Neighbours walking past our front door to leave the house

[Bluesea14]

our new neighbours keep walking past our front door and squeezing past our cars when they go out. We have checked our deeds and title and this is part of our property, not a public footpath. We would never dream of walking past their house when we go out so we can't understand why they think it's acceptable to do it. They recently had furniture delivered and this was also carried down the path past our front door instead of going in between their cars.
I have attached a image which is similar to the layout of our house and the blue line is where they keep walking. Any advice on how to deal with this please? We haven't properly met them yet so we don't want to come across confrontational but we also want to make it clear that we don't want people regularly walking on our property and setting our ring doorbell off.

It would really annoy me. I’d put a low fence around my property

The number of people saying you are being petty is staggering. I would HATE people walking past my window. It is a loss of privacy. If you wanted a house with a window onto a road you would have bought a terraced house with no garden.
You have a garden and people are walking into it and past your window.

Really I would knock on and say something non-confrontational (btw a letter would come across as really agressive and formal)

"Hi neighbour I'm @Bluesea14
Nice to meet you, I hope you are settling in well.
I thought I would mention this before it became a habit of yours....
I have noticed you use our garden to get to the road. Please stop doing this. I do not like it. It disturbs us both by setting off our ring camera AND startling us when you pass the window. I am also worried you will damage our cars by squeezing past.
Please stop entering our property. It isn't a right of ways and I don't want you to go this way.
I don't want to fall out with you when we have only just met so please stop this."

Then add some nicety about them to make it a 💩sandwich

The cul de sacs on our estate are identical. There are no pavements in the cul de sacs, only on the main estate roads. People are intended to walk in the road as the traffic in a cul de sac is so low.

I know it isn’t a photo of your actual house @Bluesea14 but do you have the alleyway between you and the other neighbour? Where does this go?

Assume your neighbour doesn’t walk in front of your house when they park their car.

When you bought your house did the searches bring anything up as they should detail any easements, rights of way?

It amazes me how many posters don't even a little of the thread and just post the same incorrect assumptions that the OP has already answered multiple times. If I was the OP I would just ignore them as either they will RTFT and realise or won't and don't care.
OP I think you've had good advice, a letter is a bit too formal, but if you can have a word that would be better. If that doesn't work then planters and maybe a bench. I wonder if getting the delivery up your side was about who's car risked getting scratched.

The estate covenant is likely to prohibit this.

Looking at the pic, I’d be surprised if this was a public path. It looks quite clearly like it’s designed symmetrically so you each have a path to access your own door. You can’t obstruct the path to stop them using it as then you can’t use it yourself. I’d speak to them but I’d also physically put a stop to it to create more privacy. They currently see your front access as an extension of theirs. The best bet is a low push in fence to divide the lawns down the middle and then some sort of tall rectangular pot between the houses to mark the division yours and theirs. They’d need to go round that and onto your grass to cut through which (unless they are particularly lacking awareness) they should recognise isn’t ok.

I would naturally assume it was a footpath for everyone to use - just as the people on the other side would use the footpath.

Speak to them about it

That would annoy me. We actually have a small wall between us and our attached neighbour and the postie used to step over it so we put a planter there to stop it.

I'm with you op. We have a similar set up. Our neighbours never walk in front of our house, just the postperson.
I do not like my blinds/curtains closed and when said postperson walks by, i notice.
Have a chat, welcome them to neighbourhood and gently tell them they are encroaching on your property.
You are NOT being petty/dramatic!!

Can you put a wall up?

OMG what a wet lettuce!

I couldn't look my DH in they eye if he suggested this rather than adult words.

Just speak to them yourself.

to add if I came out of the end house and was walking to a friend at the other end of the block - were is the pavement? if I go down the path, then im into the road - whereas if I stay on the path - thats where I should surely be walking, not in the road?

Who put the planters along their path? Them or whoever built the estate?

If it's them, then what they've done is blocked their own access and have decided to use yours instead. I wouldn't be happy with someone trotting past my window every time they went in and out. It's intrusive and unnecesssasry.

Speak to them first – they might not realise it's irritating and will stop. But it continues, send a letter to put it in writing and put your own planters between the houses so they can't cross onto your property.

I can see why people don't want to walk in the road, even if the builders 'intended' them too (i.e. were too cheap and keen to squeeze the maximum number of houses in to put in a pavement).

You know if you put a planter in between the front doors then the neighbour will resent you, and the postie will hate you. Everyone will just clamber over the planters so as not to have to walk back down the central footpath, around two parked cars and up the side path then back again.

Seriously, all this talk about quiet enjoyment and private land! Humans need to learn to live together. You share common footpaths. The houses may be set back from the road, but the parking spaces are directly in front of the house separated only by a footpath not a 6ft garden with stone wall. You will see people. Folk will use the footpath when you don't know them.

The only private space you own is the house and fenced in back garden. You have a dedicated parking space in public land. The footpath is not private, it is there to facilitate access to properties.

Part of estate design is to encourage community development, so you can form a sense of community by bumping into neighbours in public spaces. A lot of footpaths aren't formally fixed (eg with railings or immovable barriers between houses) because humans walk along desire lines (eg the sort cuts and worn paths you see in parks or grassy common areas) and preventing that from happening can cause issues with feelings of being hemmed in and controlled.

By holding stubbornly firm to the red line on the footpath in front of your house, you are in danger of creating problems with your neighbour.

Stop parking your car right up to the bushes in front of your window. Leave some space so nobody has to squeeze and just unclench for your own sake.

So who owns the parking spaces? Are they parking their car on the right, getting out and then walking along your path on the left? That is weird. However, if I was approaching the house from the left, I would probably walk down the left side as I would assume it’s a shared pathway unless there was a planter or something between the houses. Couldn’t you turn off the alerts on your app so it only goes off when someone presses the doorbell button??

Why do people come on threads like this and say it wouldn't bother them?

It bothers OP, which is the point of the thread. We're all different, and just because it doesn't bother you, doesn't mean it should be universal.

As others have said OP, a big and heavy rectangular planter next to your door and park up close.

If they still do it, then have a conversation as they may think it's shared.

A few posters have suggested that whilst the footpath is your property as shown on the map in your deeds, your neighbours may have ROW over the path. Why haven't you answered that specific point? Right of way and ownership are two different things.

In a set up like that in the photo and a postie was going to both houses would they expect them to walk up the path to OP’s house and then down that path again and up the path by the neighbours or just stay on the same path and just go to the next door (assuming no planter in the way)

I’ve never heard them called desire lines, only elephant paths - I like desire lines better!

I must be petty as I'd make a point of walking past their house and using their path 😂

Seriously though I'd rather people were using paths rather than squeezing between cars. I hate it when the Tesco delivery drivers go between our cars as i worry they'll hit the cars with the crates by accident.

You can understand how disagreements between neighbours start reading the responses. Some think they're entitled to aggravate you and when they succeed well you're just being petty.

If both houses have a path from the front door to the road there's no reason to walk in front of your neighbour's window.

Would I say anything if it was my neighbour, I'm not sure but I'd be fantasising about a set-up to spray water every time they walked by like you would to deter a cat!

A narrow planter would be ideal. You can get them with an inbuilt lattice trellis like this:
www.argos.co.uk/product/2967017?utm_custom6=LIA&deeplink=true&gclsrc=aw.ds&&cmpid=GS001&_$ja=tsid:59157%7Cacid:804-872-0397%7Ccid:20330964438%7Cagid:%7Ctid:%7Ccrid:%7Cnw:x%7Crnd:9487119633053609120%7Cdvc:m%7Cadp:%7Cmt:%7Cloc:9045153&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20330964438&utm_term=2967017&utm_content=shopping&utm_custom1=&utm_custom2=804-872-0397&GPDP=true&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19671816703&gbraid=0AAAAAD9II9lZR0BQAMHwFIuIEJ7rH1Jo0&gclid=CjwKCAiAwNDMBhBfEiwAd7ti1KPdFjKR5dtpR4xmAwgXHzmoHb7uWeEzva3Ve65WjNZV4vahTnP9ZhoCTWAQAvD_BwE

So just because some people can’t afford to live in a house with its own path, everyone who can should just put up with people tramping across the front of their house? That’s just weird. Anyway, a lot of on street terraced houses are MORE expensive because they tend to be closer to all the amenities. But those people know what they’re buying, ie a house with no path. Unlike the OP, who bought a house with a path.