, etc. Usually I can get him to leave by handing him a broom and telling him he can stay if he does something useful. He knows I have a video surveillance monitor in there and I can see if someone is outside.
These kids live with their grandparents as their father is in prison and the mother is prowling the streets of Houston selling herself to fund her vices. The grandparents don't have the vigor (and/or, I think, the interest) to control 4 feral kids. Well, 3 are feral. The oldest, 15 y/o girl is the only responsible parent in the house. When I confronted the grandparents about the 8y/o tampering with my cameras, the oldest girl was the one who immediately scolded him on the spot. All I got from the grandparents was a half-hearted apology and a feigned promise to "do something about it." Same response I got each of 3 times their dog got out and killed several of my chickens.
The other kid I have trouble with is actually my nephew. My sister lives down the street from me and she is 100% sold on this "new style" of parenting. Ask the child nicely not to do bad things, try to reason with someone who has an undeveloped capacity for reasoning, explain to them why they shouldn't dig holes in other people's years and throw mud at their windows, and expect that they'll feel remorse and be hesitant to do do it again, ignoring the 18,000 times that didn't work in the past. No less than a dozen times He's taken the keys to their golf cart and rutted up my yard.
There is no way (that I've found) to deal with these people. They either don't care (like my neighbors) or they do care but they're true believers in NOT doing anything (or not doing anything effective) about the problem (like my sister). There is absolutely nothing to be done about the second group. You can't dissuade a true believer and you can't criticize someone's parenting style without doing more harm than good. Combine those two things into one issue and it's unsolvable. I'm 100% convinced of this.
The first group (people who don't care), well, they don't care. You could help them to care by getting the law involved, but that's more likely to just make them hate you and do everything in their power to pass you off. In my experience, the people who don't care are the low quality human specimens who would devote more energy to irritating you than they would to fixing their own glaring deficiencies.
So, unless someone here has better advice, all I can offer is my own coping mechanism, install cameras for the worst case, and then bury your head in the sand hoping for the best case. Maybe talk to the kids, not in a scolding manner, but as a friend, as an example figure. Try to get them to look up to you. You shouldn't have to do this, but maybe try being a supplemental friend/parent figure whose approval they seek out. They would be less likely to cross if you that way. It's a suboptimal suggestion but it's the best I've come with after years of pondering.
)
