Neighbours, driveways and stupid police.

[montysma1]

My driveway entrance is double width, leading into my largely monoblocked driveway, which extends to the full width of my house. The entrance and the driveway are accessed over the pavement which has a lowered kerb.

I am plagued by cars doing 3 point turns, either mounting the pavement (best case ) or more commonly, crossing the pavement and driving squarely right into my monoblocked garden as part of their turn. Its annoying when randopm cars do it.

More annoyingly, a woman who comes daily to a house 3 down from ours (I think she might be the granny and might be child caring), uses our driveways habitually for all her turns, and I mean, all 4 wheels in my garden, (head lights beaming into our living room if its dark). Tonight i actually had to sit in the road way waiting for her to reverse out ouf my drive before I could get in to park on it! She actaully drices right past the driveway of the house she is going into (as it is narrow), manouvers in my garden and drives back down the street to park at the house she is going into!

Phoned the police tonight who say this is neither a criminal or civil offence. They are sending a community officer tomorrow to assuage my ranting, although, I did point out thats its not me who is doing it, so why not visit her?

AIBU to phone thenm back and point out that they are talking crap and that the law seems to state "that it is an offence to drive a vehicle over a pavement unless to gain access to private property" As she is not gaining access to my property, nor has she permission to , then surely it is an offence to mount the pavemnt at my house let alone drive right over it onto my property.

My children play in the garden, and know nopt to even so much as oput a toe out onto the pavement. but they cant even be safe in their own garden as according to the police, its perfectly fine for random cars to swing in at speed, reverse and leave again. they said i should phone back if a car hits one of them!

[Boomerwang]

Sorry to drag up an old thread but I wondered if all was well now?

[BonzoDooDah]

Oh good! Fingers crossed she has the mesage.

And am snorting here at your replies to iagreeto - what a condescending knobber!

[ShutTheFrontDoor]

iagreetodisagree
can we agree to disagree?

[montysma1]

She does seem to have stopped, in that I havent seen her doing it since.

agreetodisagree, my dear, what an odd bod you must be. Child neglect to have children playing in a private garden.......................er ok. Possibly if they were sent out to play on a dual carriage way,but a garden. Seriously????
That is the most hilariously condescending post that I have ever read. Loved it. Have you any more gems?

[BonzoDooDah]

omg spuddy - nutty neighbours there. Cretins.

Montysma - how's it going? Has she stopped?

[whenwilltherainstop]

iagreetodisagree
You must be the neighbour then?

[eurochick]

spuddy that situation was really the fault of the conveyancing solicitors by the sounds of it.

[kilmuir]

yes ,god forbid your children should play in their garden, when some mad woman wants to turn her car round!

[mrsminerva]

iagreetodisagree must be the loony neighbour or a relative.

[BlueberryHill]

iagree, have you read the thread?

She is part of an aggressive family. OP has tried to talk to her, waving her arms trying to get her to stop when the woman was driving up and down her drive to reverse. She refused to stop and talk. Maybe the OP should have let her run her over.

I agree with MrsBucktetxx, a mean post.

I hope it is sorted, could you video it?

[Madmum24]

When i was a child this happened to us all the time. One cheeky man reversed into our wall, damaging the wall and his car and had the audacity to claim that my dad should pay for his car to be repaired! After that a chain with a "NO TURNING" was put into place and did the trick.

[Spuddybean]

Glad you got it sorted-ish OP. When i posted early on in the thread i hadn't really understood the layout and can see why it is annoying. I was seeing it thru the perspective that we are always getting lost on roads and need to use the odd drive to turn briefly in.

When i lived in a large victorian house converted into 4 flats, we had the front garden similarly done, all the neighbours still had grass so some started parking on our 'garden'. When i asked them not to park on our 'garden' they looked blankly and said it wasn't a garden as it was paved for parking. They couldn't get past the semantics of 'garden' to mean grassy/flowery area. When i said we would start parking on their grass then, they thought i was bonkers as that WAS a 'garden'. All very odd.

In fact one neighbour sold her flat as having parking rights on our drive. When new neighbours started parking there we asked them not to and they indignantly said it was their parking space, and it had come with their flat. When we proved it hadn't they were angry with us, and said we should honour it as they had believed the neighbour in good faith and wouldn't have bought the flat without parking! (hence why the neighbour lied i suspect) They didn't understand when we pointed out they should have checked officially. They then did start parking across their grass (no dropped kerb). They would drive up our dropped bit, along the pavement (fuck pedestrians - it was on a main road) then onto their grass. As you can imagine, in short order the grass became a muddy swamp, and when they started the wheels it would spray mud all over our car and front room window. All this could have been avoided apparently if we had been reasonable and given them our parking space

I do love parking threads, i have numerous outrageous stories of peoples entitled mentalness!

[Jux]

Bots improve fast these days.

[ScrambledSmegs]

What an odd post, iagree. Why should children not play on OP's private driveway? The driver shouldn't be trespassing in the first place anyway.

[MrsMuddyPuddles]

"My dog eats his vomit. Anybodys vomit actually"

oooh! That must have come in handy when the children were babies :D

glad you've got something sorted

[MrsBucketxx]

iagree what a horrid post.

op glad you got it sorted,time to.plant bulbs in your planters for spring.

[ChillyButterNut]

iagreetodisagree are you the loony neighbour?

[brighthair]

Common sense would be not to use somebody else's driveway in the first place surely... And I can't see what's wrong with a child playing on a private driveway. After all you wouldn't expect random cars to drive up it given its um, private?!
I said earlier on this thread sometimes you can't speak to people, and maybe that was the situation here. I asked politely when I had a problem, I stuck notes on cars, I blocked people in, I asked not so politely. And then I involved the police

[iagreetodisagree]

And so it took so much of your parental time on mumsnet, my dear, blaming and abusing everything and everyone rather than using common sense in the first place. Congratulations.

By the way, driveway is NOT a safest place for a child to play, especially under NO supervision. Consider it a wake up call.

And please do get real, some people ARE ignorant, but if you don't tell them how do you expect them to know that their actions are distressing you. It doesn't take a rocket science to know that ones mouth is ones best weapon.

Since you spent a lot of time on the net, do google crime, criminal offence, civil dispute, child neglect. It will enlighten you and prove you sooo wrong. It will also reassure you on how lucky you actually are.

And if you think you can do a better job than police can, let me remind you, you need to have people's skills, so guess what first? First you use you mouth. It is easy to just stick your head in the sand and ask somebody else to speak up for you, do your job for you, isn't it. But it also takes others from much more important things to deal with, from others more needy. All you proved that you acted with as much ignorance as your granny driver. But of course, you don't even know if that lady driver actually is a granny because you lacked a courtesy to speak to her, lacked people's skills. Do not assume then, assumption is a mother of all...you know what.

[BonzoDooDah]

[BonzoDooDah]

Oooh thanks for the update - mad old cow! Wonder what the hell is going on in her tiny mind! Some sort of enraged entitled vendetta against a former owner?? Let us know if you are actually home when she arrives one day.
And if she does try the manouver when your car's not there get straight back onto the police (maybe even video her on your phone so the police know at least you are not making it up) as it is a real safety issue for your children.

[ShutTheFrontDoor]

Thanks for the update but could you please just not leave the house for a few days so you can see what she does and if she glares at you whilst doing it.

[HollaAtMeBaby]

was hoping for fisticuffs in the street, local news and the eventual removal of the whole of that family to pastures new

Me too! But glad it is sorted. Keep us posted!

[Jux]

We have a cat like that. I am (almost) tempted to disown her.

I was waiting for a dramatic denouement, but will be satisfied with this crumb you have thrown! I was hoping for fisticuffs in the street, local news and the eventual removal of the whole of that family to pastures new, so that you never had to worry about your drive again.

That, or photos of sunbathing mannequins, zombie garden gnomes, and triffids . Hope the peace continues, anyway.

[montysma1]

Well,not a great deal to update. The police phoned on fri to say that she had been spoken to and says that she has never been on my garden, indeed, what garden could they possibly mean? However, they apparently told her to knock it off.

Whether this has worked or not I'm not sure.
My manky wooden planters are in place narrowing the driveway by half, so that might be helping. I seem to keep being out when she arrives, so i arrive back in the street and she is already parked, so I'm not sure how she is turning. I did see her once outside our house (bizzare in itself as the house she goes to is quite a way down the street, so she drives right past it). She did turn on the street then, but had no choice due to my planters and my car being on the street blocking entry to the other half of the driveway. I suspect that she did intend to turn on the drive but couldnt due to my blockade, cant see why she was that far up the street otherwise. Not sure if this was before or after police chat.

My dog eats his vomit. Anybodys vomit actually.