There are two strangers sat in my garden eating their dinner

[Scrowy]

I've told them it's private property and not part of the footpath that passes next to it. Apparently they will be on their way soon.

I've now chickened out of saying anything else but I'm passive aggressively watering the hanging baskets about 5m away from them and they are very deliberately not making eye contact with me.

[RosieAd]

Put up a large sign saying "beware tick infestation" that should deter them!

[MrsMackesy]

Lazy journalism.

[ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia]

@Scrowy

Very shocked to hear about this in main stream media. I hope this now sets a precedent to prevent this type of activity happening again whether unintentional or indifferent as a direct breach of your rights to quiet undisturbed enjoyment to your private property. This disrespectful nonsensical behaviour beggars belief! Much empathy and sympathy for you original poster. Don’t let the buggers get you down. Onwards and upwards and good luck!

[Scrowy]

Also not a homeowner

Tsk

[Scrowy]

I'm not disgusted either

[ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia]

Homeowner stunned as couple sit down and 'eat their dinner' in her garden

A HOMEOWNER was disgusted to find strangers having a picnic in her garden.

By GEMMA JALEEL AND BRADLEY JOLLY
11:27, Wed, Jun 30, 2021

www.express.co.uk/life-style/property/1456410/Homeowner-strangers-eat-picnic-garden-Mumsnet-row

[Scrowy]

Maybe I should change my username to stunned mum.

I wonder what gave them the impression I was either of those things?

Or a woman for that matter.

Must be a slow news day in Liverpool.

[MrsMackesy]

Oh no, they've quoted me too. Fame at last. At least it's not the Fail/Heil, I suppose.

[TickledOnion]

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/mum-stunned-couple-sit-down-20920001?fbclid=IwAR195QxQkUaox2VKTOR2fGCS-w3epys0myv7CZWri44fktAFRSFFhchTd3M

[memberofthewedding]

A friend of mine rented a picturesque cottage for several months while she was writing up her doctorate. It was on the edge of a pretty village with a ROW which went past the room where she was working. There was only a low dry stone wall between her house and the path. As it was only a temporary rental there was no question of her putting up a fence. She learned to keep the curtains on that side of the house closed.

She also found the village people could be quite nosy about coming around to see who was living there and "dropping in" while she was trying to write. She tried ignoring the door but CF people used to come around to the back and tap on the window because they "saw the car". She pretended to be profoundly deaf which made for an uncomfortable time for her random unwanted visitors. None of them ever returned.

[ClaraSais]

We used to have a private path from the road up to the stile that led into our garden - I remember many times finding random people in there. We fenced it off many years ago.

[Blackcat333]

Tell them that part of the garden is used as a dog's toilet.

[AnnieSnap]

@auntnellie

Then why are you moaning if you arent going to do anything about it?
What was the point of your posting this.

This ☝️

[GrannyRose15]

Sorry just repeated cannibal queen's suggestion.

[GrannyRose15]

I think you need to do something either to make it clear that it is your garden or to encourage them not to sit right outside your window. If you can't stop people using the space, perhaps you could put a bench where you would prefer them to sit - out of sight of the house.
Just trying to think laterally.

[auntnellie]

Then why are you moaning if you arent going to do anything about it?
What was the point of your posting this.

[Scrowy]

To answer some questions and hopefully put the thread to bed

We won't put fencing up and it would be pointless as a demarcation (there's a purely decorative wall there already), it would be costly and a neighbour also has right of access over the bank. People aren't perhaps aware of how farm tenancies work but essentially it's not the landLADY's problem and any fencing would have to be at our expense and ours to take away with us again at the end of the tenancy.

Yes I have considered opening a tearoom. Let's see what ELMS and the Australia Deal bring us perhaps.

I'm not going to put a sign up. The sign would irritate me more than people sitting on the grass.

Scrowy = A mess

[DebHagland]

Have you considered starting a business as a Tea-Rooms/Cafe, at least you could charge them (a nice big notice stating that only food purchased at the premises may be consumed in on site).

[CannibalQueen]

Then put up a line where they can’t go. Or put up a sign. Most folk try to be respectful. Or how about a tree cut into a bench and rustic table where you’d prefer them to eat? If folk don’t know the ROW limits how can you be angry? I think I’d have apologised and moved but there are a lot of people who have very high self esteem and no manners these days.

[cannockcandy]

Things like this have always confused me. I also live in a national park and have rambled loads over the years but never have I sat in someone's garden and had a picnic lol. You wouldn't sit on someone's lawn next to the path and road on a normal street so why do people think its ok in rural and farmland areas?
They are cf and I'd put a fence up personally, not that you should have to cause a whopping stone wall should be enough!

[CovidCorvid]

My dad used to live in the cathedral quarter of a very touristy town. His private house was next to the cathedral. But there was literally a 10ft high railing fence and gate at his front garden.

Gate was always shut but we frequently found people in the garden, peering through the windows.

And when I walked up to the gate and opened it I used to have to slam it shut in peoples faces as people would try and follow me in! Then they'd look at me like I was being really rude!

[MajorNeville]

OMG I did this once, dh and were out for a walk and came across a large old building and there was a nice bench and a couple of picnic benches, there was a couple sitting on the bench drinking pints out of pint glasses, dh and I thought "ooo pub" and walked over. It was private property, I was mortified. We've laughed about it so much since though, we often see nice, obviously private gardens, and we say "Isn't that garden lovely, do you fancy a pint?"

[sueelleker]

@thefurriesthen

This made me laugh (sorry!) purely because I can empathise. We're in a popular village in the Peak District. Yesterday, a woman walked up our drive and stood with her foot up on part of our garden wall, very casually, while she took a phone call. It's extremely obvious it's a house/garden, not part of the footpath. You have to walk through our gates and our cars are there, and all the children's outdoor toys, day bed, BBQ etc. Some people are mad!

My husband lived in Stanmer Village, in Stanmer Park as a child, and people used to walk up their garden path and peer in the window; I think they thought the whole village was some sort of tourist attraction, like Beamish or Singleton!

[SheepGoBaaaa]

It sounds as though it's very unclear where the public footpath ends and your garden starts. Instead of getting all passive aggressive with people who have made a mistake, make your own life a bit easier by preventing it from happening in the future. Don't buy benches, just get a fence.

What these threads always demonstrate is that a significant number of people have no idea what a public footpath actually is, and think it's like a pavement, and that the OP is trying to assert rights over the pavement outside her house, or something.

Fences aren't often the answer, either. A public right of way can go right through your actual garden, and can't be fenced off without cutting you off from half your own garden.

I used to rent a lovely, dilapidated old cottage on the edge of a village near Oxford, and it had a small, cottage-type garden, entirely walled in, with flowerbeds, a small lawn, a little patio with garden furniture etc. BUT it also had a public right of way which came in off the village street via a little stile in the drystone wall, followed the line of the garden path up towards the house, went along the front of the house past the kitchen window, around the corner of the house, down the gable end, and out again via another stile behind the house, before continuing on across fields.

Obviously, as I was renting, it wasn't my call to do anything about this, other than to get used to ramblers passing the window, but it wouldn't have been possible to fence the path off at all without cutting the garden in two apart from anything else, part of it was on my own garden path that led up from the front gate to my front door. And the problem with legally diverting a path off your property is that it has to be diverted to somewhere and where's that? Somebody else's land? I do know of someone who successfully diverted a path that ran very close to their house, but they had a lot of land, and were able to divert it the far bank of a stream, so they had more privacy around the house, while still keeping the ROW on their own property.

I will say, though, that all the while I lived in that house, I never had anyone have a picnic on my lawn, or do anything more than walk up the path and take a photo as they went past -- I felt a lot of walkers were rather uncomfortable walking through a small garden with the house's inhabitants deadheading the roses a foot away, or doing the washing up at a window the path goes right past.

It may be that Covid times have brought people who don't understand how paths work out to the countryside more. I was certainly gobsmacked by a couple of recent threads where posters said they had no idea they shouldn't feed other people's horses.

[Ifailed]

@Daffi,
The Crown is the ultimate owner of all land in England and Wales, this dates back to feudalism introduced by the Norman Conquest where William took ownership by force.

You can own rights over land (a freeholder), but you can never 'own' it.