to find this really fucking annoying even though it doesn't really affect me much

[walkway8]

I live in a detached house with a walkway between myself and the neighbours to access both our gardens at the back (diagram attached).

The neighbour has a front garden whereas I have a driveway. They have a gate that opens to the side of my house to allow them access to the walkway to get to their back garden. The walkway is shared land according to the deeds but stops at the top of my driveway (basically my driveway isn't shared but the walkway is).

Whenever my neighbour is doing anything in their garden, bringing this in / out of the garden/ taking things from the garden to their car on the road or whatever, they will go up and down my driveway instead of going through their gate and then down their garden.

It really annoys me. I don't really know why but AIBU to think this is just an odd thing to do?

My living room window looks onto my driveway and some days they will be working in the garden and making multiple trips up and down my drive and I feel awkward and like I need to close my blinds.

I don't even have a bad relationship with them, not friends or close but fine neighbours and we say hello how are you etc when we see them.

But I just find the whole thing really weird. I would never dream of strolling up and down their garden path repeatedly.

We also have cars on the drive so when they are bringing things in and out it worries me they will get scratched.

Aibu to find this annoying and tbh a bit rude?

Thankyou , not sure what PP is struggling to understand so much.

Yes, it's her driveway and they are using that instead of walking through their access gate

Why can't you just say, "Hello Maureen and Brian, please can you not walk on my drive and use it as an access route to the front.Thank you. '

The end.

Can you put a fence up on the part that is yours to stop them? They are going to continue doing it until you stop them.

Not if they can’t get between the fence and the car

Put a little decorative fencing on the front and grow some bushes on your front window. Apparently people just bother you. Are you HSP?

Long term solution is a gate to street at end of your drive. In the short term, I’d park as closely to the gate and their garden fence as possible to make it less convenient than going through your drive. It would annoy me too!

Showing gate to street

I think you best option is to establish your boundary with a fence if it will still enable you to park your cars - doesn’t have to be high - just something that marks out the boundary line. And close the blinds if they are constantly going past your window

I don't think I'd get worked up about someone walking on my drive. But I'm not a petty person and quite like my neighbours.

There's no gate at the bottom of their garden? How could they get from the road to their garden without using the shared path? And where is their car? Presumably not over your drive? It doesn't make sense. Either way they shouldn't be on your drive they should stick to the path.

The walkway is shared to where the neighbours gate is. After that point it becomes the posters driveway. Access is through their gate, not across their driveway. It's easier for them to do that than keep opening and closing their gate.

Okay so you just need to put a fence across the bottom (or grow a short hedge and then fence at right angles along your drive way. Add a gate at the top near the house.
You can say you want it for better security if you don't want to upset them.

Forgot to add photo

It clearly doesn't - the op has shown the boundaries on the deeds. The walkway goes to their garden gate only. Not sure why people are being so weirdly insistent on this!

I get it OP. Its not the end of the world, it's not really doing you any harm, it's just...annoying! I feel like it about our postman walking across our front garden rather than going up and down the paths. He's not causing any harm and it's obviously way quicker to just walk across the gardens (no fences at the front), but it still grates 😂

I think it's the lack of showing the exit from the front garden which has thrown people, because of the diagram, the assumption is that there is no way other than to walk across your driveway to get to the street, whereas, if you had shown the neighbours had an exit from their garden onto the street, it would have been clearer!

The neighbours gate opens onto the shared walkway. They enter this through their own front garden. Rather than doing that, they have decided to start walking up the posters driveway to get to the shared access bit.

She's well within her rights to ask them to use the correct point of access to the shared area.

Red is what the neighbours should be doing and green is what they are doing.

You just need to tell them.

ibb.co/xGtpgn7

I'd find it annoying, OP, as you say they're 2 ft from your bay window, it's not exactly relaxing to have people to-ing and fro-ing right there!

I'd ask them politely to not use your driveway. I'd make sure not to escalate it though, as neighbour problems can get seriously out of hand. If talking to them didn't work, I'd just grind my teeth about it until I could get the gate put in!

There's no way of angling your car on your drive so it effectively blocks their access from the street, is there?

Except that would cut off a chunk of the OPs land, why would she do that?! The driveway isn't part of the walkway, the walkway ends at the neighbour's garden gate - all the OPs later diagrams make that clear. And she has said she plans to put a gate across as soon as she can, but is just feeling mildly annoyed by them walking across her driveway in the meantime.

You've totally misunderstood.

The shared walkway doesn't extend to the street.

The shared walkway is to enable the neighbour to get from their back garden gate to their front garden gate, not right to the street. The neighbour accesses the street from a gate in the front garden (which the OP missed off the diagram).

How are people not getting this?! The OP has been super clear that the shared walkway doesn't go all the way to the street.

Anyway, OP, I'd be annoyed too, for the same reasons as you but mostly due to the risk of damage to the cars if they're bringing things through from the garden. I'd start by having a polite word, asking them to use their front garden instead and if that doesn't work, put the gate in as you say.

You could put some nice containers in the space as well that has been created beyond your fence.