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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be upset at my neighbour using my garden area?

186 replies

AutiAngst · 30/04/2025 19:46

Firstly, this is a throwaway account.

Secondly, I'm sorry for the loooong post. I can't seem to be consise...

I can answer this before I even post it: yes, I'm probably being unreasonable! And yes, it's definitely a first world problem that isn't even a problem. But it's bugging me big time. Let me elaborate. First off, I'm autistic, so I know that I do tend to see things in black and white, right and wrong, fair and unfair. I have trouble with nuance. I know this. For the most part I try and not make a big deal out of anything that upsets me. This makes me a bit of a walkover. (some of this is due to not being verbally articulate. My mind goes blank the moment I'm confronted with anything even remotely upsetting and I can't speak. It's a form of mutism). So I try to be quiet, calm and non-confrontational to those around me. I also have anxiety as well as quite severe depressive episodes that can be triggered by seemingly innocuous events. This is another reason I keep myself to myself. I live with my dog in a ground floor flat, just the two of us, in a nice quiet village and it's mostly heaven. There are 3 other flats in my small block. I've been here the longest (16 years), whilst the other three have moved in over the past 5 or 6 years. When I moved in, one of the plus points of the flat was that it had its own garden. Originally the garden was a communal one, but waaaay before I moved in, the previous tenants had got together and had asked for, and been granted, permission to portion off the garden into 4 individual gardens and to take responsibility for them themselves. Each garden has a small fence between. The guy that was living in my flat at the time laid himself a small patio area under the kitchen window. There's also a small patio area in front of plots 1 & 2, though that's not paved, it was just pebbles until it became overgrown. Until the change of tenants the gardens were well kept. I had a gardener (I have a chronic health condition which often makes manual labour extremely painful), but the other three were younger and fitter and did their gardens themselves. Then the other three flats changed occupants one by one. Then I lost my gardener a couple of years back, and couldn't find a new one. The new tenants have never bothered with the gardens and all three are extremely overgrown and wild. I'm not bothered by that and I had managed, with careful planning, to keep my own garden fairly tidy on my own. Until last year when I went into a bad flare and couldn't do anything at all. Since last July/August time, I haven't been able to do anything in the garden and it was almost, though not quite, as wild as the other three. However, I've been feeling a little better, especially with the warmer weather arriving, which always helps with the pain, and so I ventured out last week to try and tackle my jungle. I managed to clear most, but not quite all, of the patio area in one session. Yesterday, when I drew the kitchen curtains in the morning, I found that the guy who lives in one of the upstairs flats, (and whose garden area is at the complete opposite end of the plot), had put his dryer out, laden with clothes, centre of my patio, right in front of my window! As I was planning to try and finish clearing the patio area yesterday, I wasn't impressed for two reasons; 1 - the dryer was right next to where I was going to work and so it was in the way and 2 - it's not his patio! I don't want to see his smalls in such close proximity, thank you very much! So when I went out I had to struggle to move the dryer. It was heavy, cumbersome and unwieldly. I'm heading towards 70, so I'm not the strongest person anymore, even without the added health problems. I managed to move it though (couldn't ask him, he was out) and I did some more clearing on the patio area. Today, I opened the kitchen curtains and the dryer is back. Again, slap bang in the middle of my patio, right in front of my kitchen window. I had considered trying to do more in the garden because surprisingly, yesterday didn't wreck me as much a usual, but the thought of trying to move the dryer again put me right off. And I'm just really upset at the sheer cheek of it. He's young and fit. It would take him a day, maybe less, to clear his own garden, and yet he waits until his elderly neighbour struggles to do her garden, and then he just swoops in and plonks his stuff down. He did something similar a couple of years back, just before I lost my gardener. My garden was the only one not overgrown, and with a flat lawn. I came home one Saturday to find he'd put goal nets up so he and his son (who stays for the odd weekend) could play football. In my garden. I just asked him to move it as my gardener was due in the next day or two and he did but it feels petty asking him to move his dryer. I know it's stupid but this is really upsetting me and I know it shouldn't. I understand that. It's just a dryer but I do worry that if it carries on, the next thing will be him having BBQs out there with his mates! I was going to fit my rotary dryer on the patio but now I think he'd just use that too! As I've explained, I'm pretty black and white, fairness is important to me. Respect is important to me. Had he asked me, I would probably have said yes, whilst explaining that I was hoping to do more work and suggesting a suitable place to put it. But he didn't ask, he just took advantage. I've felt physically sick since yesterday and my anxiety is through the roof. I'm even thinking I should just move, which I know is overkill, but that's where my mind is at right now. I can't cope with the uncertainty, the unfairness, the cheek, and the possible upset if I say anything. I'm just not sure what's the best thing to do....

OP posts:
AnonWho23 · 01/05/2025 14:34

@AutiAngst could you put a lock on the gate? I worry about your safety if someone is able to access your garden so easily.

ParmaVioletTea · 01/05/2025 15:50

Leave him a note explaining that he has his own garden and should keep out of yours. I’m sure I’m the 500th poster to suggest this!

YANBU Definitely not.

And your instincts are completely right on this. Don’t put yourself down.

Lookingtomakechanges · 01/05/2025 16:47

AlmostSummer25 · 01/05/2025 13:12

Yes, he might.

But I think it's more likely he's just being an entitled CF, then that he doesn't know!!

I haven't had a chance to catch up with the thread yet or any updates from the OP so I won't make any more comments yet.

The CF possibility is always there!!

SparklyLeader · 01/05/2025 18:22

And, likely, neither does he. Shift the burden of proof to him by establishing her claim.

Beeinalily · 03/05/2025 17:39

Any update OP? I really feel for you, I hate confrontation too but sometimes something has to be said.

AthWat · 03/05/2025 18:03

Beeinalily · 03/05/2025 17:39

Any update OP? I really feel for you, I hate confrontation too but sometimes something has to be said.

Something indeed has to be said - firstly, to the landlord, the housing association, to ask if they are currently aware of the split garden arrangement (the fact that they are not maintaining it doesn't mean they know that at all) and if so whether they are telling new tenants about it, and are prepared to enforce it. Then let them deal with telling him.
If they say "We have no record of this at all" then she really has no legal leg to stand on.

Blackdow · 07/05/2025 07:48

@AutiAngst
Hope you managed to reclaim your garden, OP! I’ve went out this morning to see my neighbour using my front lawn (and flower beds!!) as storage for their building materials and had to go have words; reminded me of you and your neighbour!

Floatlikeafeather2 · 07/05/2025 08:15

How are you managing to miss him when he puts the washing out there or takes it back in? Catching him in the act would be the logical thing and the easiest, most natural way to deal with it. "Morning, Soandso. What are you doing? That's your garden over there." Another way to do it is to just move it out of your space into the next one down. They might might not share your hesitation in tackling him. In fact, how do you even know it's his laundry, if you haven't caught him actually putting it there?

Hoppinggreen · 07/05/2025 08:18

They may well be no "act" to catch him in other than using a communal garden as he is allowed to do.

Elboob · 19/05/2025 10:30

@AutiAngst Have you managed to stop the neighbour using your garden? I hope so.

Christmaschildcare · 22/05/2025 11:05

How’s it going @AutiAngst x

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