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Lose our view - but regain privacy?

27 replies

Solo2 · 08/08/2010 08:45

I have to make a decision in the next few days - do we lose our lovely view of countryside/ fields/ grazing sheep but regain privacy in our garden/house - or - do we keep the view but endure loss of privacy???

I can't decide. Our garden backs onto agricultural land - firstly a privately owned field. I bought the house largely for the fantastic rural view and the sense of our garden being much bigger than it was, as the end boundary only had a wire mesh fence.

Then we discovered that people trespassed into the field and gangs of local children 'enjoyed' ogling us in our garden and at the back of the house, calling over, pulling down the fence as they tried to climb up it, throwing stones at and chasing the sheep....a trampoline was placed in the field and a bike track mowed around the perimeter. DSs were bullied and aggressed so that they stopped wanting to go into the garden at all and I stopped too.

The field owners found out about the trespass and forbid anyone going onto their land. The trampoline was taken down and the play equipment removed and we breathed a sigh of relief....

But now they're starting to come back, not quite so much as before but enough to invade our privacy. A gang of 7 children were roaming in the field late at night, the other day and the neighbour came to stare at some works we're having done in the garden...

I have to decide in the next few days - do I get a tall fence erected and block out the trespasses but also will block our view, our light, the sense that the garden is bigger than it really is??? - or do I put up privacy trellis all along, slightly restricting our view but not too much, letting in the light and preserving some sense of expansion to the garden....BUT also allowing the trespasses full view of our lives?

I've posted in other MN sections about this before but now it's 'crunch time'. So WWYD? - Gain privacy at last - but lose the view - or keep our view and tolerate privacy invasion?

OP posts:
Solo2 · 31/08/2010 14:57

More help needed please....my neighbours are now encountering me in the street and being personally abusive - verbally at any rate. She (the mum next door) is claiming that everyone in the neighbourhood is up in arms against me now for supporting the field owners in the no trespass request.

When I tried to stay calm and clear and said it was really just a simple issue - that none of us owns the field and we've all been asked not to trespass - end of story. I also said that it's difficult for me, as I'm currently responsible for returning the field to its former state and am liable for accidents on my construction site. So I've got a vested interest in ensuring no one goes in the field - at least at the moment, as we've currently no end of garden fencing, just a flimsy, temporary barrier.

She got really nasty with me and suggested that all her friends - the neighbours - hate me now as they all used to enjoy going in the field (it was really her and her family and friends who go in it most not anyone else).

I tried to ignore this and said again how perhaps she could take her DCs, as I do, to the local parks, instead of encouraging them to trespass on the field and our garden. She said she spent far more time than I ever did with her DCs (she wouldn't know whether or not that's true anyway - and it isn't) and began to go on and on with personal slights against me. I just walked away but feel terrible now. I am absolutely paranoid that everyone in the neighbourhood now hates me and is talking about me behind my back.

In the meantime, her children are still going in the field and now climbing the big tree there that stands between our boundaries and staring in at my DCs and I evertime we go in our garden, in a rather off-putting way. The second we go out into our garden, they come running out into theirs and start shrieking and screaming, as if the mum has told them to and then when we go back in the house, they go back into theirs.

The trees we're going to get planted to screen out the neighbours view from their garden and trampoline, won't screen out people who climb the tree whilst trespassing in the field, as it's a massive tree.

I'm sure the police wouldn't be interested in any of this and my neighbour is already saying I've upped the ante far too much. So I feel boxed into a corner and v isolated.

At the moment, I only feel able to go into our garden if we have friends around, like yesterday - which was fine, although the next door children climbed the tree in the field and stared at us for ages. But if I'm alone here with my DCs, I feel unable to go out into the garden and even scared to come to and from our house to go out anywhere.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this and will it all just calm down eventually? I'm hoping they'll get bored watching me and the DCs and refocus on something more interesting than upsetting me. But it makes it v v uncomfortable to be here at present.

OP posts:
Solo2 · 02/09/2010 16:35

Bumping my own thread...wondering what to do about neighbours now.....any advice please?

OP posts:
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