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?

Just make it more inconvenient to walk that way. Place a small.hedge or trellis as PP suggested, you can also place a bunch of pots that do not enable a straight line so they have to hop and then swerve and swerve again. If you don't deal with it promptly it won't stop!

Pity the London Mayor sold the 2nd hand water cannon Johnson had bought.

I agree with putting in a low-ish fence with a gate. Tall enough not to jump over, low enough not to obstruct your view or make your garden look like a prison yard. If anything is said you could just say "Oh, I've been meaning to do it since I moved in but just never got around to doing it" as if it has nothing to do with their traipsing through your garden.

Just be sure you put a lock on the gate from day one. Otherwise they'll just open the gate and proceed as usual.

I think site planners must have some sort of national competition.

Who can come up with the stupidest layout guaranteed to cause issues between neighbours.

No I didn't. I was pleased not to have a shared path and mistakenly assumed other people would respect the boundaries of my property..

How about a rockery go overboard with lots of big boulders delivered and positioned as they unload and you can then plant them up in your own time. If they insist on climbing over them add moss!

Or a pole vault, complete with the pole propped up for their convenience.

As a PP said, it's a daft layout. Can anything be done with the strip of bog grass? A few paving slabs (not by you obv, but something you could suggest).

Before planting anything that they know has been planted to stop them, I would speak to them and say it alarms you when people you are not expecting traipse past your house.

To check I've understood -

They are hopping your flowerbed to walk on your path (not a public right of way) and along your drive to get to their parking spaces. This is because they don't want to walk on the grassed area between their houses and parking spaces.

You'd think they'd just put down stepping stones.

They are probably not allowed to.

The grass area is probably not actually owned by anyone and the parking spaces are probably not even their own land, just allocated.

We have had threads like this on here before. Some sort of planning rules.

Maybe this is widely known, but planners of paths can be advised not to lay anything until the people are in situ - they can then see the route people actually take (the quickest/shortest/driest...Sherlock!) and THEN lay the paving. Clearly these developers didn't do that.

@Runningonjammiedodgers who owns the flower bed in the middle which seem to go over both houses?? I would run a fence down if it is half yours and right along to your path!

Why don’t you keep a look out on local free sites for a few patio slabs being given away then suggest to you neighbours that they get them and make a little stepping stone path from their doors to their cars.

As are landmines and they don’t detract from the look of your garden.

The grass strip is no man's land. I think it's owned by the developers and managed by the management company. I'm not sure they could put paving slabs there but also imagine no one would really notice or care if they did. Flowerbed is half mine half there's.

Grow some pyracantha around the edge of your boundary. Hideously spiky, feels like barbed wire. Evergreen, nice little white flowers in summer then bright orange berries in autumn and winter.

What you need is a motion activated water sprinkler. That'll teach them!

I'd be tempted to fence the front part that I owned.
Who maintains the grass? If it's the maintenance company then they need to approach them and put their own paths in so get to the cars.

Fingers crossed the neighbourhoods most annoying constantly screaming kids won't set up a tent on no mans land right outside your window in summer.

Unless the stepping stones prevented maintenance in some way (too tall for the lawn mower), I can't imagine anyone objecting, but that's for them to sort out. I'd go straight to choosing whatever tall and/or prickly plant option you prefer and creating an obstacle in that way. Something anchored or rooted into the soil would be better than pots, as pots can be moved.

Buy a couple of large outdoor aloe vera plants. Spiky!

I planted a tall willow fence/hedge to stop the postie using my garden as a cut though as he was trampling my flowers. He has to walk round using the actual path now.

Now is the time to plant it. Once established it is a plain fence in winter covered in catkins in spring and beautifully green all summer. Birds and insects love it.

I was delivering to a new build estate and there are lots of different ways people are solving a very similar problem.

You might want to take a walk around the neighborhood(s) to get some ideas.

The ones which deterred me from cutting through the most were:

Low gates and fences (even the push into the ground 1m high ones)
Very thick bushes
Very spiky bushes

Anything that was walkable through I did to get things delivered quicker.

You can buy a ready hedge, depending on budget you can buy a 1m instant hedge at different heights. I have bought individual plants from this place, 6ft tall laurel, brilliant for £80 each. They offer lots of different heights of plants and you can buy bare root, potted, troughs or this

https://www.best4hedging.co.uk/instant-hedging/easy-hedge-instant-hedging

@StevieNicksWannabe we used a motion sensor for cats, it attaches to a hosepipe so they get wet and the noise also makes them jump. You could use that or the above, there are cheaper options I just linked that to show what is available.

If it’s a new build you need to check your covenants to see if you’re blue to fence off your driveway. Many new builds have covenants preventing fencing / tall shrubs / trees at the front of the property.

Ring doorbell? Every time it alerts you can switch it to talk mode and loudly say "How can I help you?" and flag that they are on camera?