Neighbour climbs over the fence next to my house to get home.

[AveryC]

Hi everyone,
I just moved in to a new development, everything is good except for one thing.
My house is located at the end of a cul-de-sac. The front door faces a path for we walk to our driveway and a low fence, which marks the boundary at the end of or property. Outside the low fence have a a lawn and have a narrow walkway.
The walkway can get to to places like the supermarket and school.
However, during school dismissal, people often cut across the grass and climb over the fence, stepping into our property on their way home and some neighbors often walk through my property and climb over the fence near my house to access the footpath.

In doing so, they end up stepping on parts of my property, including areas just outside my parking space or some child jump into my front door area.

I feel incredibly annoyed and uncomfortable about their behavior. If they get too close to my house, I usually warn them. But there are times when they do this on the outskirts of my property, which makes it harder for me to say anything.l, but it supposed to be a close.

It’s only winter now; I can’t imagine what it will be like in the summer.
What should I do? And AIBU?

Thank you for reading my thoughts.
Here is my primary school-level drawing for your reference.😂

@Dreamskies

To be honest, if you’ve bought a house with shared land, then people walking over it are the least of your worries! That would be enough to have prevented me buying the property in itself, nothing but trouble.

We share our gennel and car park with neighbours. Been here 14 years. No issues. As long as people have their designated spaces ??

I'm clearly in the minority here but from the diagram it just looks like people are hopping the fence into the right-of-way path in front of the houses. If people are allowed on that path, then I don't see the issue.

I still don’t get it….Are the brown rectangles roads or your private driveway?

Good for you 😊 I would never, ever want shared ownership of land. People have enough neighbour disputes just over fences or things they don’t even own, so it’s far too much of a risk and way too much goes wrong as soon as one party upsets another. No thankyou. I’ll stick to my own land and driveway.

@Dreamskies
Not sure how to reply to that. I'm not boasting.

Trellis with spiky plants growing up it.

It looks like a long fence along a path, both of which border people's houses and so is commonly owned (or not owned)? They are stepping over the fence to get their houses conveniently. Why don't you also stop over the fence outside your house? It seems it would be more convenient.

This is what I am envisioning, is this correct?

Would annoy me too @AveryC, as already suggested, spiky plants are a good idea.

I really don’t know how to explain this more clearly. Depending on where they step onto the grass, they could be jumping over the fence directly into my front yard, my parking space, or the shared area between my neighbor and me.

But what’s important is that this area is not meant to be crossed in the first place. The act of crossing itself is already wrong. The correct approach would be to walk to the entry/exit point on the next street. 😅

Am I the only one who figured out the diagram first time?

Well, AFAIS the fence is too low. The road is public. People are crossing the fence diagonally from the path across OPs land to get to the public road (between OP and opposite neighbour's house).

IMV the developer (and the plans) did not include a Right of Way or ingress from the path on to OP's road. Walkers/cyclists have to go to the next turn down to get to the area to the right of OPs house. But they jump the fence diagonally across OP's land because the school or shops or whatever is back down the path not forward of it and other houses/parking may be towards the end of the road outside OP's house at opposite end to fence.

I would immediately get the developer to raise the fence. Today. Look at the plans and see how they intended to prevent access to the cul de sac from the path. In the meantime plant up with prickly stuff as advised.

There are two solutions here AFAIS.

1. Developer raises height of fence along the path.
2. Developer/council agree to open a way in at the middle of the cul de sac road.

The black colour area I added are the private roads. The red area is the place I share with my opposite neighbour. After the red area, it is a public road.

So sometimes they end up right in front of my door, other times they step onto my private driveway. The best-case scenario is when they only cross into the shared space—that’s the situation I’m trying to tolerate.

But there is already a low fence, which clearly indicates that this area is not meant to be accessed. I believe forcing their way through is already wrong.

So look up spikey/thorny shrubs. I love holly and pyracantha, both are wildlife friendly. You could put bulbs in long planters and tall heather, rose bushes (I'drecommendDavid Austin website for roses). If asked, you are planting with the insects in mind. Buddleia (butterfly bush) is another one. No-one could dislike your thought process. It might have looked like wasteland full of weeds, but weeds are loved by hovering insects and you are just giving back. As said you can buy established plants. I like the Christmas trees in pots, Tesco has them in, around 3-4ft tall £15.

Why are you so worried about some very rude and unreasonable people disliking you? You don't need to be friends with them!

Thank you for understanding my terrible drawing. 😂 The situation is exactly as you described. I’ve already tried contacting the developer in hopes of finding a solution.

That would annoy me, too. I don't fully understand the layout but my feeling is that you may have to live with them hopping over the fence if they are then only walking across your parking space and away from your house. Clearly they can't do that if your car is parked there anyway. I think your idea of potted plants could work well to protect the area closer to your house if you don't want to or can't raise the height of the fence or plant a prickly hedge. Whatever you add will have to be on your land but I think a good barrier of potted plants could work well and look pretty. Nobody's going to want to turn their ankle on a plant pot.

Ok OP so you asked two things in your opening post, firstly are you being unreasonable? You most certainly are not is the consensus. Secondly you asked what can you do about it? So there have been plenty of ideas, so have you formed a plan yet?

How low is the fence? Makes a difference to me - if it’s a few inches high and they can step over it, I’d be getting it raised to make it clearer they’re doing something stupid. If it’s waist height, they should already know it’s wrong and I’d have a word.

My daughter has a house on a new housing estate. The properties' gardens/lawns at the front are 'open'. My daughter has an end property and people cut across her lawn all the time. So much so, they wore a path across the grass.

She had a low fence put around the lawn which people just stepped over. Then she had a low wall built, which people continued to step over (two sections of wall to step over to cut the corner ).

Why are people so lazy and also so stupid as to insist on walking on privately owned property just to save a second or so of time, instead of walking along the path correctly?

She had a sign put on the wall saying private property keep off the grass and eventually people stopped walking across her lawn and the pathway across was reseeded.

The postman and her neighbour's dog walker still cut across.

my neighbour has signs on his lawn saying do not park here, you could do something similar like that? He just stuck them in the ground. Other deterrent is to put out a sprinkler, might be worth a bit of wet ground just for a day or two to stop people doing it.

Find out if you are allowed to install a higher fence and if you are then do that, or make it a trellis with climbers on it if you are worried about it blocking too much light to your house. A trellis would let a bit more light through.

Or install taller shrubs and plants in planters all the way along the fence.

I'd also get a couple of private property, keep out type signs and put them on the fence.

And I would definitely go out and tell people it's private property and they are not to climb the fence and trespass on your property.

I’d be willing to bet that your neighbours wouldn’t like having people walking across their property. Rose bushes would be nice to look at and super spiky

I'm impressed @TheDevilsTelephone you worked it out via that diagram 😂

A trellis would solve the problem. I think I said that I my first post

The funniest part is that some of the people jumping over the fence are my neighbors. 😂 They live in houses further down the road, and crossing the fence makes it more convenient for them to drop off and pick up their kids or go out for supermarket 😂Although I think carrying a child or holding a bunch of groceries while climbing over a fence must be quite exhausting, I really don’t understand their logic.

Since some of the culprits are neighbors, I’m not sure how to bring it up.

Anyway, I’m already looking into plants as a solution, and I’ve been emailing the developer to see what options we have. The site manager said there’s nothing he can do, so it looks like I’ll need to escalate this to the office staff.

Your neighbours aren't harming you by taking a quicker route over the fence are they? It's not like they're disturbing anything on the paved way next to your house. Just because you wouldn't hop a fence, doesn't mean it's not a straightforward thing for other people.

If you aren't allowed a fence, you can stick these in pots
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315121291467

And you can put garden wire from one to another and grow something that grows quickly and/or is spiky, like blackberry or Virginia creeper.