Neighbour passing through my driveway to get on and off theirs

Annoying as it is, if you block their access by parking at the bottom of your drive, won’t they just park their van elsewhere? Probably in front of your house as the closest space. I would find an ugly van parked outside my windows, blocking my view of the road when driving off the drive, and taking up the most convenient parking space for visitors, even more annoying than the wear and tear on my drive.

Unless my neighbours were horrible I really wouldn’t care! How does it actually affect you? Wear and tear is a bit dramatic!

Yes, it’s meant for OP to drive on, not her cheeky fucker neighbours.

And where has anyone suggested blocking them in?!

You’d be singing a different tune if it was your driveway. Some people are fast and loose with generosity when it’s other people’s property being used. Glad I don’t live next door to you.

It’s a driveway. It’s meant to be driven on. This whole situation is beyond ridiculous and petty.
If it’s losing you sleep OP then why not be an adult and have a polite conversation? Passively aggressively blocking them is honestly pathetic.
What’s next? Stealing garden gnomes! Most of us live cheek by jowl in this country. Be thankful that’s the biggest issue you have with your neighbours.
and may I never live next door to most people in this thread!

YANBU. My garden & neighbours is open plan and a few years ago I dug up the grass on mine and put down slate chipping to make a bigger drive, they too had a van/car blocking the end of their drive and a car in the drive. When they couldn’t be arsed (daily) to move the one at the bottom they would just drive over my garden to get in & out. It’s bloody annoying.

im planning on some planters this year to create a boundary line.

Could you start keeping your bin there, or would that impede your own access?

I would either extend the fence to the bottom of your driveway, or park at the very bottom … but I would definitely get a cheap cctv set up first. Video doorbells don’t always pick up every movement, and stop recording after x seconds so if neighbour sits in their car for a minute or so the doorbell won’t pick anything up when they drive away.

Those saying it wouldn’t bother them have clearly not had anything like this happen to them day in day out. In the early days you let it slide, after that it’s fucking annoying 😡

They are taking the piss and letting it carry on is not going to improve 'neighbourly relations' because you're going to get more and more annoyed.

Speak to them about it

I wondered if it was a 1930s semi detached.. many of them are designed with this shared middle driveway which originally enables access to the gardens. Many have now got garages at the back but the actual driveway is shared as they are very very narrow. Is the drive actually wide enough for two cars to be parked side by side?

Havent rtft so apologies if this has been asked already, as it seems a bit obvious, but why don’t you extend the fence to the end of your drive?

They could turn their front garden to drive and extend their dropped curb the full width to get both their vehicles on.

It does sound like if they parked the van on the drive and the car in the street, the issue would be resolved.
But who wants a van parked outside?

Love to hear about CFs getting their comeuppance, @Lauren1983

@Mayyouleave No it’s not. It’s just design software. I recognize the dotted grid background because I use it. Not everything you don’t know or understand is AI.

When I purchased my house, there was no wall separating my driveway from my neighbours . They just about had space for two small cars because they would overhung onto my driveway. We had plants there which they just drove over or stepped on when getting out of their car. They also had adult children who would visit and park on our driveway or block our dropped curb. It started to irritate me more and more as they casually started taking more of the piss. To address this, I had my driveway rebricked and had a nice wall built between our properties. While my neighbours weren’t happy about it, there was nothing they could do since the wall was on my property.

Can a friend lend you a car to park at the top of your driveway so you block the bottom.
A retraining period for your cf neighbours who will have to relocate their van.

We had a similar problem. We have parking spaces not driveways but neighbour had 2 cars. They would park one on their driveway and the other longways in front but with a gap for the driveway car to get out if they drove over our parking space. Without driving over our space they would have had to move the longways vehicle.

We let it slide for months until my partner parked where the longways car usually parked (on a bricked area NOT owned by neighbours) as we needed the extra space. The neighbours kicked off that we had used 'their' space so we decided not to just play nice anymore and installed a metal bollard as previously posted on this thread. They wanted to keep an unofficial space free so why couldn't we keep our legally owned space free?

This stopped them being able to use our drive and they had to start swapping vehicles over whenever they wanted to go out. Strangely they actually called police saying we were blocking their access which was a complete waste of police resources.

People like to talk about good neighbourly relations but often the type of people who do these things are quick to take but not give back. I guarantee if the op had a visitor in a van parked at the end of their driveway and therefore stopped the neighbours van being able to be parked they would be straight round to complain about how they always park there etc etc.

@TheGrimSmile they aren’t just walking on it.

close the gate?

I would definitely be putting planters along my boundary there-are the neighbours that lazy they can’t park on their drive and walk the 2 metres to the front door?

If its at the top and you park at the bottom then pop a heavy planter in

I think put something at the top of your drive for a week or two (eg a large plant pot) and park a bit further back so you block them but not right at the bottom of the drive. Then ignore the whole thing.

We had this and put a fence up, although our drive is much wider so no impact on us. They built a big garage where the car would have traditionally gone and then had to park on the narrow strip between their house and our drive and get out onto our drive.

The neighbours would often be stood on our drive chatting with friends or clients right outside our lounge window. I felt really uncomfortable sat working with strangers stood right outside the window! We did fence the whole garden with gates all at once so the front was secure for our children so it didn’t seem like it was specifically to stop them.

Personally I would not be falling out with my neighbours over this. Who waters the plants or keeps an eye on the place when you are on holiday? Or accepts a parcel?
Neighbours make or break your quality of life.
It’s not like they are inconveniencing you.

We have a similar set-up and I wouldn't be remotely arsed about additional 'wear and tear' from a car driving on part of my driveway. Maybe if they're driving a monster truck or steamroller in and out constantly, but a normal car going over part of the driveway a couple of times a day is nothing in the grand scheme. This really isn't something I could get bothered about at all.