About people walking on my lawn?

[Coffeethrowtrampbitch]

I live in a mid terraced house. My front garden and that of my neighbours is in a slope, there are four steps on my path and then a straight path to my front door.

Every single person who is going door to door, postman, leafleters, walk across my lawn in front of my window in order to avoid walking down my neighbours five steps and up my stairs. The lawn is very wet and a hole is developing in the middle, there is now a visible track of mud in the grass which encourages more people to walk across.

I cannot see anywhere where we could put a sign which would be visible until someone had already walked on the lawn. We have built a deck in front of the front door to try and discourage it, hasn't worked.

We've had two people cross it already this morning, and yesterday there was a huge patch of mud which looked as though someone had slipped while crossing the lawn. I'm worried someone will get hurt and hold me liable.

So, aibu not to want people walking across the lawn and damaging it? And if I'm not, what should I do to stop them?

[MajorGrinch]

Turn it into a flower bed? Small fence round it? Massive sign in the middle saying "Keep Off" for a couple of weeks?

[Sirzy]

as annoying as it is if there is no fencing between houses of course people doing anything involving door to door are going to take the direct route.

[ISeeYouShiverWithAntici]

erect a fence or wall or plant a hedge that is too high to step over.

nothing else will work.

People will step across flower beds and they will ignore signs.

[RestingActress]

Plant flowers or shrubs
Put up a small wall / fence
Lie in wait and pounce on anyone who does it and rage at them

YANBU at all

[SomethingkindaOod]

How about pea netting across the lawn? Put some quick growing grass seed down and peg netting about 6 inches above it to protect it. If you want to warn people it's there (personally I would let the rude buggers fall over it but..) tie some bright ribbon or something to the edges.
YANBU, it would really make me cross but I'm a bit of a gardener and work bloody hard on our garden!

[JellyBabiesSaveLives]

Big plant pot in the middle of the mud patch. Preferably something prickly. You can move it when you've retrained people.

[Coffeethrowtrampbitch]

If I out up fencing my next door neighbour will have to move her bins. At the moment they are between our two houses on the boundary. She is very nice and has recently split up with her dh so I'd like to avoid annoying her.

How much does tripwire cost ?

[SomethingkindaOod]

Fishing wire not very expensive in The Range these days!

[Pickofthepops]

Put some seed down on due course but peg some strong across as those you have seed down? Those sort of mini flags to keep birds off might make people think twice.

Sympathies I have similar prob with kids cutting corner across my front lawn and generally treating it like a communal bit of land. After mentioning (probably too subtly to neighbours kids) Have raised with management co rep (private road, not posh just way development set up) and parents of kids obviously don't see fit to pass message on. My little tree gets bashed with footballs and bushes kicked at to retrieve balls. They know it is my garden. Not helped by dh being really liberal about it and saying 'they are just having fun'. It's me that mows the bloody lawn tho.

[cozietoesie]

You need some sort of physical barrier anyway because people will nearly always choose the quickest most practicable route. (Think of all the 'new developments' where the landscapers set out jolly little pathways which are then roundly ignored - as you can see by the beaten down earth.)

[Pickofthepops]

Strong should be string.

[limitedperiodonly]

This used to drive my mum mad. She regularly used to fly out of the front door shouting at people. The postman eventually stopped when she threatened to complain about him but she'd still get random leafletters doing it.

A fence might not even work unless it's too tall to hop over. Her garden was bare earth with rose bushes dotted about. People used to push them aside to get through. They were so lazy that they didn't mind getting tangled and scratched

[chemenger]

The alternative would be to accept it will happen and put in some stepping stones, that wouldn't necessarily look that bad?

[ISeeYouShiverWithAntici]

Stepping stones would look pretty and would be a great idea if she's only bothered about mud but doesn't mind the idea of her garden being a public pathway. I think though that most people just don't like what they see as their private space being walked across. Or maybe it's just narky old antisocial me

[Coffeethrowtrampbitch]

Thank you everyone :-)

I hadn't considered something like pegging out grass seeds, that would cover quite a wide area. I agree the problem with putting something smack in the middle might be people just walking round it.

I shall plonk a plant pot in the middle now as I'm taking out ds2 and dog to the park, and see if it registers with anyone. If not, will peg out string at the weekend. Failing that, I could ask nice ndn if I could install a fence.

Sorry to post about this when people have real problems btw, its just been going on for months and I fear I'll snap and rugby tackle the next lawn walker to the ground, and earn myself the nickname MadLawnLady

[wonkylegs]

In old house we used to have a hedge and people still used to just push through it , we erected a 1m high trellis fence & that finally seemed to stop it but kept the openness between us & neighbours.
Here we have an original Victorian dwarf wall & dwarf railing and we've actually considered adding steps & a path as so many people Inc us & neighbours use it as a short cut but that's because otherwise you have to go approx 30m down the drive, 30m down the road and then 30m back up their drive. Which would be fine but we take in each others parcels etc so it's easier to nip over.

[ISeeYouShiverWithAntici]

You say MadLawnLady like it's a bad thing.

Don't comb your hair for a week, and then leap out at everyone who steps onto your lawn, with a flyer for your cult of alien shark worshippers and try to get everyone to come inside so you can tell them how they too might be saved when the ships come to take the believers Home.

I promise you that within a fortnight not only will nobody be using your lawn as a short cut but nobody will be coming near you at all.

[Pickofthepops]

YANBU it is v v annoying

[limitedperiodonly]

I fear I'll snap and rugby tackle the next lawn walker to the ground

My mum never did this but sometimes it was close OP . She'd just shout at people. That worked with the regulars because they probably did think she was mad and dangerous and stayed away.

[CalamitouslyWrong]

What you want are some nice very spiky bushes. Or cultivate a wildlife garden with plenty of nettles.

[TillyTellTale]

I once lived in a house like that. The postman and leafletters were scared of the awful steps and so went up and down every lawn individually!

[Coffeethrowtrampbitch]

Limited the title MadLawnLady is rather catchy :-)

[Twinkletron]

You could. Borrow my dog, let it crap all over your lawn then watch as they pull the ewwww face as they realise they've stepped in it. Obviously I'll expect a small fee in return!

[SomethingkindaOod]

A signpost like they have in country parks, you know the one with the coloured arrows on them? Place them so they point in the direction of the path, provide maps at the gate.
Or is that a little too passive aggressive?