Neighbours using our drive as their path

[Peedoff24]

We live in adjoining terraces, both with driveways. All other houses in our terrace have walls or hedges between them. We don’t but there is a decorative border type thing to delineate them. So it’s very obvious when you step off their property into ours.

They fit 2 cars onto their driveway but this is only possible because we don’t have a wall. They need to open their car door across our drive to be able to get in and out. This I don’t mind.

However, because it’s a squeeze to get between their cars they and their visitors, deliveries etc use our drive as a pathway to get to their front door. It’s got to the point that people literally step out of their door, step over the decorative stone thingy and then walk across our drive to the street.

We have a ring doorbell so get alerted every time somebody does this. It’s now got to the point that our drive is used as their pathway even when they only have one car parked and therefore plenty of space on their drive.

These are neighbours that don’t acknowledge my presence if we see each other since I complained when they had builders dumping rubbish on part of our garden.

WIBU and petty to go and buy some trellis and put it up to stop them from doing this? It would also mean they’d have to rethink their parking!

I didn’t want to fall out with my neighbours. I just didn’t want their guests to continually use our drive to get to their gate because he chose to have a huge car which took up the whole of his drive.

And it’s fucking annoying to have strangers constantly walking up the middle of your drive and in front of your window to access your neighbour’s gate.

This is brilliant! Love it.

It's trespassing.

Can we all come round yours for a little walkabout in your drive?

Absolutely.
Pisses me right off that it always seems to be suck it up and let thoughtless people carry on being arses. Why?
Particularly when as in ops case, they won't even bloody acknowledge her! Fuck that.

Also let them carry on doing this for several years then try to reclaim it, you might want more space in the future, and it'll be worse.

This ^
I think you might get yourself in a difficult situation with a trellis as it won’t stop them entirely, you need something to make going into your garden impossible - and that means fence.

We have OSP for two cars but only have the one .
No fences but the paving is different so you can tell which house .

If you stop them parking two cars will they end up with one on the road? Would that not be more annoying ?

If they reverse in, the driver is getting out onto your side or the passenger is ?

You could always tell them you;ve put weedkiller or chemical down "I don;t want it getting on your shoes and into your house"

Absolutely. Happens all the time round here. But because I like the people I live next to, and view life as too short to play these sort of stupid games, I am quite chilled about it.

Planters are your new best friend!

our old house we’re dragging bins the lot down and I just saw red! The CF knocked on and told me I wasn’t being very neighbourly….pots on my land! Do one!

Who owns the gravel piece? I've lived on a new build estate like this. People did start growing hedges and putting up fences for just this reason. The actual drives were taken up with vehicle.

It sort of sits across the boundary. We put it in when we did our drive to prevent their block paving from collapsing. We should have made a wall but wanted to be nice.

someone asked about them reversing in. They don’t reverse and it’s the driver getting out our side. I don’t mind that. What I mind is that people are now not even attempting to walk on their drive instead of ours.

It sounds similar to ours. These are some of the things people on our street have done. The one with the red flowers is what we all had originally.

Terrible diagram attached.

The one with the red flowers is similar to what we have. Only with a bit of retaining wall between steps coming down from both houses.

Pyracantha is your friend

Oh, those decorative stones would be coming out and a fence put in.

I'd start with telling them I was 'ok' with them parking right up to the edge & getting out on your driveway to enable them to have better parking in their side, but NOT 'ok' with em using your driveway every time to get to the pavement as it sets off your notifications & it's driving you mad, but you'd hate to have to put a fence up.

see how it goes & if they can't accept & respect that then just go & put a fence (or trellis) up.

Trellis is not strong enough. They will bash that down to squeeze in two cars. Just put in a proper fence or build a wall like everyone else

Boulders.... Not fence. Boulders..

Just tell them your doorbell keeps recording them

they’ll be more fucked off they’re being recorded let’s face it 😂

I have a similar thing with neighbours trespassing on my drive; there are covenants about what height of wall allowed to be built between the drives so check out your title documents to see if there are any rules or restrictions before you build a wall or fence between them.

I have similar, but I'm the neighbour. We have 2 cars, they only have 1.

We do walk on our drive and park as far over as possible. I will walk in the tight gap between our cars with a buggy etc, but still open our doors slightly over our neighbours boundary.

I guess it's hard to control delivery drivers etc. I wouldn't ever encourage anyone to walk on their drive.

I worry that our neighbours will do what you're suggesting. It would make our lives difficult/ tighter. It wouldn't help neighbourly relations if/ when they do put in a fence.

I guess you have to think if it's worth the hassle? And do you care if your neighbours hate you?

I was concerned that a fence (or whatever) would stop you getting two cars in but looks like you have plenty space. If you think their displaced car might become a nuisance then it might be worth speaking to them first about how they keep setting off your ring doorbell

We have plenty of space so a fence wouldn’t affect us.
I think they already hate me as like I said they don’t acknowledge me. There were a few things that happened to sour relations. Again all linked to them taking the piss with our land.

Fair enough then. If it's on your land, do what you want.

As others have said, they might end up parking on the road. But hopefully that won't bother you.