Neighbours think my drive is a right of way

[Runningonjammiedodgers]

Pic attached.

I live in a row of terreced houses. My house (1) has a path to the front door and a drive way next to my house. Houses 2-5 share a path that leads to the road. There is a strip of grass in front of their houses and then their parking spaces.

Neighbours in house 2 used to walk over the grass to their front door to avoid going the long way up the path. They (and their guests) have now taking to walking down my driveway along my path and jumping over the flower bed in the middle to get to their door. It's really pissing me off! It's my property being treated as a right of way and they walk right past my living room window so there is no privacy. But it's also not causing any damage or inconvenience. Just annoying as hell.

AIBU to ask them to stop using my property as a public footpath? Or do I just need to suck it up?

Holly bush

I think that might be the only option. Tempted to fence the whole way down the path and shove a gate in for good measure.

I wonder if it’s worse at the moment because the grass is so wet with all the rain?

I would have a polite word, you can just say it makes you jump when people are right outside your window and it makes you feel exposed so would they mind not doing it. Most people would be apologetic

We had something similar, a berberis (I think) stopped it.

Agree with others who have advised a trellis. If you do it now and plant something like sweet peas, this is the time of year for such gardening jobs. I think doing this does not look confrontational merely that you are spending some time and effort on your garden. It will also look very pretty when they bloom. Think this might be the cheapest and most diplomatic way to resolve

I think that's it. It's been since Christmas as I don't think they want to traipse mud into there house from walking over the grass. And it would be a ball ache to use the path as it is a detour. But that's also one of the reasons I chose to buy my home and pay extra for the privilege of not having a shared path.

Might something like this work?
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2967017

Plant a row of sweetcorn....grows 6ft tall in weeks or tomato plants with supports (any produce a bonus) or a blackberry Bush or raspberry canes.

PYRACANTHA

berberis so good. and both are fanstadtic for wildlife.

but do check deeds that there really isn't any easement.

Love the idea of some sweet corn. I could create a little Maize maze to guide them from their car to their front door that doesn't involve my driveway

Definitely isn't. We are all new builds and been in less than a year. Path and driveway are mine with no right of way.

I agree with this. I've had some trouble with neighbours over the years and wondered if I might be the problem. But really, they're incredibly entitled people who expect compliance with their demands, and that a woman alone will be easier to bully.

A tall spiky plant in the flowerbed should do the trick.

I did have neighbours attempting to go through small plants so at a time when I knew they were around I put on an all in one coverall with hood and a mask (think hazmat suit) and spent a long time spraying my soil and plants. That certainly deterred them. It was soapy water.😂

Oh, maybe they are arseholes then! I would still speak to them first, but if they continue then definitely put up as many obstacles as you can. Prickly shrubs, bear traps, razor wire, the lot!

I stopped my neighbours cats from walking on part of my garden by squirting them with a water pistol.

Maybe you can try something similar.

Is the flowerbed shared ie the boundary line is along the middle of it or yours (or theirs)? As this influences where you place your fence/trellis. If you fence along your edge you could be giving up a bit of your land by having all the flowerbed on "their side ". If it's shared you can hopefully place a trellis right down the middle and grow pretty stuff on your side! It will need to be above knee height though or they'll just step over it.

Kids would love an excuse to hang out the top room window with a water pistol!

You said they just jumped higher to get over your plants. I’d be tempted to put in a little horse jump, with the poles that fall off if caught, and raise it slightly every week. I’d love to see how high they’d be able to go.

Whilst I agree that speaking to them first would be the reasonable thing to do I'm still not sure that I would.
I think they I'm doing this because they see the op as an easy target, in other words they are already behaving like bullies and not being reasonable if you have a conversation with them about it your kindness and reasonableness will be seen as weakness and they will be incentivised to try to dominate you further.
I think I would be erecting decorative barriers.

I would probably put a picket fence all the way along the rhs of the drive labelled one, with a gate in it. They will then probably just walk diagonally across the grass from the parking space to their front door.

My guess is they will do that anyway in summer. So if you do it say around the end of summer then it won't look like you are doing it to stop them.

Who actually owns the grass in front of the houses ? Why cannot they just lay their own path in this grass ? That is what I would do.

Edit : The additional benefit of a picket fence there is that it would not look out of place. You do have the issue of how to secure the gate though.

Rose bushes, hawthorn or other spiky plant will do the same job whilst not making your house look like a WW1 battle site.

You need to plant it up - if you plant, you don't look like you are building abarrier but just 'gardening' - it will take a little time to grown but hawthorn or rose hedging bushes are cheap to buy at 4ft tall which should be too high for them to jump unless they are very athletic.

We had virtually the same set up with our old house, complete with lazy shortcut takers!

Could you move your black bin there?

You need to stop neighbour using your land for access to their house as I believe if they do it for a number of years ( 10?, 15?) they are establishing a ''precedent'' which will give the owner of that house legal right to use it.

Pyracantha- it's not called Fire thorn for nothing.
Evergreen, white flowers in spring and lots of bright red/ orange berries in the autumn and lots of sharp thorns

And a fence. A wooden picket fence with a pointy top.

That should do the trick.

You need to put something very poky there so that jumping risks injury.