Adding trellis to stop neighbour intrusion

[RosesAreRed85]

I live in a 4 in a block. I'm top floor and my garden (private) is the one shown on the left of the photo, surrounded by the fence. Neighbour is beneath and the window shown is her bedroom window. Both fences are mine, previous owner paid for them and for them to be erected.

I get on well enough with downstairs neighbour however the issue is that every time I go out to the garden, she comes out and chats, for a good half hour. She's elderly and I get that she just wants to chat, I have no problem with a short chat now and then, but last time I was out there, I had a whole day free when DC was at their dads and so wanted to get cracking on the garden, she came out 5 separate times, 3 times to chat for ages and will sometimes stand watching me from her bedroom window, which is a little awkward.

I'm not sure if it would be unreaonable of me to heighten the fence a little to give me privacy? I don't want to completely block her light, just her view into my garden! I was thinking of popping a trellis on top, so that light still gets through. Maybe pop some climbing flowers on it. The taller fence that can be seen is 6ft tall, i was thinking of matching the trellis height to this. Local planning permission dictates 6ft 6 inches is the limit that you can have fences, so I don't think I would be breaking any local laws. I'm sure she will complain as she's quite fixed on how she thinks things should be, so I'm not sure if it's unreasonable of me to do this?

Most flats have communal gardens. I have never heard of any having individually owned plots of garden sitting alongside a flat.
If they did I would expect logically they would back onto the flat they backed onto.

I agree with this one. Best option IMO ... A sturdy trellis that goes part way up her window, but doesn't block it completely/remove her light. With some fake ivy strewn through it (ebay cheap to buy,) you can pretty much block her out.

I would never have moved into a place with a garden this badly overlooked personally, but it is what it is, and you are where you are now. Bad design though, but yeah, this idea by @letsgoanonforthis is the best option on here IMHO.

@RosesAreRed85 Pay no attention to the posters saying YABU and rude to want to block her out. All of the people saying this would do EXACTLY the same. They would try to get privacy, and would block her out!

No-one wants people gawping at them in their own bloody garden, and constantly prattling on and intruding you and disrupting what you are doing.

Anyone who says they would be OK with it, is clearly one of those infuriating people who nose at you in your garden, and insist on chatting constantly, and do NOT take hints when people make it clear they want privacy and to be left alone. They're in their garden FGS, not on the street!

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Look, just bite the bullet amd tell her you really don't want to chat. It's unpleasant for you, but this whole trellis rigmarole is ridiculous. And it won't prevent her from still trying to chat with you, BTW.

THIS is the ivy I was on about.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/398234178748?_skw=fake+ivy&itmmeta=01M16ZFNHTBF5CG9B74XTMGGJP&hash=item5cb89b54bc:g:zy0AAeSwvTxqbG-9&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAAwLB2JXbe%2Bh2pdWBqbR2c2DvzjGfsbO3B0TX5B5YRAv%2FGUA9TNnSPtIvEPTnMuXzx%2FemrTBX96OwzVE6pHsTNfYpCvAkk%2BLzpk7DTcW%2FbFe3y3U4AiDqKte0OndnSLfrY9sgYcjwqDvprB%2BfZ8ajr98eC5x6uOmASOLy3%2BBf%2FQMGfwxYfJZi%2FP5qddWkmp3174JxYeuuYiPWQRDG%2FLPxBkcipcSx1jlCZnQmGPH1APUmCkTzb0CHzXUdbd%2FT2OngsXA%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABlBMUKDZvt-JaA

Beggin’ yer pardon m’lady………I shall go back t’skullery and black the range!

That poster was being sarcastic - read the room!!

I don’t think she’s on the 4th floor, is she? I assume there are 4 flats in the block (2 downstairs, 2 upstairs) and OP lives above Doris’s flat. And it’s not a six foot fence, as Doris can see over it when she’s in her own flat/garden. Unless Doris is a giant.

I agree OP can’t put trellis up, I don’t know what the answer is but obviously it was bought like that so I’m not sure what else she expected to happen 🤔

I understand your situation but I think it's a little harsh to block her view (which will also effect the amount of light she gets).

Does she go out at all? - or are you the only person she gets to speak to some days?

If you are fine with having a small chat with her perhaps you can say that you'll only be able to talk for 10 minutes or so, as you have lots to do - or start off by saying you need to do whatever job you are doing and that you'll tap on her window for a chat when you've done it?

Another option is to make a private area towards the back of the garden; somewhere that she won't immediately see you are sitting.

We'll be old one day and might be thankful for a cheery chat! 🌸

This post nails it!

Flower bed with evergreen plants is your best bet here. They will grow slowly but surely and you can space them out so it doesn’t look super dense but gets a barrier in place. Just be mindful that they don’t get ‘trimmed’ when you are not around..

Putting up that trellis is bound to aggravate her. I agree it looks a pretty weird set-up; it looks as if she could lean out of the window and grab OP!

I think a gradual (but not too gradual) freeze is the way to go. “Morning, Beryl!” and then head down with, as others have said, big headphones on. “Sorry, can’t stop, Beryl!” on repeat. Hopefully Beryl will get bored trying in vain to get OP to engage.

As for the staring, just Ignore. The pants need to be bored off Beryl so she gives up, rather than throwing her any kind of bone.

My cousin had a neighbour like this who lurked and shot out if she heard cousin open her back door. Cousin ended up sitting in a deckchair in her garage rather than the garden to avoid neighbour!

I get the impression she is on the top floor of the house in the block next to the garden and the old lady.

I do understand that these situations can be difficult.

But building something new will not make her go away. She’ll be upset and confused and probably just find a new way to talk to you about it.

You need to say ‘’I’ve got 5 minutes to chat Jean but then I absolutely have to get on, so will have to be rude and ignore you I’m afraid’.Then do it. There’s no substitute for this.

I think you would be shockingly rude to put up trellis in front of her windows. I can’t imagine why you thought it would be OK.

Oh op, as others have said you knew the weird set up when you moved in. No don't put trellis or anything up it'd be rude and unpleasant.

Suck it up. Headphones on when in the garden til she gets the hint and turn away if she's looking at you from her window. She's an older lady not a weird creep.

I grew up in a house like this in Scotland. Our back bedroom looked out over the neighbour's entire back garden. It was only after I moved away that I realised how weird it was.

@RosesAreRed85 can you clarify? Are you directly above Doris’s flat, or next door?

I once lived in a house where my garden was actually down a path and surrounded/overlooked by others. It was clear when I bought it I'd have no privacy but it was cheap so I put up with it until I bought a better place.

That was my point.

However, there are many ground floor or basement flats which do own the garden.

They tend to be conversions though from Victorian terraced/ semis, not modern flats.

I'm unsure why someone on the 4th floor would own a garden when there are 3 storeys below nearer to the garden.

At best you're going to be overlooked by 3 other flats.

Does she have a garden and if so where is it.
Does she only have windows on one side of the building ?

Of all the ideas on this thread this is probably the most appropriate @RosesAreRed85. If you put up the trellis you showed us earlier in the thread your neighbour will just talk through it. Although she will probably be annoyed and stop speaking to you. I guess that might be a relief for you. Be very careful about growing anything next to that low fence. Whether it be climbers, shrubs or whatever. Your neighbour will inevitably say they are encroaching onto her walkway/garden thus causing you more grief. Really the only proper solution is if you don’t want to speak to her about the issue is to sacrifice some of your garden. Then you could put up an enclosure of sorts. I feel your pain OP I once had well meaning but intrusive neighbours. They drove me nuts. I fell down a flight of steps in my garden because of them. They were calling me over to them. I thought it was some sort of an emergency. I missed my footing and had a really bad fall.

Instead of a flat trellis at the top of the fence you could place 3 of these along the fence line and grow plants up - sorry about long link don’t know how to shorten
www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChsSEwi76pWwjsaWAxUkh1AGHX-KGyMYACICCAEQEhoCZGc&co=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhsrUBhDxARIsAN3AQSdvg3QkHyz7qo67YBdkAFDf-U46-IKN7WFz8vWZtTHke-RlCj-cov0aAnU7EALw_wcB&sph=&cce=1&sig=AOD64_0YfvZoggeS2b3OEWbNkKRrGLeKFg&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiDyIywjsaWAxUBVUEAHd8MGB4Qwg8oAHoECAsQDQ&adurl=

You could have just said a wooden obelisk!

I thought she was referring to her flat being the one with the balcony. But she isn’t she means she is above the old lady now ( I think )?

A woodland obelisk!