Would this bother anyone or am I just being petty? Neighbours walking past

[thebakera]

I recently moved into a house which is a modern new build with 2 allocated parking spaces outside my living room and front door.
So it isn't a driveway as such but 2 parking bays designated for this property.

A few of the neighbours use it as a short cut to go from A to B and they literally are walking right by my living room window multiple times a day.

At times they will even have conversations.

The kids do it as well and it is really annoying me.

I want to kindly ask them to stop as I feel it's invading my privacy but feel petty doing so.

Would this annoy anyone else?

Speak for yourself! I never got use to it and that as well as the all-round lack of privacy and constant bloody noise from every angle was the reason that I moved from a new build estate.

I think plant pots are the answer, put them along the wall of your house then park right up close to them so there’s no space for people to walk

My old house was like this & luckily I didn’t have an issue with my neighbour. However I did had some large planters along the front of the house to brighten it up more than anything. It would have stopped anyone being able to cut through between my car and house if they’d been doing this.
My house was also in a cul de sac - so like OP no issue with traffic to walk around parked cars away from the houses.

Big planters. You can get wheels for them. They’ll stop it completely. You don’t want to be putting the car right up against the house or windows for various safety reasons

good luck with them

You're right to be annoyed, but also right to think nothing you could say would easily resolve it

What about a row of planters or flower pots with spikey leaved pants either side of the bays?

It sounds like you don’t actually “own” the parking bays, just the right to park there so you can’t really do anything about it. It would be different if they were cutting across a private driveway but it sounds like the main problem is that your house has no front garden and your windows are directly on to a public street.

OP's title plan will prove this

So the kids from them 3 houses are running back and forth after school every day.

The parents go back and forth to fetch their kids, have a chat with the other parents etc.

This is a HA property but I am not sure if they would do anything about it.

Having the planters would make it difficult for 2 cars to park in the bays.

I agree you need a slim barrier - something like the others have.

The other thing you could maybe try is doing it back to them. I am not suggesting starting a fight but if 8, 14 and 16 are close, I would get a friend to help you and do it to number 8. That is the most natural opportunity as they are on the end. You need them to be in and it be inconvenient time ideally.

if you have no suitably loud friends, send your child (if old enough, across the street whilst you stand directly outside number 8’s window and then have a very loud shouted conversation with them across the road. This will liok
less manufactured as who hasn’t done that at some point.

If No8 is reasonable, it will occur to them and it might stop. I can tell readers thinking ‘unlikely’.

If they come out and confront you, apologise and play it back to them like ‘Oh I am sorry, yes I imagine it is loud if we neighbours use this strip. Do you think we should get everyone using the bottom of the drives instead? Whatever you do avoid saying ‘but you do it to me’ as that just looks petty.

Another tactic if they are having a long conversation on your front is to open the window or door and say ‘oh hello, did you want me?

So there is nothing that you can do, especially as pp said, that they’re not your allocated parking spaces.

Or park your car as far up to the house as you can so it would make it difficult for them to walk between the house and the car.

Combine this idea with the planter idea - tall planters up again the top of the house that the car parks right up to. Can have a decorative piece of big rope tied to it to almost act as a bumper.

But OP doesn’t say that does s/he? They are the two parking spaces allocated to her house. The problem isn’t that other people are using them. That would be a whole new horror.

So it’s as if they are walking across your front garden, except the developers sacrificed a front garden for off-street parking?

YANBU

If you’re not using the spaces for parking can you use the space for something else? id be going to B&Q or IKEA to buy some big planters and get them ready for summer planting either side of your parking to form a kind of a fence.

There was, with numerous people posting the link to an Argos planter with trellis😁

Apologies 😜 just read the OP again!

So one of the kids was basically underneath my window looking for his cat, sat in one of the parking spaces.
His dad came and got him quite quickly, this happened when we was out, out, the CCTV picked it up.

We have looked at one of those trellis planters and we are concerned we won't be able to get 2 cars parked in.
We have ordered one and will test it out to see if it works as in if we are still able to get both cars parked.

It really is such an invasion of our privacy, it's not like a one off it's every day.

The developer of these houses has done an awful job with the design as there is no privacy.

Oh goodness I live opposite a lady on a new estate with a set-up exactly as you describe. It makes me so uncomfortable when I see the kids playing on her drive but I didn’t know whether to say anything as I thought maybe she might have said it was okay and I’d just be sticking my beak in.

I’ve even seen people drive their cars over her drive to get round the corner to where the their houses are rather than take the road properly. She doesn’t have a car so it’s never blocked for them.

some people have zero respect!

You have my sympathy. We have a cottage that opens into the street down a little dead end lane with only a pedestrian cut through leading off it. To park we have to tuck the car right in. Despite this leaving enough room to get the bin lorry past and there being no traffic as we are at the bottom, people still squeeze themselves through the tiny gap between the car and the wall. Makes me jump everytime as they’re right up against the window and because the house is lower than the road they can see straight in.

Wish there was some sort of human equivalent to pigeon spikes.

If you parked your car within a couple of inches of your window, there’d be no room to get through. Could that work?

Many of us have suggested this but OP is ignoring for some reason.

I agree with the posters saying 'park you car right up so far that they cannot squeeze past...' Why can't you do this @thebakera ???

Also, YANBU to be annoyed, but there is nothing you can do.

I don't see why there is any need for them to walk past at all? Are the people from 20 visiting the people in 14 or 16? If they are parking in their spaces and going into their houses then what?

Surprisingly, some people don't use their car to get absolutely everywhere - they could be walking to the bus stop, local shop or school.

We literally step out of our front door onto a pavement and live in between 2 generations of one family who are constantly calling in on one another so I absolutely feel your pain! That said I barely notice it now (been here 10+ years mind you ) and it's only ever one of my neighbours passing by or stopping for a chat or the kids out playing, I actually find it quite comforting now in a weird way although it did annoy me to begin with.