Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

To fence off my driveway from kids? And if so how?

92 replies

Fivsie · 27/09/2021 08:13

My front garden area is fully paved, and enclosed by a brick wall. It's a decent size area, you can easily fit 3 cars on it (we have 2, but regularly have one other visiting, either my DP, or DCs GF, who also have cars).

The wall is about 3-3.5ft high, on the side that abuts the pavement there is a gap just over 2 car widths wide to allow us to enter/ exit. When I had the wall built some years ago I did think about getting gates but didn't really have the money and it didn't seem essential.

Cut to now...we were away last week. When I came home there were 5 of the irritating neighbourhood kids sat on the wall. They sloped off on seeing me, but when I've looked at the wall they've actually dislodged several of the bricks on the top row (I'd been outside cleaning the wall - scraping off moss etc the week before so it definitely wasn't like that then!) which are now loose.

Added to that I've also seen kids 'playing' on my driveway. Yesterday I came home and 3 of then were riding bikes round it.

I'm fed up with this. I don't want them using my driveway as a play area nor damaging my wall further by climbing all over it. I'm considering whether I can get something added to the top of the walls - railings? A fence? Which would stop the sitting. And then a gate for the entrance - can I get a gate wide enough for that size? I don't really want to narrow the opening as it would make it harder to enter/ exit.

Any ideas? Was going to contact some local builders but feel I need to have some idea what I want first.

OP posts:

ChikiTIKI · 27/09/2021 20:07

Something smelly to spray on the wall... If asked say its moss killer.

BudrosBudrosGalli · 27/09/2021 20:23

@Warmduscher Reckon this is how you raised your offspring, as you have a similar shitty attitude.

Prettypennies · 27/09/2021 20:48

Cat alarm is an easy cheap fix!

Summersun2020 · 27/09/2021 22:53

Anti vandal paint. Barbed wire. Electric fence.
I’m kidding (mostly), but this would drive me mad OP.

Henrysmycat · 27/09/2021 23:41

Can a builder do some style on an extra row of bricks line that? We had something similar (top line more pointy and vertical) in a flat years ago that even the cats avoided.

To fence off my driveway from kids? And if so how?

dizzyupthegirl86 · 28/09/2021 07:41

What’s the span of the wall? You can get ready made short railings that will be cheaper than getting a blacksmith to make them. You need to look for ones with a safety top, as counter productive as that sounds. You don’t need a warning sign then. Though I do prefer the idea of oil / zoflora / marmite on the wall instead!

FreedomFaith · 28/09/2021 07:50

[quote MrsScrubbithatescleaning]@Warmduscher

Let’s face it, no-one wants to live anywhere near families of annoying, sweary young kids and their arsehole parents.

Unless that’s the normal sort of company you keep?[/quote]
It's not the sort of company she keeps, they are probably her kids and she's the useless parent.

Only a useless parent would think it's OK for their kids to damage someone else's property, tell the owner to fuck off and then the parent go round and call the owner a nonce.

I'd put anti climb paint on it, would be funnier then because the stupid parents have to pay for new clothes each time (I doubt they'd learn the first time).

ThinWomansBrain · 28/09/2021 08:02

Accept that it's irritating, snd understand why you want them to hang out elsewhere, put are you certain that digging out the moss, presumably growing in the mortar, didn't weaken it?

Warmduscher · 28/09/2021 08:20

Only a useless parent would think it's OK for their kids to damage someone else's property, tell the owner to fuck off and then the parent go round and call the owner a nonce.

You do realise none of those things actually happened? The OP has assumed the children scraped the mortar out of her wall, and the rest is conjecture, based on the OP’s negative opinions of her neighbours.

FreedomFaith · 28/09/2021 09:32

@Warmduscher

Only a useless parent would think it's OK for their kids to damage someone else's property, tell the owner to fuck off and then the parent go round and call the owner a nonce.

You really can't read can you?

OP has stated the kids damaged her wall, unless bricks can now loosen themselves from walls if that's what you are suggesting. She has also had backlash in the past from the kids telling her to fuck off then call her or her visitor (can't remember which) a paedo.

So tell me, do you think it's normal for kids to go round calling people paedos and telling them to fuck off? Do you think it's normal for them to go and play on someone else's driveway, who you don't even know, and who they have called a paedo in the past?

Warmduscher · 28/09/2021 09:54

OP has stated the kids damaged her wall

True, she did state that. However there is no evidence they did, and more than one poster on this thread has suggested that the damage may have been caused when the OP scraped the moss from the wall. She’ll probably never know what caused the damage, and neither does anyone on here.

As to the rest, the OP has not been clear that any of those things have actually happened, with the possible exception of it being “likely” that any attempt to talk to the children will result in them screaming “paedo” at her. The comment to her visitor was “nice car, mate”, according to the OP.

She said thinks it’s likely they will tell her to fuck off, but she hasn’t said whether that’s actually happened. Nowhere has she said a parent has keyed her car or called her a nonce. All of these things may well have happened, but I’m going on what the OP has actually posted.

Maybe she’ll return to the thread and clarify that all the above has actually happened and the harassment and damage to her car have all been reported to the police, who knows.

RestingPandaFace · 28/09/2021 10:00

That spray that is designed to keep cars off stuff smells like really bad wee and sticks to clothes.

Just saying

flapjackfairy · 28/09/2021 10:01

Get one of those noise things that us oldies can't hear. They stop teens gathering. Worth a shot

Winniewonka · 28/09/2021 10:12

In one of my former places I have lived in, children used to lean on and sometimes sit on a neighbour's low brick wall. What she did was to cement several large and pointy stones, intended for making a garden rockery, along the top of the wall. They can be bought in most garden centres and I have to say looked quite attractive. It did the trick.

RestingPandaFace · 28/09/2021 10:13

Above should say keep cats off stuff -I’ve not come across car deterrent spray

FreedomFaith · 28/09/2021 16:29

@Warmduscher

OP has stated the kids damaged her wall

Maybe she’ll return to the thread and clarify that all the above has actually happened and the harassment and damage to her car have all been reported to the police, who knows.

Say that what op has said happens does actually happen. Do you think that's normal?

JudgeJ · 28/09/2021 19:25

t must be awful for you living amongst such peasants. You need to move to somewhere more in keeping with your class and status.

Or maybe simply somewhere with decently brought up children of whatever 'class and status'.
I always love how so many on MN love to twist their knickers and support yobs, not being a yob isn't about 'class and status', it's about being a reasonable human being.

Flip

1 2 3 4