Neighbour overstepping

[Iwritethissittinginthekitchensink]

Can I ask for some help on how/whether to raise this with my neighbour?

She’s an elderly lady who seems to have problems with needing things to be neat and proper.

We live in semi-detached houses and our front gardens adjoin with a patch of grass. No fence/physical boundary. It’s a tiny patch of grass about 0.75x1.5m with flowerbeds around it.

My garden is messy by her standards (cut grass and trim the bushes once a month) and she’s very prim and proper (cut grass once a week, not a single weed).

She has a gardener who keeps mowing and weeding my side recently. I’m irritated as he leaves stray grass cuttings all over my steps, and I’m also irritated that she’s instructing a 3rd party to do work on my property that I haven’t asked for. I’m quite happy for her to leave my side as it is.

I’m also annoyed that she keeps putting my bin in my driveway after the bin men have come if I’m out at work. She leaves it half way up my drive in the way of my garden gate and me parking my car where I want to park it.

I appreciate she’s probably thinks she’s being nice but something inside me is irrationally angry about this (admittedly probably a childhood thing because of having a horribly invasive mother). I Just want to have my space and run my property how I want to run it, and I don’t want bossy/judgemental neighbours in my space. I want to mow my grass when I want to mow it, I want to do no-mow May when I want, and I want to sweep my steps after I mow my grass so I don’t walk grass into the house. I want my bin left where the bin men leave it, which is still on my property and not in anyone’s way so I can park my car where I want to park it. I put it away at the end of the day in my back garden.

How can I word this to her in a rational, calm way?

One day when I was home and she was brazenly walking up my driveway to put my bin where she wants it, I breezily called out of the window, ‘please leave it where it is, it’s in the way of my car there and I don’t need you to put it away thanks’, She stopped doing it for a while, but that was a year or two ago and she’s back to her bossy ways.

Cant be bothered with nuclear responses - my inner child is doing enough of that in my head! Looking for calm and measured ideas please! Thanks

If your property is shabby it brings down the whole street. It's far more pleasant to walk on a pavement with the bins returned to their place out of way and to walk past well cared for and neat front gardens.

Cutting people's hair is not the same because someone having straggly hair doesn't impact me unless it's someone I'm responsible for such as my child or a disabled family member unable to take care of themselves. Living next to a dump or a neglect home or having to weave your way around bins does affect me, it makes the area shitty and uncomfortable to walk around.

This is the second ungrateful op for kind neighbours recently always reading nefarious intentions into the most wonderful, thoughtful and generous gestures by neighbours being, well, neighbourly! You should watch nightmare neighbours so that you thank your lucky stars for having such a 'problem'.

So much projection. OP's is clearly not a "dump". The bin is being moved to the drive where it is in the way. This is not kindness, this is control.

But I was thinking a really short Dutch Bob might suit everyone, so snip snip.

Our neighbours and I , move our bins to each others drives, so that they aren’t lost.
And I’d love someone’s paid gardener to make my garden look presentable.

You are being very unreasonable

This, I wish we all had your neighbour.

No wonder so many women struggle with boundaries when they’re told they should allow allow others to trample all over the ones they have set in the name of being nice.

i think you are projecting here. The gardener cutting a bit of your grass is not “trampling all over your property”. Have a quiet pleasant word with him, or put up a pretty metal fence around your property. One of our neighbours did that, but I think it was because they were fed up with the postie cutting across her plants.

The bins sounds like she is being really nice.

This would bloody annoy me OP. YANBU. Speak the the gardener directly about the clippings and next April make it clear that he should not mow at all. Ask her not to move your bin.

1. Put a fence up
2. Say "it's lovely that you bring my bin in, but you don't need to
3. Read some of the other "neighbour" threads to get a bit of perspective.

This is how my batshit awful neighbours started and I wish I had laid down boundaries at the start. They gradually told me to do more and more, until it reached threats of violence and police when I wouldn't.

@MadelineUsher

how mean spirited

If I was you I'd drop the garden thing. It's hardly the end of the world and it makes her happy to have it all neat. Whilst I think your gardening schedule is fine, when it's a split patch of grass like that it must look a bit daft when yours is due it's cut. I suspect your other neighbours probably appreciate her gardener doing you bit too!

The bin thing would drive me nuts though and is definitely worth addressing. Moving your bin so it blocks your drive and you can't pull in isn't helpful in anyone's land. You just need to have a chat with her along the lines of "I know you're trying to be helpful but that really doesn't work for me because then I can't pull on my drive. I would prefer you leave it where it is and I'll deal with it when I get home. If you insist on moving it please move it all the way up my drive so I can still get my car on".

What? Who doesn't love a free hair cut! Not of their choice, but v unreasonable to not appreciate the spirit of generosity in removing others' freedom of choice to impose a look and style of one's own liking...

This thread is really interesting.

I really don't want a neighbour who interferes with my property. I am lucky and have normal, friendly, respectful neighbours. I would not dream of cutting their gras without asking.

Do you understand that what the neighbour is doing is correctly defined as trespassing @BobbyBobbyBobby ? Would you trespass on your neighbours' properties too?

It truly is bizarre. Imagine if you came home and your neighbour had painted your house pink. Pruned your roses down to stumps. Helpfully rehomed your dog. There are property boundaries and personal boundaries for a reason, and this thread is full of posters saying - despite clear indications these are not "nice" gestures - the OP is unreasonable and should be "grateful"!

@MadelineUsher

nonsense they moved in after and the place is being kept to a good standard ie probably as before.

why complain about it being kept done. She isn’t redesigning it FFS.

you are starting to sound like one of those types that ruin an area because you can!!

@MadelineUsher

it is a nice thing.

My comment is admittedly coloured by the fact that we live next door to a full on hoarder whose garden, complete with abandoned rusty car and rubbish, is so overgrown only a small percentage of the bungalow front is visible. I can only dream of a neat neighbour next door but I appreciate you don't like someone overriding your wishes so I think speaking to her gardener's your best bet and a little post and chain to mark the boundary would work well in the circumstances.

Put a fence up. Make it clear it’s separate properly and you don’t want people on it?

O-kay... Backing slowly away...

Our bin men dump the bins blocking our parking so one of us moves the bins out of the way to be helpful. Maybe the bin would be in the way anyway.

One neighbour cuts her neighbour's front lawn even though she doesn't have one. It's called being neighbourly.

These are such tiny things to get worked up about. Just leave it and be grateful that you don't have the neighbours from hell like I had at my last house.

One day when I was home and she was brazenly walking up my driveway to put my bin where she wants it, I breezily called out of the window, ‘please leave it where it is, it’s in the way of my car there and I don’t need you to put it away thanks’, She stopped doing it for a while, but that was a year or two ago and she’s back to her bossy ways.

It's not about being helpful. She not getting the OP's lawn mown to be helpful either. It seems she is imposing her own standards on others. Ditto:

She seems to have slight OCD or perfectionist issues - I’ve seen her kicking other people’s stones back into their driveways when she’s walking along the road to the village shop and obviously she’s very perfectionist about her garden.

Get a fence? A high fence.

I know this is the unpopular view but .... i think your busybody neighbour is being controlling and interfering under the guise of being "helpful". You do not owe her any kind of gratitude for it.

Personally I would bike lock my bin in place so that she can't "helpfully" move it and would be having a sharp word with her gardener. You've asked her to stop and she hasn't. She knows exactly what she's doing.

Get a Ring doorbell too.

“God maybe I need to be more compassionate towards her and just let her do what she wants”

No! You don’t have to allow her to do what she wants to your property! That’s not compassion, it’s being a doormat. People here are saying you should allow her gardener to mow and weed your garden because they would like someone doing that for them. But you don’t want that, and you don’t want her “helping” by putting your bin halfway up your driveway right where you want to park your car, and I wouldn’t like that either.

I would not allow someone else’s gardener to be weeding and mowing my garden. I leave the grass longer than most people do for the wildlife, and I allow wild flowers to grow that some people consider to be weeds. I would tell them very firmly that they must not touch my property. The fact that she thinks it’s untidy is irrelevant.

There’s a tendency on MN to encourage people to be passive and people-pleasing, and we’re seeing that on this thread.

@MadelineUsher

dear me.
seek help
after you backed away