Neighbour damaged his car on my drive

[lghtnght]

I moved into my new house 3 months ago and after a few weeks, I noticed that the neighbours across the street were reversing onto my property when they left their house. The road is pretty narrow, so they can't really turn around without reversing onto my drive. Plus, another neighbour parks his car (in blue) on the pavement by their house, which makes it harder for them to pull forward and turn around.

It would be much easier if they just reversed onto their own drive and drove out from there. I don't know why they haven't done that yet. I didn't want to start any drama or fall out with them. I had never talked to them before today and wasn't sure how they'd react if I brought it up, so last weekend I decided to put some garden rocks in the corner instead. Just to clarify, they're on my drive, not on the pavement, in case anyone wonders. So, the neighbour knocked on my door earlier and said that his car got damaged because of the rocks. He insists that they were half on the pavement (not true) and half on my drive.

He asked why I didn't tell him I was putting them there so he could avoid driving over them. He said if there was a problem, I should have just talked to him. I told him it's my drive, on my property. Why would I need to inform him? His car wouldn't have been damaged if he wasn't using my drive… He got really aggressive with me, saying that the previous owners never had any issues and that he's going to call the police and a solicitor about the damage to his car. I haven’t heard anything since. I can't believe I'm even writing this. I’m not sure what to do now! I do feel a bit intimidated by him. Am I being unreasonable?

Absolutely. If she ever needs an ignorant, trespassing , rude fuckwit of a man to assist her, she's going to have to look a bit further than across the road. Probably not that much further though.

If he can’t see the rocks it’s his problem! The neighbour has zero rights here.

Love this 🤣

Hopefully she has other, decent neighbours.

Would you be asking that neighbour for a favour? He'd probably call his solicitor if you looked him funny

Do you park your car on your drive?
if so, I’d be parking it as far back to the pavement without actually being on the pavement so he can’t reverse onto the drive!
if you don’t own a car I’d be putting more rocks there after his attitude!!

Reading posts like this make me happy that I live in a street where neighbours talk to each other, make allowances for the small stuff and look out for each other.

No. It's been said by OP that she hadn't spoken to him or been introduced to him. He hadn't been glaring at her from his front door or subtly intimidating her from the day she moved in.

Nobody knows what he would've done if she'd politely asked him to stop doing the manoeuvre because it didn't happen. He may well have kept on doing it. Equally, he may well have stopped.

Hello, can I help?

But he’d made no attempt to speak to her since she moved in! Hardly approachable, and then was nasty to her when he damaged his car through his own stupidity!

OP shouldn’t have had to have this conversation, as he shouldn’t have been doing it.

😂😂😂

👏👏👏

Save your ire for the "nasty piece of work" who threatened the OP with the police because he damaged his car when on her drive without her permission.

The explanation is that they're a pair of arseholes. Genuinely.

If I were being charitable - which I'm not you'll have realised - I'd say that they had dependency problems. The aggressive one appears to be an alcoholic; the other is now on methadone. One time - before I made the gate a bit pricklier - I had to replace a pane of glass in the roof of the greenhouse. There was a football shaped hole in it.

The alcoholic really does appear to have a chip on his shoulder. He was ranting to my husband "Maybe you were a hard man at one time, but ye're no noo!"

DH was utterly bewildered at that. He told me "What was he going on about? I've never been a hard man!"

I'm assuming it was a reference to the fact that DH took up karate late in life and got his black belt in his mid 60s. There were no changing facilities at the community hall, so (prior to his stroke) DH would leave the house wearing his karate suit.

I actually get on all right with the neighbour, but her sons are idiots*. When her husband was dying in hospital I felt sorry for her and gave her lifts. The alcoholic had been gifted his dad's car, but it was crushed when he failed to tax it.

The second son is actually quite mild-mannered, except when he's back on hard drugs.

Anyway, I'm a bad person because I've made it very difficult to balance on top of my gate and I've not put up a warning sign.

*Plus I will never forgive the way that the elder of the two spoke to my husband.

ETA Come to think about it, years ago some of the neighbour's washing blew into our garden and she stepped over the low boundary fence to retrieve it instead of knocking on my door. To this day, she doesn't know that I saw her.

I now have a prickly hedge there - mainly holly - which is why her sons couldn't do the same thing.

Maybe they just think that getting the stuff themselves is quicker? Who knows.

Maybe I'm weird, but I just don't like folk being able to stroll into my back garden unannounced.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 for your prickly gate and I'm so sorry they were vile to your husband

Thank you.

@lghtnght I don't think your neighbour has any right to use your driveway and I don't think you have any obligation to put up with it. The fact is that over time the repeated use of that section of driveway will cause damage earlier. YANBU protecting your property.

That said, I think it would be have been nice for you to mention to him that you are planning on putting ornamental rocks on your driveway and you had noticed that he pulls onto it sometimes, so just to let him know not to do that in future to avoid damaging his car. You did mention both the narrowness of the road and the other neighbour's car as explanations as to why he does pull onto your drive, and if he had been doing this for a long time without objection (including before you moved in) then he may not be considered unreasonable to think it wasn't a problem.

As it is, now there is tension and you cannot guarantee that all the neighbours will think he is the unreasonable one.

I don't think you're liable and you are allowed to put anything you want on your driveway. However, knowing they do use the driveway to reverse, would a knock on the door telling them, "I've noticed you use my driveway to turn around. Just letting you know that I've put some rocks on the side, so you don't hit them accidentally," hurt at all?

And yes, randoms sometimes use the bottom of my driveway to turn around and I don't care. People sometimes need to turn around and use the bottom of other people's driveways.

Then why didn’t he have the decency to speak to OP when she moved in? It was wrong to assume he could just keep doing it.

because it's such a non issue maybe?

he's using it for a few seconds to turn around, not parking on her driveway.

Comprehension level??

That’s giving him permission to keep using her driveway, as she’s warning him he might damage his car. Better to say. “Please stop using my driveway. It is not necessary as there is a turning point nearby and it would be easier for you to reverse into your driveway.“ As we know OP is intimidated by him and understandably doesn’t want to approach him.

Not exactly unapproachable either? Just neutral really. I mean, had OP ever tried introducing herself to him? To be honest, does anyone stand around chatting much with neighbours in the depths of winter with non-stop shitty weather?

Non issue to him maybe, but he shouldn’t feel entitled to make use of her driveway when it’s not necessary anyway.