Q: My apartment building in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, shares the block with a large high school. Teenagers frequently congregate out front, leaving litter on my stoop from snacks they buy at the corner deli, even though there’s a trash can 50 feet away. I’ve thought about calling the high school or asking the city for more trash cans, but neither seems likely to help. Short of scolding a crowd of kids (which wouldn’t work anyway), how can I get this trash cleaned up?

A: Anyone who has spent time in a teenager’s bedroom knows they don’t have a reputation for neatness. But that doesn’t mean they can’t improve, with some prodding from the adults around them.

Call the high school. Introduce yourself as a member of the community and ask that the school educate its students about cleaning up when they hang out in the neighborhood after class.

“When we’ve done group conversations with kids, it does trigger some empathy response,” said Brad Heckman, a professor at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs who specializes in mediation.