Semi detached house - neighbours children in our garden!

[CrazyAboutFurBabies]

I wasn’t sure where to post this to be completely honest but I couldn’t find a category that was appropriate!

We have been living in our home for 2 years now, it’s Freehold. We have a large garden out front that is also next doors (by this I mean there is no fence/trees etc in between to distinguish who’s is who’s) only our title plan shows that our half is ours and their half is theirs. (Theirs is a council house)

The children next door (she has 5 kids who range from 8 to 16, 4 are comprehensive age boys who are very boisterous with terrible attitudes) use our garden to play football on and use it to walk across to get to places when they could just use their own?!

Am I being unreasonable to be pissed off at this? Hubby says ‘aw they are not doing any harm’ (our living room window is on the front of our house so we can constantly see and hear them back and forth)

I want to bloody run to b&q and put a fence up without causing any trouble! (For context we are doing a renovation so can’t afford this right now it was our next years plan to start on the garden) But it is OUR front garden after all! But would you say anything in the meantime or am I being a grumpy cow??

If you can't afford a fence go with large planters
My Mum had a similar set up and got some large wooden planters with free standing trellis at the back

Dig a flower bed in if you can’t afford a fence

And fork in a load of manure

Job lot of rakes letting around.

Seriously, your husband is an absolute wimp, a wet wipe

Your neighbours are very disrespectful.

Get some planters to make the boundary line and speak go them and say, please do not come onto OUR side.

You give these people a inch they will take all they can.

I would talk to the parents first then contact their HA and say they are being a nuisance .

It’s an odd set up. Maybe they are under the impression the entire are is just shared?

have you spoken to them?

on a side note, who cuts the grass? Is there an unspoken agreement?

I don't think I could get upset about kids playing outside on a garden I wasn't currently using. Aren't we meant to be annoyed at them for not playing out enough?

Excellent
Send me your address and I will send DS and his mates round to play Basketball under your lounge window.

You clearly have never lived amongst these people, not even Diann Fossey would last 5 minutes with them

If the garden isn't separated off onto two parts, I'm not surprised the kids don't keep to their own side. I don't think flower beds will do the trick. They'll just run over them. You need a fence or a wall.

You need to put a physical boundary.
Your DH is wrong . It’s your front garden, they have theirs.

Can i come over and use your kitchen pls? Mines currently out of action. I'd like to eat my dinner in your garden too, can i bring my dog, oh my friend and her kid would like to join.

You sound very generous natured, thanks in advance.

What a ridiculous thing to say 🤣 If I had an open garden and your son wanted to play in it I really wouldn't mind. I'm terribly sorry if this is somehow triggering.

Yes, I find communal gardens terribly "triggering"
I am working through it though with some therapy

Not quite sure why my opinion on this has caused so much upset. If you can't understand the difference between next door's children playing in a garden I'm not using and you inviting people to use my kitchen inside my house then I'm afraid I can't really argue with you.
It's OK for me to be OK with something that you're not. OP asked a question and I gave my feedback, as is quite normal for this forum.

What relevance is it that you own yours and theirs is a council house? And the kids attitudes?? Your attitude is vile tbh, you’re no better than them because you own your house.
No of course they shouldn’t be using your garden, but kids are kids, put a fence up and it’ll stop I’m sure.

"These people"? Do you mean council tenants? Settle down, Hyacinth Bucket.

OP, perhaps your first action should be to try speaking to your neighbours, and ask if they'd mind staying on their own side because you're going to put up some fencing. You might find they're perfectly reasonable, and didn't realise you weren't happy.

Do you understand how mumsnet works? People ask a question and other people answer it. She asked if she was being unreasonable. I said that it wouldn't really bother me. Your response very much sounds like my answer triggered you. It's OK for us to feel differently about this.

Think we’ve found the neighbours…

I would plant a hedge all round it , laurel grows quite quickly and isn’t overly expensive as an outlay . It would absolutely annoy me having kids walking across my garden .

I think at that age kids are just going to see a green space where they can play and yabu to expect them to think they can only use half of it. If it were me I'd live with it until I could afford the fence. If they cause damage then they pay for it. If its bothering you that much then why not install a mini fence using bordering or use planters etc.

You don’t think?!

what’s whether the garden is currently being used or not got anything to do with the price of bread?! It’s the principle of it that next doors kids without any authorisation are just all over their neighbours property. I’m not sure you would actually like it if you were trying to relax in your lounge and can constantly see and hear a group of lads tearing around directly outside of it!