To ask my neighbour not to use my garden as a flipping public right of way?!

[CupcakeBabaPoo]

Will try not to drip feed but this is quite outing! To cut a long story short, my neighbours, and then subsequently the world and his wife, started using my garden as a public footpath.
It was nice for a bit and it was great for the kids but everyone gets fed up of living in a goldfish bowl eventually. In the end I stopped this happening but then they started cutting across another part of my garden. I asked them politely to stop it and now they are acting like I've done something wrong - have I?! Things have got really awkward and I feel like I'm in the wrong!

I am sat in my living room and her friend (who she has told not to walk on my path....apparently) has just walked on it!

I am livid!

Doesn't sound like YABU but I don't understand how you have shared space (the lawn) while also expecting to keep to your own sides. All would be alleviated by a diagram

Has my diagram posted???

It's like a big shared lawn at the front but we all have our own part if that makes any sense....

Can't see a diagram but from your description YANBU

Do you mean your front or back garden?

You say you have an open plan front garden, do you mean like this?

The diagram hasn't posted...

can you start planting on the boundary?

Oh, there's going to be a diagram! Excellent.

I can see your diagram OP

I can't see a diagram.

I can't see any diagram.

You need to put a stop to it. Isn't it that if you allow it that they gain a right of way?
Hopefully someone will come along with better knowledge on this sort of thing but yanbu!

Sadly give people an inch and they take a mile then became offended and full of righteous indignation when you defend your home.

We had people in the nearby courtyard who used to walk a hundred yards or so from their door, across the courtyard they did not own, put their dog on my dry stone wall and groom it and throw the dog clippings into my garden. When I knocked on the window and told them to do it elsewhere they looked really shocked.

At our previous home we owned the area outside our garden where there was a parking area. The part in front of our home was clearly marked on the deeds as ours. Our neighbour (who had driveway parking for at least four cars) complained I had not parked my car in a straight enough way to make it possible for him to squeeze his car onto our parking. I then came home from work to find him and his wife parked there.

I just parked directly behind them, blocking them both in. Unfortunately I didn't hear them when they knocked on my door at 7 am next morning so they could get out for work.

You will have to stick this out op and be firm. Totally agree about the back but it may well be more difficult at the front with it being open plan. Please are so rude and lazy.

Plant pyracantha bushes as they have spikes and also pretty red/orange berries for the wild birds. Win/win.

Just when you've heard about all the cheeky fuckers...!

Can't see the diagram

Spiky rose bushes. They look pretty, smell nice but they're evil buggers if you get caught up in one!
Pyrocanthus is also good, you'd get shredded trying to cut through one of those!
Failing that, some sort of bear pit, with big spikes at the bottom!
I wish I could offer some sensible advice, but it sounds like your neighbours are very stubborn.

Plant Pyracantha. Its VERY spikey.

x-post re pyracantha

IvyLeague - yes very similar to that! We have a shared lawn but all have our own paths.

Unfortunately very true about giving and taking a mile.

I will try and post the diagram again.... hang on

taps foot

We suffered this when we moved into our house which had been empty for a long time. We live off an access road to a sports club and on match days everyone was parking on our lawn!

Planting a prickly hedge stopped (pyracantha alternated with berberis) it.
We put small wooden stakes in along the boundary while it was growing it really showed we meant business!

Refresh Refresh refresh

Can you all see this?

Nope