CF garden related

[yolofish]

For background, we have a huge garden, part of which is actually a field, where we keep our chickens (no, the chickens are nothing to do with it).

The far corner, where I planted a shrubbery 20 years ago, got very overgrown, full of brambles etc. It was the corner behind the chicken run so difficult to access. Neighbour installed a gate into the field from her garden, we asked her not to use it.

Now, we've moved the chicken run and I'm clearing the area - hacking down brambles etc. Neighbour has continued to use her gate to dump all her garden rubbish in this previously unseen corner.

Having used a machete to get there, I asked her to get it moved, and advised that technically she was trespassing and please not to do it again.

She then decided she'd like to get some of our trees lopped, she was happy to pay for it, while getting her rubbish cleared.

Fine I said, and as a gesture of kindness, said her workmen could put the debris on our bonfire, thus saving them trailing it through her house.

Now, the workmen have gone, job not finished - maybe they are coming back? - bonfire is massive and they failed to light it and get the pile down as asked, and they havent cleared the rubbish.

And she's saying £150 is a bit steep in a not particularly subtle hint that she'd like a contribution.

Who is the CF here?

(sorry, long!)

Lock the gate and refuse her permission to lop your trees
Why would you ask her to “promise not to use it”? Stop being such a pushover.

Definitely NBU but how come the voting says 102% agree with you?! Never seen that before.

No need for a diagram!

If it's an ironwork gate I wouldn't touch it, she must have had to pay a fortune for it. Put a fence panal across it and block her view of your land, she's a CF counting on you being nice because she's old don't you know.

oh now 2% disagree. so glad bruce doesnt want a diagram!

I’d probably accept the situation with the trees/bonfire for the sake of drawing a line under the issue.

But I’d be nailing the gate shut and and installing land mines .

Block the gate - anyhow, somehow. I'm sure you can do that fairly easily.

Yes yes, she's the CF. The rubbish dumping is flytipping, so either chuck it all back or if you can burn it then do.

Light the bonfire when she's got washing hanging out or having tea in the her garden, if you want mild revenge.

Shove the rubbish back through her gate, nail the gate shut and put up a trespassers will be prosecuted sign, no fly tipping allowed etc etc.

How far from the gate to the bonfire? Could the pile be stacked against the gate so it's easier for her to retrieve them if it's not going to be lit? Might block her view though, and make the gate unusable.

If she sells up.the next owners will assume they have access to your field

I think you've been more than reasonable op. The only thing that might be a bit of a tricky one is the bonfire. Tbh I'd have just left the stuff and expected you to light it. Nothing in you op says they will light it.

Maybe they'll come back, light the bonfire and the heat will weld the gate up

She has been something of a CF, but compared to the problems many people face in life this seems pretty tame.
Assuming her workers don't come back and finish the job just accept that you will need to light the bonfire. Or maybe this is something your DH would do for you? Many men I know love a bonfire!
Lock the gate and put that issue behind you, then ask yourself if it is worth falling out with an elderly neighbour for the price of a match and a couple of hours 'work'.

Just out of interest why don't you want her in your field and more to the point why does she want to enter your field?
Is there something special in there?

Just to point out that the gate is her property, not OP's. Therefore nailing it shut - or in this case, as it is iron, trying to solder or weld it - would be damage to someone else's property.

You can either do as a PP suggested and lug a couple of the big and heavy tree branches across the gate. The alternative is to erect a wooden panel or mini-fence to make it clear that the gate is ornamental rather than a point of access.

She's the CF. Tell her to shift the stuff and certainly don't offer to pay.

This.

In spades.

Why is she paying and organsing to lop your trees?

We have a similar problem, no gate though the neighbours just chuck their rubbish over the fence. We use that corner of our field for compost too but they throw it behind our old shed and its now halfway up the shed,

By leaving the gate in situ, if the property was sold on, there is an implied access to your property. Perhaps implying right of way?

I would want that gate gone.
You should check it out with your solicitor.

My neighbour came home after a weekend away, to find her elderly neighbour had arranged for her hedging at the end of her garden to be hugely lowered, so much that her garden was now overlooked.

When she went round she was told that her neighbour had gone into hospital for a planned operation.
The implication being he thought he could get away with it.
He had known that they did not want their hedging lowered but just decided to do it anyway.

Relationships never recovered.

Gate will be blocked asap. DH having fantasies about going out with the soldering iron in the middle of the night - it's one of those ironwork ones so she can pinch a view! - but I think that's potentially quite risky and maybe a bit dramatic

Definitely block it with something very tall and non see-through.

That gate needs to go ASAP. It should never have been installed in the first place and she has been using it to trespass for years and fly tip on your land. PP are right, it will cause a massive legal headache if her house is sold. This is a far bigger problem that the bonfire. She has taken the piss out of you for years!

Just out of interest why don't you want her in your field and more to the point why does she want to enter your field?

From personal experience I know how easily people can go from “I’ve been granted access on a goodwill basis” to “I have the right of access” to “I own this land”. Harsh as it might seem, it’s easier to keep things black and white, not least because the other person in this situation has already proved that you can give them an inch and they’ll help themselves to a mile.

The bonfire is about 100 yards away, deliberately positioned not to be near fences etc. So me dragging the stuff back - nah.

It's not that I mind lighting the bonfire - I love a bonfire! - it's that they've piled it up so high, I guess 15' high and 20' across, which is a lot of material (half of it was there before so...). Plus the new pile next to it. But they said they would tend it after I lit it, because I didnt want it to get so big. And it's all damp material now, so will have to wait for it dry out.

The gate is more worrisome. Will have to finish clearing the area and see what solution we come up with, which may well involve a solicitors letter.

ust out of interest why don't you want her in your field and more to the point why does she want to enter your field?

I dunno... it's my field, I dont want random people walking around it? The reason she wants to come into my field is to dump shit.