Neighbour relationship breakdown

[Cavpoo2023]

Evening all, I would like some on advice on whether I am being unreasonable or not about feeling upset about the breakdown between my family and our neighbours. I don’t know if anyone on here remembers my previous post about my neighbours who kept driving over my drive and walking over it etc.

We’ve lived here for just over a year now and basically after 10 months of us parking awkwardly trying to get them to take the hint, we ended up taking physical action and if anyone read my previous post they will remember me saying the reason our patience wore out was because they very nearly scratched my DP’s car because they squeezed in between one of theirs and ours to get of their drive.

They did speak to us now and again up until the situation happened but it was only small talk, so basically long story short after they squeezed down the side of our car we put plant pots down the side of the drive along the boundary line.

Since the plant pots have gone down they basically do not talk to us or our children anymore at all.. not even a hello even though we continue to say morning when we do see them. I said to my other half I feel sad that this happened because I did want a good relationship with them and that if this was the other way I would feel mortified that my neighbours felt they had to take any action at all. They seem to have dropped talk with us like we are at fault but it was their actions which were unneighbourly first.

should I just accept that there will never be a good relationship between them or should I just keep trying to be friendly and hope that the longer we live here we may just become neighbourly again if we don’t cause any other rifts?

maybe kill them with kindness?

Count yourselves lucky, our old neighbours were so friendly I used to have to check they were not outside before I left the house. I feel neighbours are sometimes best kept at arms length. If you are lucky enough to have great neighbours that suit your personality then brilliant but thats unlikely.

Diagrams as promised. I used my home planning app as I am a terrible drawer 😂

The image where we are parked at the top is from when we first moved in and we parked at the top.. then we noticed the movement and the parking.

the other two diagrams are from when the parking got the worst..the red one was when they squeezed between our car and theirs because our car was smack bang in the middle and the other was when they drove down the top of my drive to get round their car and ours which was parked on the bottom right hand corner

Just build a fence. They’re twats, and will always be twats. Waist high wall. With barbed wire at the top and a gun tower

Build a fence, life is too short to dealing with these type of arse**les. You are definitely not alone in having awful neighbours it’s really common. Best of luck with it.

I definitely think a fence is required and I am saving to do this as well rip the tarmac on the drive and revamp it at the same time.

the issue is why we’ve not put a fence in before is because there is a covenant on the house which doesn’t allow for fencing at the front and everyone on the street has stuck that so it may make ours look out of place

I honestly can't see what is wrong with someone walking over your drive to get to their car.
I'm
Not even convinced it's a problem to drive over your drive if you parked more to the left. Is this really worth the stress it is so obviously causing you?

I'm not really sure why you're surprised they're not talking to you after you put down passive-aggressive plant pots rather than talk to them about the issue. Yes, they're cheeky fuckers, but they might have been reasonable cheeky fuckers who would have stopped had you actually told them it was annoying you. Because you never said anything, they probably assumed you didn't mind.

Unless you're perfect neighbours yourself, it's not always wise to pull others up on their unneighbourly behaviour. You mentioned you have children and dogs. Two things that tend to annoy neighbours. 😬

@BadNomad The plants pot came as a result of them squeezing their car down a tiny gap and nearly scratching our car.. I mean I had hoped when we moved in they would ask if they could use our drive and we probably would let them but not with that behaviour.

they have 2 dogs and as per the diagrams our houses aren’t connected so they wouldn’t hear any day to day noises from the children & dogs. I always make the children stay on our boundary when they are getting in and out of the car. My children are young but I teach them to be respectful. These neighbours are in their 60’s I imagine, their son who lives at home is probably in his early 40’s

That doesn't change the fact that you chose not to speak to them about the issue, but instead chose to act in a way that makes it very clear that you have an issue with them. That's why they're not being friendly with you any more.

You really shouldn’t have to speak to people to stop them trespassing on your property it’s cf behaviour. If a traditional fence is not an option how about green boundaries like griselinia hedge.

It's a paved drive, what harm is caused by people walking on it? Sounds like the pots are doing their job by keeping the car off and you can always say you wanted to brighten up the front if they ever ask.

I'd keep saying a cheerful good morning every time you see them.

No, you shouldn't have to. But if the goal is to keep them off the drive and still have nice neighbourly relations with them, then you do need to talk to them. Even now. If you carry on putting up fences or hedges without speaking to them, the good neighbour relations you want is never going to happen.

You could fudge some lie about you wanted to make the boundary clear for your children. But that depends on how old they are I suppose.

They’ve been used to things being a certain way for a long time and probably don’t get why them driving and walking across your property bothers you. (It would bother me!)
However, if they need more space to move their cars about, they should be looking at altering their front garden to provide that extra space.
If you don’t need the extra parking space that the previous owner created, you could always turn the extended drive area back to garden ground or even just add lots of pots and containers there for now. Then you only have one driveway - the original one.
Sometimes neighbourly relations break down as people have different expectations of neighbours’ behaviour and if there is no dialogue, that will be nigh on impossible to fix. I understand how you feel OP as I fell out with my neighbour too as I thought she was being extremely unreasonable (I won’t go into it all now) but she’d just say things like “I didn’t think you’d mind,” - which seems like a spineless get-out for taking any responsibility for doing things knowing you could be upsetting people.

If you can find a way to talk to them, I think it would be worth it, just so you don’t feel awkward or stressed about encountering them out the front. Maybe they’ll move and that would be the end of it! Xx

They didn't sound like great neighbours anyway so no loss.
People don't like being confronted with their cheeky fuckery!
On the diagram though, is the big square on the right meant to be labelled 'House' as it says 'drive'?

@QueefQueen80s the section down the side of the houses is a drive, it extends down the side of the house even though it is definitely not wide enough to fit a modern car down it comfortably.

The neighbours could easily amend their drive to fit two cars side by side without losing all their double grass patches. Our neighbour on the other side has removed the top half of one patch so they can manoeuvre around each other and they have 3 cars so it is achievable without driving over each others drive.

I think one of the reasons I wanted to remain friendly with them and sort this out though so it doesn’t keep continuing to happen is that we are wanting to build an extension at the back and they may object and make it difficult for it to be approved

So rather than extend their driveway your neighbours would drive over yours to get the car parked closest to their house in and out so they don't have to do what most of us mere mortals have to do in this situation and drive the car closest to the street off and then move their other car.

You've got to love entitled neighbours.

My neighbours would have loved someone to come into our house/garden and done them up as quickly as possible without disturbing them and not actually lived in the house and came by and sorted the garden/cleaned the house once a month to look pleasing from outside.

The TRYING to piss you up would whnd me up a treat. Can you put an actual fence up so idiots physically can't walk across?

If there's a covenant against putting a fence in, put a hedge of pyracantha in instead with the roots all on your side of the boundary.

They're bound to object to your extension whatever you do. Get in a decent architect who knows local planning department and can advise what will pass despite objections

I am hoping with regards to the extension it’s at the back not the side and due to the way the sun faces it is going to block any of their sunlight & with regards to my neighbour on the other side who I get along with we already have a conservatory which the double storey extension would replace and as we would be removing a garage from the garden hopefully that would increase more sunlight in to their garden. The garage is currently being used as a dividing fence between us and CF neighbour but as it falls on our boundary and we have the fencing ownership of that side we are going to tear the garage down and put a huge fence up between us.

I hate that the houses were built with such low fencing in between and the doors face each other I end up opening my door wondering whether or not I am going to come face to face with them

It isn’t going to block*

If neighbours want to be arseholes let them and don't worry about it.

You stood up for yourself and showed you can't be walked all over which is the main thing. Too many CFs about.

On the face of it, it looks like you've become sensitised to what seems to be quite a petty issue.