Toddler in my garden

[Yabbers]

Our house has a public path running past it. Our front garden is separated by a wide strip of grass, then our drive, then our front garden. It’s obviously our garden and not public space.

Mother, granny and toddler outside, toddler running about kept running on to our drive, up the path hitting the door then back across the grass. I do get twitchy about kids going on our drive as our neighbour sometimes has visitors who race up it, but not a problem as I assume the mum is paying attention. But, it is still my front garden so I’m a bit that’s a little rude. The mum and gran are watching him, smiling indulgently.

Then he starts taking the top off one of our garden lights. Puts it back and goes and does it to another. Giving it a good wobble as he does it. (They are those solar ones you push into the grass)

I opened the door and said to the mum “excuse me, do you mind?” Not shouting, just quite calm, he’s just a baby I didn’t want to scare him. She started saying sorry but then rolled her eyes and turned to granny and gave one of those smiles. I said, I didn’t mind him running in the garden, but not playing with those lamps as that’s a bit rude. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

WIBU to ask her nicely to stop her son doing this?

I'm more indulgent about our front garden since we had our own kids, although I was very careful to teach them boundaries where other properties were concerned. We once had someone stop and dig up a plant from our front garden. I witnessed it out our bedroom window, unfortunately I was in a state of semi undress so could only yell out the window. Give me kids over parents any day.

I came on here hoping it was ' there's a small Korean toddler in my garden' thread.
It's turning more into a Donald Trump wall thread.

We used to have a set up where we had a huge double garage at the bottom of our garden, lelandii hedges all around the house (on the corner plot) and a tiny little overgrown path leading up the front gate that you could hardly see.
Where the drive was, we had two separate fences - one was a smaller drive than the other (had a shed at the back) so those gates were always closed. The others were open all the time because my husband worked really odd hours.
People used to actually walk up our drive and plonk themselves on our grass outside the dining room window! Two old ladies once just chatted their way down the drive, around the house and when they got to the fence, they actually knocked on my door and asked me to “sort it”....I was 7 months gone and it’s MY bloody garden love!
School kids used to chuck their rubbish over the hedge and so so many people used our garden to “cut through” so they didn’t have to walk around the house. Eventually my husband got a huge dummy cctv camera and installed a massive sign, which stopped most of the kids chucking stuff, but the picnickers never stopped. Not until I had had enough, went out and basically screamed at them that I had a young baby, they were in my back garden and they had the choice of leaving or being put under citizens arrest and I would call the police about their trespassing.
Nothing would stop the little old ladies though!!

Fab diagram @Yabbers

Put up a sign that says THIS IS NOT A BLOODY PARK, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Or

GARDEN FOR HIRE. ADMISSION IS 20 QUID FOR ADULTS, 30 QUID FOR CHILDREN.

Ohh my god people like this piss me off. I live in some old flats that have a very large, beautiful well kept garden. There’s only one way into the garden, and that’s through a drive way that has a massive sign that says “PRIVATE PROPERTY” , you can’t miss it. Then go around the flats to get into the garden. Despite this we get a lot of people coming in thinking that it’s a park. Some even brought a tent once to camp out there. We also get people parking their cars in our drive and walk to the train station a couple of minutes away. People dump vehicles here too, as it’s set back a bit and not that noticeable.

You are not unreasonable at all. That mother is an idiot. You only have to take your eyes of your kids for a second and they can do something you would rather they didn't but when you notice or its brought to your attention you take responsibility. That mother thinks the world is her child's playground and she is teaching him that everything is his and he doesn't have to respect other people's property or boundaries.

Follow these CFs home and walk around their front garden a bit and, when they complain, tell them you're just copying their behaviour as they think it's okay to do the same thing on your property.

Hi Yabbers, are you still reading these?
The truth is you were not assertive, I know that you think you were but you were not and that is why you got walked over. It’s clear you weren’t assertive, you have to be sure of yourself to be assertive you’re still not even sure of yourself in this situation as you are asking if you were being unreasonable. You were uncomfortable with your property being trespassed.. “excuse me do you mind” is laughable, not assertive (I’m not saying this to be mean but to explain that this attitude lacks any boundaries and therefore your boundaries will continue to be walked over if you express this attitude). “Excuse me do you mind” is the most vague sentence... that does not articulate anything to anyone?? Vagueness isn’t assertive. You stated earlier that you did not want to raise your voice because of the kid but you dont need to raise your voice.... all you need to do is articulate a clear communication to the person, for example: “Hello there, this is my property, she/he needs to come out of of my garden now” this is then clear in articulating the boundary you are reestablishing

Even worse. I have loads of toys in my front garden which is very open to the street. My neighbour childminds and the kids often ran in and helped themselves. Ok, kids are kids. But one evening as we were all sat at the dinning table eating tea a dad with kids came in and had a play session in my garden, right in front of the window we were eating at. I lost the plot and shouted, “this is my garden, not a play park!”

@FurzeandHarebells could you plant some scratchy grasses across the bottom of your garden? There ate some that have edges like knives. Or put some thorny, low lying plants there that would scratch their ankles?
Or failing that some rose cuttings or holly branches stuck in the ground? Anything to inconvenience them?

Get one of those sprinklers that sprays in a massive arc. You can leave it on at peak cheekyfuckery times and leave it in situ but off at the tap if you are in your pjs and don’t want to have to go outside to remind them it’s a private garden....

@WhirlieGigg ooooh! Did you used to go to the WhirlyGig rave in kings cross? :D

I found planting pyracantha hedging has kept out the cars and the football players out of our front garden.

@flowergrrl77 Nothing so exciting. Whirliegig is what we call the rotary clothes line in the back garden

@Laiste

Was it Checkers?

This is the solution. lol

www.ladbible.com/news/weird-man-installs-electric-fence-around-property-to-keep-kids-out-20190113?c=1547390902477&fbclid=IwAR341QmDAv6KzXikszEvmOe2GhxFYpsawl4YtupUZ4tBNrMZxdSi0ojTvNY

@bloomcounty. Just leave Bill the Cat on guard. Or Opus. The coughing from Bill and withering observations from Opus should be enough!

Ladymalfoy I think Steve Dallas oozing his slime on the mums would do the trick too!

You weren't out of line and should have informed them this was your garden.

I have had something similar, a neighbour was having some work done, and I came home to find the workman, who had brought his dog, walking it round my garden. I was totally bemused.

The sight of it was driving my dog nuts though so I spoke to the man and explained and asked him not to walk the dog round my garden and explained where he could in the neighbours garden He looked at me and said "is this your garden then" and all I could think was, you came in via the gate and saw the house sign so what the fuck do you think it is? It's clearly someone's garden the house is right there, He also looked at me like I might be a stuck up cow. Nice.

I also found a lady about mid sixties wandering round once. When I went out to ask her what she was doing she claimed to have lost an animal and wondered if it was in my garden, so had been wandering leisurely about having a look. I said to her if she gave me her number I'd call her if I saw it and she gave me a filthy look and said "if it was here I'd think I'd know by now", and walked off.

Honestly some people.