Mom frustrated neighbors won't let kids use basketball hoop

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (KTVU) - While the Warriors basketball season is off to a fast start, two brothers, inspired to play because of the team's success, have hit a brick wall. 

Their hoop dreams have created a brewing controversy in one Peninsula apartment complex. 

Redwood City resident Diana Espinoza saved for an entire year, just so she could purchase a near regulation basketball hoop for her sons. But the boys playtime has been canceled and not on account of Tuesday's rainy weather. It's because of a letter from the apartment management company from just after Christmas, stating some neighbors have complained. 

"Please do not use the basketball hoop on the premises," it says. 

"It's very disappointing and sad," said Espinoza, from the living room of her small two-bedroom apartment. "To know that people are willing to shut that door on two kids who just want to go outside and play." 

Espinoza, a single mother, sees her rent subsidized because she works for the San Mateo Community College District, which also owns the complex. 

She bought the hoop the day after Thanksgiving. But an hour of play in the middle of the day was too much, too noisy for some, who forced the goal back inside the garage. 

11-year-old Carlos and his seven-year-old kid brother Augustine, now shoot hoops on a video game played on a large flat-screen TV. 

"We can't keep kids indoors. Kids have to go outside and play," Espinoza said. 

Espinoza went outside to post a letter near the complex mailboxes and then posted to Facebook, scolding neighbors and management for not supporting a kid- friendly environment. She also checked her lease. She says theres' nothing forbidding use of a basketball hoop. 

The owners of the apartment complex, the San Mateo Community College District, called late Tuesday afternoon to tell us they don't consider this a dispute and will reach out to Diane Espinoza in a few days.

But Espinoza has already reached out to an attorney who's reviewing the case.

"I'm tired of it. If I get evicted, I'll find a way to live," she said.

For now,, the cumbersome chore to set up the basketball hoop is in the opposite direction, as it, like the boys who shoot baskets into it, sit back inside her small one-car garage.