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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to not let a random child walk on my garden wall?

342 replies

CockysGirl · 06/02/2020 15:47

Just got in from work and was parking on my drive and a grandparent with a small child (2-3 years old) is lifting them up so that they can walk along my garden wall. They see me standing watching and say "DGC wants to walk on your wall, you don't mind do you?" So I replied, "I'd rather they didn't, it is a tall wall with lots of rose bushes next to it so they may get hurt and anyway, it is my private property" So the grandparent glared at me and huffed loudly and said "the nasty lady won't let you walk on her wall" and proceeded to make a big fuss about lifting DGC off the wall again! AIBU to not want kids walking on my garden wall?

OP posts:
SleightOfMind · 07/02/2020 21:01

I have to (and do) stop one of my twins (6) from jumping on all the walls on the way home from school.
Love seeing wobbly toddlers balancing on our front wall though.

You we’re both a bit ungracious tbh.

InABigCountry · 07/02/2020 21:06

It's about respect for other people's property. I live near a primary school, have seen kids walking right across people's gardens, plants, everything! Just not caring at all. Getting gates was the best money we spent.

mrshousty · 07/02/2020 21:10

I've said yanbu purely for h&s reasons x

Toomuchtrouble4me · 07/02/2020 21:40

Elouera

YANBU-a close school friend slipped from a wall and speared herself on top of a metal garden post used to prop the roses up!!! She endured many operations and needed IVF as a result of the injuries. I realise this is a rare occurrence, but would someone really be able to a grab a 3yr old if they fell the other way on top of a 4ft wall? I'm 5ft 6, and would likely grab the legs, but no guarantee the face wouldn't be planted well within the rose thorns shock. Yes, kids love to climb things, but I too would have said no.

Well I know someone who dies from infection from pricking her finger on a rose thorn without having had tetanus jab. A child dies after being hit by a swing. Are we to stop gardening and ban swings?
I really really hope that we are Not heading to being such a risk adverse soCiety that kids can’t walk on a wall!
Op -YABVU

NorwoodLights · 07/02/2020 21:45

When my 40 year old son was a toddler, he would walk along our road, closing all the gates. Every. Single. One. It was a bit tedious but it was important to him. It lasted maybe a month or two. It never occurred to me that he was interfering with someone's private property.

Seetheprettysnowdrops · 07/02/2020 22:01

Of course your NBU OP. The grandmother was nasty

I'm loving all the posters calling you "mean". How childish. Them, not you.

smashstore · 07/02/2020 22:09

Don't blame you, 100% guarantee they would somehow blame you or child fell and put a claim in.

Don't be so ridiculous. You can't guarantee a single percent what other people might do, never mind one hundred percent Hmm

MidnightCircus · 07/02/2020 22:11

Wow. So many with zero respect for other people's property. It doesn't matter if they're 2, or 20, or 50 for that matter, if it's not yours, you stay out of it! That's not a difficult concept to grasp. Same as for weight on the wall, safety, whatever. Irrelevant. It's not yours. It belongs to someone else. So leave it alone! Do people seriously not teach children good manners any more?
Also OP, good on you for saying no. It doesn't sound safe, and you did not deserve to be called names. You were totally in the right, and they were rude

Monz77 · 08/02/2020 02:51

It’s a wall, not an egg. It ain’t gonna break from a toddler walking on it.
All you needed to do was let them know that there were thorns nearby.

Petlover9 · 08/02/2020 05:28

@MouthBreathingarage - I live In road like yours, large front lawn and low wall. I have found that yoghurt, gravy, red sauce and the contents of the cat litter tray is the only thing to keep bums off the wall. Polite requests are ignored, so I made it uninviting. I am planning on drilling holes;

rawl plugs and screws every few inches otherwise the wall will need replacing due to the lardy lumps who park their backsides for “a fag and natter”.

PurpleFlower1983 · 08/02/2020 06:58

You sound mean OP, sorry!

Rachel1874 · 08/02/2020 08:51

YANBU!! This happened once when I was
a child obviously living with parents. I had my rabbits hutch our side of the wall and a big pen for them to get out and stretch their legs. Well one child who obviously thought it was ok to be on someone else's wall got caught red handed rock in his hand about to throw it onto my rabbits.
I tell you he was lucky it wasn't me who was there at the time. Being a child myself at the time I wouldn't have hesitated throwing the rock onto his head.

Sleeplikeababy · 08/02/2020 09:13

My 3 year old wants to walk on every wall and I feel mean telling her no, but i say that's somebody's garden and if every child walked on it it would get damaged. I do let her walk on business or public property walls though, which is probably also not ok but as others have said wall walking if a childhood pleasure!

Pritchyx · 08/02/2020 09:45

YANBU OP.

I always have told my girls to not climb up/walk along walls that are on someone’s property. I don’t make a song and dance about it either. I just tell them to get down, if they feign ignorance then I take them down myself.

I live right by an alleyway which has steps down... over the years, kids have kicked my garden fence or rammed bikes into it and ultimately broken it so they can use my pathway instead of using the two steps down onto the pavement once they get round the corner from the alley. I now have every single person with a pushchair/child/shopping/on a bike or just too lazy to use the two steps walking on my private property and down my path. God forbid if I’m coming out my house and walking down the path at the same time as them... I’ve been called rude for getting in THEIR way on MY property. So I’ve requested my landlord to put in a driveway and a 5ft fence or wall on purpose. I think my neighbour opposite the alley is having a fence installed across her wall too as she’s fed up of kids running across her wall and onto her front garden.

Sometimes it takes the piss, but it is what it is. I don’t think you’re unreasonable in saying no though. I wouldn’t have bit my tongue if I’d heard the grandparent making comments.

Cherrysoup · 08/02/2020 10:11

YANBU. Why should you be obliged to allow this just because the grandparent was an entitled twat allowing the gc to do whatever he/she wants? We all have to bend over to accommodate a 2 year old, or rather his:her gp’s desire to let the little cherub do whatever they like? Crazy.

On break duty one day, a couple of boys were jumping over a two foot dividing wall. One tripped and fell. The wall was rough brick and the cut was down to the bone. I remember staring at the bone thinking ‘Holy heck!’ Sent his mate to get the nurse pdq.

winniestone37 · 08/02/2020 10:25

It wouldn’t have done any harm. This is just sad. Really really sad.

Dontdisturbmenow · 08/02/2020 10:37

A reflection of our unfriendly culture and 'don't you dare touch or even look at anything that is mine', that is leading in everyone in this country being so grumpy, aggressive and unpleasant.

I bet it's not just the words you said, but the state and tone that went with it. How dreadful a child walking nicely with his grandparent on YOUR wall. Maybe he should take the car next, park in front of your house, leave the engine on and pollute your front door. That would be so much better wouldn't it!

LaurieMarlow · 08/02/2020 10:53

A reflection of our unfriendly culture and 'don't you dare touch or even look at anything that is mine', that is leading in everyone in this country being so grumpy, aggressive and unpleasant.

I agree. I’m in Ireland and people are much more community minded, relaxed and accommodating to children here.

The bleating about ‘my property’ is so alien to me. It’s your outside wall ffs, not your front lounge. The risk of damage is so minuscule as to be ridiculous. The child was engaging in an entirely innocent pleasure. Why be nasty about that?

Porcupineinwaiting · 08/02/2020 10:59

A reflection of our unfriendly culture

Quite. And then the patheticness about hiding between "health & safety" when really it's about you just stamping your foot whining "its mine".

Alsohuman · 08/02/2020 11:00

The child was engaging in an entirely innocent pleasure. Why be nasty about that?

Unfortunately that’s the way our society’s going. Some people are irrationally territorial, they object to the parking space they own being used even if they haven’t got a car, dogs on the pavement peeing on their gatepost, now it’s a child walking on their wall or people sitting on it. People on the whole definitely seem to be getting nastier.

LaurieMarlow · 08/02/2020 11:01

People on the whole definitely seem to be getting nastier.

Totally agree. I think people should be having a good think about the kind of society they want to create.

EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 08/02/2020 11:01

I agree about us being unfriendly and uptight the constant outrage

Unless child was damaging my property deliberately why would I care about a young child walking on my garden wall

Waits for oh but the weight of children constantly walking on wall caused subsidence and £1000’s worth of damage

EnidBlyton · 08/02/2020 11:01

the grandmother was not nice

katewhinesalot · 08/02/2020 11:05

I thought walking on walls featured in every childhood Blush

Would have probably called you a nasty lady out of your earshot though

Tinabn · 08/02/2020 11:15

Knowing two people who have been sued for negligence because of injuries sustained by teenagers trespassing and behaving in a totally unsafe manner on their properties - the teenagers won in both causes even through they had to climb over walls- I would stop any one using anything within my boundaries inappropriately, the response of the grandmother suggests that litigation would be heading your way if the child had been injured. It wasn’t safe, you told them, end of! YANBU.