Neighbour drove across my garden!!!

[Pez82]

Last night I came home to find a car parked just outside my house below my neighbour's windows - now, not only this isn't not a parking space but the neighbour has driven through 3 different front gardens to get there!!!! WTF??!! (There are deep tyre marks on the lawn as a result 😖)

I'm attaching an homemade diagram to show how ludicrous the situation is. The yellow square is the current car's position and the yellow line the path taken!!! The green lines show my property as well as the invisible boundary on my front lawn. The driveways on the picture are slanted and once all cars are parked in their respective driveways (like they were this morning), there is no way out!!!

I've left an angry note on the windscreen but as the car has been covered in tarpaulin it looks like it could be there for a while!

So what do I do??? Build a wall/fence so it can never get out?? 😬

That is completely taking the piss.

Fab diagram though

It looks like they also drove across your other neighbours' lawns? Maybe have a chat with those neighbours so that you're a united force in dealing with the perpetrator.

Realistically the only thing you might do is identify the owner of the car and point out that they will need to take a different route when they leave!

(Fancy seeing you here, Kwick )

If you are going to make a claim you first need to assess your loss. Will the grass grow back or do you actually have to pay to have it reinstated. It is very shit, but I wouldnt want you wasting your time with a claim that will fail at the first hurdle. Even if you go down the trespass route you will be throwing lots of money at this.

I feel like we may need jennyfromthehood

Please can someone post a picture of these infamous penguin bollards. Thanks!

shoes!!! Well I never!!! you are using your usual eloquence - perpetrator indeed!

pez are you sure it is your neighbours car under the tarpaulin? Maybe have a word with them first?

It would tick me off to have deep tire marks running across my lawn and driving across the lawn without permission is just rude. It's a pain to roller them out, fill them in with soil from another part of the garden, or have to buy and haul around topsoil to level the lawn back out.

If the tracks are deep I would tell the neighbor to fix them, including re-seeding or re-sodding the lawn.

If the tracks are not deep and will wear out in the next storm I would just tell them to not do it again as they will be fixing any damage.

Ooh Pez, you've raised the standard for future parking threads with a diagram like that.

Yes, I wonder why the driver didn't just go up the right hand side of your cul de sac and over less grass.

Goodness. There's an etiquette board?
Well I never...

I also like Bonny's suggestion of building a wall. But you should of course make your neighbours pay for the wall.

Having watched far too many episodes of The Bill in my youth, I wonder whether the car has been in an accident and they're hiding it until the dust settles. Hence the tarp, to cover the damage.

So he drove straight over the kerb at the end of the cul de sac, right up on the lawn, made a sharp right turn, crossed three yards, the access path, and is now parked in front of his own property (where the blue car is in the drive)? That's craaaazzy!!

There's no way he drove up the access path?

Hope you and your neighbours have photo'd the lawn damage.

You give good thread.

JohnnyDepp

You can claim off the insurance for this damage, i have done (long story!). Take photos of everything and you need to see the reg number.
Realistically its £10-£30 to fix with some grass seed and sand - but you shouldn't have to

I was in a meeting so only caught up with the messages now... Glad to see I have a proper nutter case here

Thanks for all the advice and more importantly for all the giggles reading your comments

The photo is taken from google earth so probably a few years old (my lawn looks better now). There is NO driveway for this property and therefore NO access whatsoever (I don't have a driveway either). The black line I drew on the diagram was to show his own neighbour's fence.

Barbara that is a good point re tax issue but not a reason to trespass private property nonetheless! (And no I'm not offended by the garden competition, I only bought the place a year ago and have been working on renovating the inside before I work on the flower beds )

Helena, the pathway is actually really narrow and has got a few high steps so there's no way to get a car through there, which makes me question how they're going to get out...

Really, your husband is right, the guy couldn't have been drunk as parking a car in that small space would have required quite a lot of dexterity (and no, I'm not making the assumption that only a man could have done that!!)

Arsey ahahah re the wall

To be honest the damage isn't that bad, I'm not too fussy about my front lawn (but a bit more about what is my property as I'm quite new to the home ownership world). I am on my way home now so I can take pictures before it gets dark.

I will let you know the outcome but it's either the car is gone and I have more tyre marks or the car is still there in which case I'll plan my next action!! I won't go to legal action but might ask the council for advice if the car is still there in a few weeks time.

You have made my day op, I love a good parking thread, You diagram is beautiful!

I'd be getting my land reg boundary plans out and planning my fence.....

The last time I kept a car off the road the mice moved in.

Plant some trees, Tesco had some fruit trees at a reasonable price.

I think you should get a landscape gardener in to put up a few trees and bushes. Maybe a pond in the middle too

I love that the standard for parking diagrams is to now get a helicopter/hijack a satellite so that we can see the cars in situ google earth style! sorry mistress, couldnt resist!

I'm definitely getting shrubs this weekend (that is if the car is out by then). Love the idea of a pond!!! If I did that, they would have absolutely no way out so it's so tempting

By the way, to add to the story - the same neighbours never take their wheelie bins in so on the bottom of my angry note this morning I said: 'the only right of way is the small path which should also be used to take wheelie bins in' 😉

Nearly home now so let's see...

a pond is the best idea ever!!! you could use the soil you dig out to fill in the tyre marks.

I was coming on to say that this would be a case for Judge Rinder.

If you're going to take pictures the it's also worth taking a video clip too. If you're going to use your phone it's worth holding the phone in landscape mode rather than portrait so you don't get the tall skinny videos, if you're watching on a screen we're much more used to watching tv style.

Just pan around slowly, talk as you go and move about twice as slowly as you think you should. It will help to give a really good feel of the damage and the trail of destruction to add to the pictures and map.

And they are super easy to make. Dig a nice big hole, line with fine sand, line with a couple of layers of pond liner, fill with water and plants and stuff.

Then place this by the pond.

Wait, they go through your garden with wheelie bins due to a few steps?
That's ridiculous! Unless they're elderly?

Park a birdfeeder by the car. Stick with peanuts.

Watch the bird shit cover the car.
Enjoy his face when he sees it.

If you can afford it build a wall. Doesn't have to be a high one, just enough to stop them using your garden for bins/car.

Or lots of (spiky) hedging shrubs.
Goarse - lovely scented yellow flowers. Absolute spiky b'stard.
Barberis - comes in green or purple leaf varieties. Small yellow flowers.
Dog rose. Lovely flowers.

Or very (very) large boulders.

Build/plant and settle for a cuppa outside and watch their faces...