How do I stop people from showing up unannounced whenever they feel like it?!

[jessicaNgeorge]

I swear,
I'm going insane..
Every time I see either the front or back door open I walk over and close it, every time I walk past a closed door I check that it's locked..
I feel like I'm living in a giant fish bowl with no privacy and I hate it!

My partner and I bought a house 1.5 years ago, one of the things that we loved about the house was that it is on a large block, it's private and the neighbours are far away so that we don't feel cramped in..

Well, from the day we moved in, friends and family all just started showing up unannounced,
Including one friend who would walk around the house knocking on the doors and windows until someone let her in
Thank goodness she stopped after a while and now calls first..
On the other hand, my father and grandmother (who only live 10 minutes away) just LOVE to "pop" in..
Sometimes while we are all still in bed,
Sometimes while I'm in the shower,
Sometimes while we are all eating dinner.. Which by the way is difficult enough with a 4 yo child running around..
I've tried to "hint" for them to call first,
I then escalated it to saying it outright, CALL FIRST,
Nothing is working.. If the doors are unlocked they just walk straight in without even knocking..
I started padlocking the front gate for a while there but my dad just climbed the gate (which now wobbles since
And we started getting letters from the electricity/gas/water companies because they couldn't get access to the metres so the padlock had to go..
I feel like I'm in hiding and it brings me to the verge of a panic attack..

How do people deal with intrusive guests?!

What on earth makes them think they can just do this? Some times you must have other friends over, surely they must sense how awkward it is.

How rude, I would tell them one last time if you come by again without calling we won't let you in and if they don't listen then you know what to do!

Just tell them. It's your house. You need to be strict if you don't want them to pop round. No one would dare do this to me. I think you have been too soft.

Keep the doors locked and don't answer the doorbell unless it's convenient. Even if they can see you're in. If they complain later, just say you were busy with something important, and couldn't come to the door.

My parents don't appear to understand that you don't actually have to answer the phone or the door if it's not convenient - we grew up in a tiny one-storey house with no privacy to take a bath or do homework, because old friends of my dead grandfather, a priest who knew my father through a shared hobby, distant relatives, all just wandered in the back door at mealtimes with no warning and stayed till midnight.

I was talking on Skype to my mother about something quite serious earlier, when the phone rang, my father answered it and brought the phone to my mother, despite the fact she was talking to me, and they have caller display, so he could see it was a local bore who regularly keeps my mother on the phone for an hour at a time with her monologues.

I pretend to be out & we all carry on playing in the family room at the back of the house. Nice high wall & a gate stops people walking round to the garden. Xx