Housing association/communal garden

[Lwilson96]

Hey everyone, am I being unreasonable?

i have been living in a Housing Association flat for a short while. We’re on the top floor and overlook a communal garden.

the garden has always been covered in rubbish from old furniture to burner bins full of shit so I’ve never used it because it’s unsafe for my toddler.

recently one of our bottom floor neighbours decided the garden would be used as her own (she had a little space beforehand) but cleared it up, has multiple pets too and put up pebble dash, washing line a trampoline, a sun lounger you name it, and literally put up this divider thing to create her own garden as were next to a house there’s no access to her bit apart from her back door.

It feels a bit inconsiderate as we could have all chipped in and made a genuinely nice communal space for all the little ones in the block. It seems a bit like “fuck everyone else I’ll only make it nice if this can be my space”

I feel like I don’t want to complain to the HA as it might seem obvious it’s me and make my life difficult as I’m at home more than my partner. She can say no one else uses it, but the main reason being it was always trashed and unsafe/full of old toys.
Is this even allowed surely not?

i don’t want to sound like a Karen but that’s a shared space and we all pay the same rent

To those who are criticising the OP, maybe you don't understand the rules, why's and wherefor's of living in a HA block of flats and the use of communal land.

You can't just do whatever you want.
You can't just fence a bit off for yourself.
You can't just dig a bit of land off and plant your own stuff.
The communal land is governed by the HA.
If there's debris in the communal land then the HA needs to be informed.

Each HA has its own rules.

Tell her how nice it is and ask her if she'd mind sharing it with you. She'll probably say no though.

I rang the police when ndn put poison down to kill my dcat. My ds's rightly or wrongly sometimes reclaimed a ball from her garden. Police gave her a stern talking to. Report your ndn op. And to the HA for claiming part of the garden..

Sounds like you're jealous. No, she doesn't have the right to seal off part of a communal garden for her own exclusive use, but if I were her and had put in the hard work and money to clean and make it nice, I wouldn't want to share, either! In fact, if you force her to open it up to everyone, in her place I'd take every bit of it back inside where it couldn't be used by anyone else.

It was trashed before, so of course it would end up in the same state again. Too many people don't give a shit, especially if it's someone else's money, sweat, and tears they're trashing.

So you couldn’t be bothered to clean it up so your toddler could use it and now someone has done the hard work and is using it you suddenly want to use it! If you wanted to use it that much you would have cleared it up yourself.

I am a Parish Clerk, I quite often make complaints to housing associations on behalf of residents who aren’t comfortable to do it themselves. Is there a councillor or clerk that could take up the matter on your behalf?