Walked between caravans

[Tevion28]

Hi currently staying on in my friends holiday home and me and dp wanted to walk down to the river and took a quick route between 2 caravans and a lady came out and shouted very aggressivly do not walk between the caravans and slammed her door shut so was we in the wrong.

It’s a common courtesy.

It’s like when I finish a shift at 3am. I put everything on the passenger seat so that I don’t have to open and close the boot and the rear door as well as the driver door when I get home. I don’t do a three point turn at the end of the cul-de-sac to reverse into my drive. I just slip in forward.

The reason the children don’t play on the trampoline, practice their piano etc at 7am is not because they are still sleeping but because the neighbours might be.

Likewise we wouldn’t mow the lawn or have drinks parties in the garden late into the evening because the neighbours children will be in bed.

There’s no law against it but it’s a common courtesy.

We owned a static in North Wales for many years, your pitch was for your exclusive use it started from 1 metre on the left of your van so that you could access your electricity meter and gas bottles and carried on 3 meters past your right side where you could have parking and a garden with deck if you chose to

The sight rules included private use of this space and that you should only use paths around the site and not wander onto other peoples pitches

It was a lovely peaceful site and people were generally very respectful of each other’s spaces, most vans were privately owned and there was a great sense of community

£4K a year site fees I would expect to have private use of my pitch, we had a trampoline and swing set up for our kids just like at home, when they were tiny we spent months at a time there

I think the result of the poll being 48%-52%, and from many comments here, indicates that most people is a bit of a stretch.

I'm assuming that a proportion of the ones who think it's ok have never stayed in a caravan. It would be useful to know.

I lived half my childhood in a big static caravan on a famous site in Dorset and if you stuck to the path/road on that one you'd never be able to get to half the vans

You had to drive between the vans to get on/off the road. I would run and play around the vans. We would be told not to screech and scream around them and not to trample any actual flower beds ect, but the majority of pitches were on field grass which the site mowed (roughly).

I remember some pitches had elaborate little gardens which they would mow themselves ect, and we wouldn't run/walk/drive over those. But they never extended much beyond 6ft away from the van and only on the door side.

The magority

I remember when i was young being in bed hearing people walking between the vans coming back from the club house at night muttering and whispering.

If there was a car there and the lights were all out it meant ''They're in bed. So whisper!''

@Tevion28

It was a long way round to the river and it was just right in front of us so we walked through

Don’t do it again. You were so rude

We have a family static caravan and you have to walk in between them to get to the caravans right on the end. Never knew this was a thing.

Reading these responses - I think there's a big difference between people who are staying in other caravans on the same site sharing the open space - children playing etc - and complete strangers using people's home spaces as a shortcut through to the river.

The OP wasn't staying at the caravan park - she was staying at a holiday cottage nearby. She was cutting through other people's permanent or temporary homes for her own convenience.

Rude.

@KaycePollard

Reading these responses - I think there's a big difference between people who are staying in other caravans on the same site sharing the open space - children playing etc - and complete strangers using people's home spaces as a shortcut through to the river.

The OP wasn't staying at the caravan park - she was staying at a holiday cottage nearby. She was cutting through other people's permanent or temporary homes for her own convenience.

Rude.

Maybe. I assumed the friend’s holiday home was a caravan on the site.

I wouldn’t do it - it’s like cutting through someone’s front garden to get somewhere a bit quicker. Usually there’s designated paths through caravan parks so best to stick to them.

@KaycePollard

Reading these responses - I think there's a big difference between people who are staying in other caravans on the same site sharing the open space - children playing etc - and complete strangers using people's home spaces as a shortcut through to the river.

The OP wasn't staying at the caravan park - she was staying at a holiday cottage nearby. She was cutting through other people's permanent or temporary homes for her own convenience.

Rude.

Oh that is very different, if not staying on the site, were they in fact trespassing?

Although @ShingleBeach may be correct - that the OP was staying at another caravan on the site. I read "my friends holiday home" and thought "holiday cottage."

I wouldn't call a caravan a "holiday home" but maybe that's just me ...

@MrsMiddleMother

Yanbu. It's pathetic to get so upset about a bit of grass a caravan is on.

Is it pathetic to get upset about a piece of land your house is on?

You just don’t do it Bad manners But she shouldn’t have shouted

I didn’t know it was frowned upon.
Some of these responses are golden 😂

I am afraid I cant read unwritten rules.

I'm actually staying on the park in my friends holiday caravan

The park is one where they all buy thier caravans not hire

She was rude but different sites have different rules.

We have a static and people generally park their cars between the caravans. You park your car in the side your door is on. On our site that bit of land goes with your caravan so no one walks between them and you wouldn't fence it off because it is too much hassle opening and shutting gates when you go in and out.

I assume that they have a similar rule on the site you are on and the rude lady has probably been there a long time.

Just walk around from now on.

@Tevion28

Just a thought though do they actually have rights to that patch going between or just the area that the caravan is pitched on.

When you go camping everyone spends time picking a pitch. This is because they are planning to spend some time there and the pitch is going to be their temporary "home". The entire pitch Is what you are renting. That's why often there are poles in the ground with numbers that indicate where the pitch starts and ends. So no they don't only have right to the spot their tent/caravan is directly parked on, they have right to the whole pitch. Therefore as it's someones temporary home, it becomes a matter of privacy, security, and "being at yours". So to walk through it is just plain rude, and if it happens all day long just plainly annoying. I'm a bit surprised this needs to be explained to be honest, it's just a matter of decency and empathy really. Does that justify aggressive screaming? Of course not. But I do agree with one of the posters here that your surprise and inclination to do what you did displays a certain type of entitlement and lack of common decency while the fact you fail to grasp this principle shows a lack of empathy.

It's generally considered impolite to walk between caravans. Though I think the woman's reaction was well OTT.

@Tevion28

The park is one where they all buy thier caravans not hire

Wow, so you have understood that they buy their sites and still you can't understand that you shouldn't walk through their grounds? They are buying the pitches with a cabin or trailer on it. The whole pitch is their holiday home. Would you like to buy a holiday home and have someone walk through your grounds because they can't be arsed to walk 10 meters further?

I own a static caravan. The area to the right of my caravan (as you look at it) up to the line of the next pitch bed, is mine and forms part of the slabs I pay pitch fees in. It's actually written into my contract that the park owners aren't allowed to remove the hydrangea bush that sits on my land, because I loved it when I viewed the pitch.

So yeah, it is my garden, I pay for it, and I'm unamused if people trespass on it. In fairness I usually point this out politely, the first time, but I've had some sharp words with kids of weekly renters left to run feral who don't listen the first time.

Apart from anything else, the back of my caravan is where my gas bottles are, and I don't want damage to the bottles or connection, or to feel responsible if someone injures themselves. Many static owners also have sheds with personal property stored inside, or just personal property like furniture, barbecues etc, on their pitch.

@ShingleBeach

Camping in tents, if you;

Walk between tables, chairs and their tent door, or between a car and a tent, you are encroaching.

If you trip over someone else’s guy lines, you are where you have no business to be.

If you are constantly walking between tents where they are quite close together, you are encroaching.

If your kids ball constantly hits someone’s tent they are too close.

It’s a matter of respecting space. Like not standing too close to someone without good cause.

The Camping Facebook groups this summer are full of people not happy with the influx of new campers whose kids have not been brought up with campsite etiquette. Not to mention the parents.

Everyone had to be new to camping at one point. Complete snobs .

This refers to touring caravans, not statics, however. Which I would argue is different due to the fact you rent a pitch. Statics are often just the caravan itself, with no land around it. (Clearly site-dependent, as this thread shows.)

Not in my experience. Static caravans are parked on pitches and the land to the side where the caravan door opens forms part of the pitch.

As Welsh says:
I own a static caravan. The area to the right of my caravan (as you look at it) up to the line of the next pitch bed, is mine and forms part of the slabs I pay pitch fees in. It's actually written into my contract that the park owners aren't allowed to remove the hydrangea bush that sits on my land, because I loved it when I viewed the pitch.