To wish neighbour would stop letting their child on my drive?

[SillyBear1]

Hi - very lighthearted in the grand scheme of things but annoying to me nonetheless!

We live in a detached house. We have a large front area of grass outside our living room window which is ours and we’ve worked on with edging, decorative stones, small shrubs around the outside etc. It extends down to the street footpath and beyond that is the road.
Next to that on one side is our drive. On the other side is a path that leads to a neighbour’s garden gate and on the other side of that, their bits of a ‘block’ of parking spaces for a very small terrace.

Neighbour has a child about 2 who frequently runs all over our front garden and around our drive. This is usually when she’s putting him into the car as, instead of carrying him from the house to the car (as I do with my similar aged child) she seems to stay finishing up in the house, whilst the front door is open and he runs off.
He usually runs from their door, across our front garden and onto our drive. It usually results in, Benny Hill esque, her running around our drive/cars trying to retrieve him as he runs off more.

We’ve had solar lights broken as one occasion he ran onto our garden and started pulling them out and the decorative stones get scattered most times.
Today, I get a notification that someone is at our door, checked it to see his gran and him are stood right up on our drive, practically at our front door.
He’s wanting to see the Halloween decorations we’ve started putting up (early I know, do it for fun for my own children!) Instead of removing him, to look from the path, as I absolutely don’t mind people doing and everyone is usually very respectful every year, she then lifts him up, nearly bumping him off my car in the process and standing nigh on top of my car, pointing things out to him which went on for ages before they left.

This is happening so many times now - I absolutely appreciate toddlers are fast and opportunistic (!) but I don’t think there’s too young an age to teach not wandering onto people’s property or take measures to stop it happening after the first few times!

If she happens to pull up on an evening and we’re also there getting ours out, she carries him out and into the house then.

Aside from the annoyance to me, I’m also worried he’s going to get hurt from the road or as our drive has a step on it he could easily fall on; the other day, our Ring captured him getting right across our drive, nearly onto next door’s the other way, whilst you can hear her asking where he’s gone. We both have big cars you can’t see past from her house.

Can you/would you say something to her - I don’t want to be a ‘nasty’ neighbour as I know how toddlers are but equally, it’s not somewhere I want children running about on or to feel responsible if he hurts himself?

They seem to think they’re entitled to go onto your private land. Put up a fence to make it clear it’s private. Some people are just thick and thoughtless. I wouldn’t bother talking to the mum, but if she asks and you feel awkward, you can always say you’re concerned about him falling or touching the (imaginary) chemicals you put on your garden.

I bloody hate people who let their toddlers run free, then shrug their shoulders as if there’s nothing that can do about it. Hold their hands or put reins on them! They shouldn’t be going onto private property. I had loads of young children doing the same until I put a fence up. I even had actual adults doing it too - one man walked into my front garden and stood on my patio to take a phone call! No idea who he was but clearly thick, as that’s never happened again since my fence has been up.

Ridiculous to be so careless with a 2 yr old. She goes in the house and lets him run around outside - wtf?!? Put a fence up!

@SillyBear1 go round and show her the footage. You can politely ask “may I show you something” and I suspect seeing it will be enough.

Good fences make good neighbours

It sounds like the Mum may appreciate the french if it contains his adventures. I do think 2 is that age where if you have one that runs off it is particularly tricky as they don't rationalise it. I had one like that and she was just off, once in a clothes store, another tine I turned my back for four seconds and she'd left the playground (someone had left the gate open) and joined this group of teenage boys playing basketball. My eldest was not like this at all. Then again, odd that she opens the door before ready to go.

@BreatheAndFocus I’d absolutely understand a couple of ‘mistake’ occasions - I completely sympathise with rushing about trying to get children into cars and you sometimes take your eye off the ball somewhere even by brief mistake.
I just don’t get why she doesn’t seem to click that it keeps happening and doing something about it and now the blatant encouragement by the gran. I feel more concerned with safeguarding her child than she seems to be 🙈.
Having kids too doesn’t mean I want everyone else’s on our drive. I can’t believe adults were doing it to you but there does seem to be a rise in entitlement and lack of any boundaries/respect in recent years.

@Mmhmmn Yes, that’s my worry that something will happen to him. There’s a few cars that fly about past ours and at the end of their terrace is a junction that people don’t realise is, so they just fly their cars out without looking. She opens the front door and then must stay inside busying round getting ready to leave or something whilst he’s then able to just run out. She won’t carry him to the car and often stands having a debate with him at the car about whether or not he’s going to climb into the car seat.

Fence not 'French'!

My little one started walking very early and during covid, we'd take her on long walks. As well as teaching road safety, I also made sure she knew not to go into other peoples gardens, pull their pants or shrubs and to pause as we came to any houses with drives in case a car was pulling out. You're not being unreasonable OP, I'd be miffed too. If you want to be passive aggressive, put a fence up. If not, I'd catch child in the act and lead him back home saying in your best teacher voice "Now, now, I don't want anymore squashed plants or broken lights, thank you" followed by the MN tinkly laugh at the mum. They'll never talk to you ever again whichever option you choose so be prepared for that.

Plants, I meant plants 😂😂😂

Put some terrifying Halloween decs up and scare the shite out of him. If you traumatise him enough he'll avoid your drive.

Obvs joking, speak to his mum maybe?

@Goldenbear My first is 4 and has always been a dream - listens and understands.
20 month old is absolutely wild and would also be off without a care in the world so I try to reinforce road safety etc in very basic forms, whilst also taking steps where needed to keep her safe like carrying her to the car and preparing the car myself prior to opening the door.

@cantthinkofausernametoadd Good for you for teaching boundaries so young, I agree with that. I’m also not someone who’ll stand having a debate with their child or repeatedly asking where something is dangerous or clearly ‘wrong’ - I will just pick her up and explain as I’m doing so which seems to be disappearing of late.

@Emptyheadlock I have only just started putting them up, there’s quite a few scarier ones yet to come 😂😂

What happens when one of you is getting ready to pull off the drive and she opens the doors to let him out and he runs behind one of your big cars. I saw it happen once when I was very young. It wasn't pleasant, even though the kid survived, and stuck in my memory till this day. It's very inconsiderate of his mum to allow him to run around other people's cars on their own drive. It would scar you for life if it happened and he died. Big car, little person, is not a good mix.

The rest is just plain rude.

Pick him up, put him inside their house, shut the door.

Pick him up strap him into his car seat.

she has nothing to complain about, if she's happy to let him run free near a road, all you were doing was keeping him safe.

YANBU to be annoyed if a toddler breaks solar lights and ruins plants but it's a bit unreasonable to decorate for Halloween and then get annoyed when a child is drawn to the decorations. Just my opinion, you sort of lost me at the mention of halloween decorations.

Say he is setting off your ring sensors.

I'd also put up a small fence as a deterrent.

@Pingpongglitch That’s my worst fear or that he runs onto the road itself when a car is coming. I can’t imagine living with that memory, that must be awful for you. Toddlers can’t realise danger for themselves so we have to guide them as best we can, or be more direct in case of falling on unwilling ears!
We reverse onto the drive so I’m always panicking checking he’s not around or they’re not in.

@SeptemberSunglasses You’re absolutely entitled to your opinion, no worries. We decorate every year and never have a problem - children walk past with their parents and stop to look and get quite excited but always remain respectful and on the actual footpath at the bottom of the drive.
Parents of younger children keep them right about where they can/can’t go. It’s lovely seeing them excited about it but even if he did get drawn to them, I’d expect whoever was looking after him to pick him up, tell him you can’t go on someone’s drive but you can have a look here, carrying him off to the path rather than at my front door.

To be clear, I also think she is being out of order by allowing her child to do this unchecked. I'm Conscientious about people's gardens and boundaries and my two would only love to trash even single one they come across.

I just think a fence sends a clear message, but obviously it's an annoying cost for you.

Christ this thread. What joyless souls who get annoyed at a 2 year old running on their drive!

automated sprinkler system, or one that you can turn on when you spot the child?

From ROSPA website ( uk) dated may 2017 …may be later stats …20 deaths in 9 years…..mostly toddlers…yeah…uptight is exactly what people need to be around letting small kids run across driveways 🤯

“Children on driveways
Since 2001, RoSPA has monitored press reports of accidents involving children in or near cars or vans at their
home. This research shows that at least 35 children have been killed on, or near, the driveways of their home
since 2001. Twenty of these accidents have occurred since 2008.
Most (23 of the 35) of the deaths occurred when a child was hit by a reversing vehicle. In a further three cases,
the vehicle rolled back after the handbrake had been accidentally released (by a young child in one of those
cases). Most of the children were toddlers aged between 1 and 2 years old; the rest were 3 to 7 years old.
The most terrible thing about these accidents is that an adult member of the child’s family was usually driving
the vehicle. In some cases, it was a neighbour or a visitor to the house.
There is evidence that a lack of awareness of the risk of this type of accident is a significant factor. In 2010, a
survey conducted by RoSPA, in conjunction with the Iain Goodwill Trust (www.iains-trust.org), found that the
majority of parents are unaware of the potential for an accident involving their children and a car at home.
One of the main issues identified was that parents and carers do not think an accident will happen to their
family, unless they know someone who has already experienced one, meaning they do not take simple
precautions.

😂 well that’s one way to deal it.Make your drive, garden, not so appealing.

Suggest you print out this and give it to neighbours…say you are getting anxious that their child will be next - highlight the unsupervised piece
https://www.childcarseats.org.uk/docs/driveway-safety-leaflet.pdf