Neighbours requests after a burglary

[Roughnose]

We acquired a house from a relative of DH last year, it needed a lot of work and money spent on it to make it habitable.
A new family moved in next door during the early part of the referb, and it’s come to light that they have had 4 attempted burglaries for their cars and motorbikes, and the 5th attempt was successful with one of the motorbikes.
We haven’t started on the garden yet but we have plans in place for how we want it to look.
The neighbours have asked us to keep the (broken and rotten) bamboo screening between our gardens as it would prevent burglars from jumping over our fence to their garden. They have asked us to keep a broken fence panel in place as it would make it harder for a burglar to jump on their garage roof. To not cut down a tree at the back as someone could look over the fence into their garden. They have asked us to remove a brick flower bed as a burglar could stand on it and jump over. They have asked us to put new fence panels between our front gardens for their privacy (current ones are fine but only 4ft tall) And they have asked us to not put trellis on any fences as they want to put barbed wire on top of them.
Now I understand the burglaries are horrible for them and I’m sure they’re stressed and upset, but to expect us to make changes to our home and garden feels too far for me. Of course I would want to help prevent another attempt, and I certainly don’t want anyone coming onto our property, but I also don’t want to live as if we’re the victims of it and make changes to our own plans for them.
It’s put us off living in the house as planned, although we will be here for minimum 2 years to finish refurbs before selling on/renting out so we will have to make do. At least we have cctv and alarms. It’s made me feel like I won’t be able to enjoy the garden due to the risk they’ll constant harass us about changes we make that wont benefit them.
Do we say no and leave it at that or be neighbourly and agree?

Tell em to fuck off and do what YOU want with YOUR home.

Tough titties if they got burgled - their house is not your problem.

Dont give them an inch otherwise they'll expect/demand more. "Fuck off" is the only universal phrase every human understands.

Agreeing to this isn't neighbourly, it's being a doormat.

Totally understand their concerns however this is your property and your garden.

It's up to your neighbours to make their perimeter safe and secure.

No to the barbed wire, especially on YOUR fence as you would be liable for any injuries to a burglar
https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/ask-the-police/question/Q78

Suggest they install an alarm to their garage and CCTV. Neither are expensive

You be neighbourly and say that you're sorry that happened, how upsetting for them, and you'll give the suggestions some further thought.

And then give their suggestions no further thought. At all.

The problem with cctv or ring doorbells is determined burglers will just wear black and cover their faces so it's pretty useless as a deterrent. If your neighbours want to own flash cars and motorbikes then they need to accept they will be targeted, especially if they leave them in view.
It would be far better if they had trackers fitted to their vehicles.

First thing to do is to look at the land registry and find out who is responsible for the fence. If it is them, they can jog on asking you to do it. If you, yes, trellis is a better idea than barbed wire.

re the bamboo - surely you want something better?

re tree - doesn’t that just give someone help to climb over?

they need to add some secure anchor points to their front garden for the bikes to make it more difficult to steal stuff.

Wow, that's some 'wish list'

I would reply tactfully, something like, I'm very sorry to hear about your experiences and will keep in mind your thoughts as we have work done. However, just to be clear, we will not be putting up barbed wire, what you do in your garden on your side of the boundary is your choice, but you may wish to look up the legalities/responsibilities if you put barbed wire up.

“We appreciate your input but we have decided to go with our own plans for our garden. We will keep an eye out for burglars though, no one wants those.”

Thanks again, I’m waiting for DH to finish work to tell him, I don’t think it will go down well.
Our plans are to re fence all around so the bamboo will be coming down, we want to keep the flower beds and the tree as DH relative planted it.
It’s our boundary line so they’d have to put something on their side if they don’t like having fences.
I did query why they didn’t have cctv or alarms (they are clearly very wealthy) but they didn’t really have an answer. I don’t want to fall out with them or make it awkward, so best suggestion I can think of is that we’ll grow tall plants with trellis as I’m not happy about the thought of barbed wire there.
It does feel like Chapter 1 of the CF story.

You don't need to give any explanations, make excuses or even tell them you won't be doing these things. Their house security is not your responsibility. Go ahead and make whatever changes you want to your garden and if they say anything just say 'you need to sort out your own house security, nothing to do with us' then smile and say 'have a good day' and walk away. Repeat as necessary. If you don't make it clear you're having none of it they'll have you pestered forever.

If the fences are yours and it's your boundary then your neighbours can not paint or attach anything to your fence and have no legal right to do so.
There are also rules enforced by the local council over what height fences at the front can be. It will be on your deeds or your council can tell you but 4' is likely to be the max but some councils have 2' limit.
Your neighbours sound batshit tbh.

Well those things haven't stopped the burglars so far, have they? If anything, high walls and fences just give them more privacy to snoop around and find a way in, undetected.

So they expect you to leave bits that's are falling apart in your garden incase a burglar tries to break in that way and they want you to pay for a new higher fence for their benefit too?
So cheeky!
I have young children and cats and would not tolerate them putting barbwire on fences that were mine as it's just so unsafe!

You are not in control of how other people feel about you. It is really not worth your while thinking about that. They sound entitled and entitled people often don’t do well with hearing no so just don’t get bogged down on their reaction.

As you are starting with a clean slate so to speak, why not ask The Police Crime Prevention officer for some reccomendations for your own benefit?

If your neighbours are interested I have a 15 year old Kia Rio with 151000 miles on the clock that I am happy to swap for one of your neighbours flash expensive cars. I cant imagine that it will be a chav magnet

Er, sorry what? They have a bunch of highly stealable vehicles visible at the front of their house, that attract thieves to your doorstep. And they're the ones asking YOU to do something about that? Ask them when their motorbike shed is arriving.

Humm, we had a break in & the police said it would be steal to order cars. They told us to replace door locks with anti snap ones and put good old fashioned steering locks on the cars and use those pouches. If your neighbours have been done over 4 times I would hope the police also told them this - sounds dodge to me!

It's them that needs to step up security. You can offer to do a security light for your benefit too, ring camera or whatever.

If they've got bikes it's a nightmare. They need a ground anchor to stop them opening the garage door.

They are clearly batshit/entitled and you have no responsibility beyond general neighbourly courtesy to consider them in your plans for your garden, and there are obviously things that they can do themselves to make their house and vehicles more secure.

A couple of the comments though (not you OP)... I don't know, there's a bit of a 'well, they're asking for it' vibe that I'm not wild about.

I would be less than amused if a neighbour started talking about barbed wire on the fence. I am surrounded by razor wire at work, I would NOT have it around my house even on one fence. What if a cat or a bird got caught on it?

They may well be "very wealthy ", but they sound "very stupid".

They could put up fencing etc that they think will protect their property. You can do what you want on your property in accordance with planning laws.

If they park the cheapest car across their driveway or on the pavement in front no one can escape with the others.

Also they definitely need CCTV, there are cheap DIY options out there now, they can do it for a couple of hundred quid. They could at least put a CCTV warning sign up, few quid on Amazon.

Fence stuff will depend on whose boundary it's technically on.

Problem is that once one thing gets taken, word gets around and that house will be targeted all the time now.

Just ignore them and do whatever you were going to , and tell them you do not want barbed or razor wire on your fences as it’s too dangerous and may leave you open to damages to cats etc

Given the burglaries to your neighbors, you are thinking about this backwards. You should be thinking about how to plan a beautiful garden for yourself that also deters break-ins to your own home. That may likely have the side effect of benefitting your neighbors.

This!