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?

Ideally I want to block off as little of my drive as possible as it's a two car drive currently which is a good selling point of the house.

I suspect the walkway goes down to the road. Not clear on your diagram but I can’t see why you’d have the walkway and that would ‘end’ at your driveway.. I suspect it’s two mirror plots and that actually the strip of walkway continues down to the road.

Someone asked where I was planning a gate/ fence. Probably here where the pink line is.

Leave your bins in the way for a few days. It will inconvenience them. They might then speak up and it will give you opportunity to remind them it's your garden not their access.

They genuinely might not realise if they've only lived there a year and you've never challenged them.

It's on the deeds that the walkway ends at OPs driveway. She has shown this on multiple diagrams.

I understand, you don't mind them using the shared path, but prefer them to access it via their front garden and not your drive. Could you put a gate on your side, to access the path, just like they have done?

You'll need to read the whole thread!

Both OP and neighbour have shared access over the walkway coloured orange on my plan.

It looks as if you need a gate below their garden gate - what an odd design!

Can you park your car further over to that side to block where theyre walking for now until you can get the gate put up. I would sort it asap though!!

I've a feeling if you put a gate there your neighbours would still find it easier to open that one rather than zig zag their way through their own access.

If they did though the'd definitely be CF's

This is what I was wondering and I think this makes sense where you have indicated with the pink line. I don't think you should put the gate at the front of the drive because where would it attach to? It would kind of be 'hanging'. You can legitimately say that you are protecting your side access this way. I imagine they won't be happy so you really need to reiterate it is due to safety concerns. Your friend's house was accessed via a side entrance and burgled. Would you install one of those higher gates that are used generally to secure pathways to the rear of houses?

Not if it is one of those higher locked gates.

We had this problem in our house, as we’re both spineless we added a gate in the same place you have planned OP, I blamed our two year old and said we’d put it in to keep her safe, so thats also our excuse for having a lock on the gate.

I’d be annoyed at that constant intrusion of put a row of tall plant pots along just to mark out the boundary and they can use their gate .

A padlock with a code would easily stop that... plus a good deterrent for anyone just wandering in.

I'd be annoyed too tbh. We have next door neighbours that have a home business which means their customers frequently block our driveway. Or more often they almost block it but just make it a nightmare to get out. The only reason I haven't kicked off is we're moving soon and I don't want to have to declare an issue with neighbours on the solicitors forms. A gate seems to be the only answer for you.

Be attached to their fence then though? Spread your cars out a bit? What’s the flooring / paving like? Is it different clearly different from the walkway?

@Mymanyellow
OP can install her own post on her land. It shouldn't be attached to their property anyway.

How often are the walking on your driveway?

I would put a row of planters with shrubs/plants in along your border if it bothers you. Saying that, as long as no kids whizzing about on bikes, I doubt your car will get scratches so maybe not worth it. I'm guessing they chose garden over a driveway (or their predecessors did so)

If they are generally reasonable people and you haven't mentioned it to them up to this point, they are presumably thinking/hoping that you don't mind. I can see the appeal of heading straight up or down the walkway when you're carrying gardening stuff etc, rather than negotiating one or even two garden gates. That's not to say they should be doing it and I would be parking my cars further to the left, as close to their fence as possible, or maybe even on the diagonal, to see if they get the message. If not, I'd consider getting a gate. But if questioned by the neighbour, I'd be totally spineless in my answer and pretend I was planning to look after a friend's dog or help someone with childcare or whatever and needed a more secure environment 😁.

Anyone can park in front of your house, you have no right to the parking space in front of it unless there are designated parking spaces. I don't know why parking outside your house would bother you, really.

Our house, the neighbours either side have been here a similar amount of time and are a similar age and are really friendly. The lady we bought from a couple of years ago was also a similar age and had been here forever.

They walk across our drive to get to one another (one side more than the other) and sometimes sit on our wall to have a chat. They don't look in, but it does mean they walk past my bedroom window.

Materially, doesn't impact me at all. But drives me mad and makes me want to build walls and gates round the drive!

Just a thought... Judging by the way your cars are parked, you may not need all of the space on your drive, so could you offer to sell them half of the width of a path from the end of the current shared walkway to the street? You could then put a fence up down the side and be completely private, as they are.