Hi guys.
Say you owned a mid-terraced house (leasehold, as this is probably relevant). Tiny yard at the back. You have right of access through/past next door's yard, so you can get to the shared passageway/ginnel to take bins out onto the street. You and the neighbour also use the ginnel as an entrance to your houses via the back door (each house has a front door that opens straight onto the living room so people don't use that much).
Ginnel is several feet long, unlit, leads straight into both yards and to your kitchen extension/back door. If someone happened to walk down the passage, they'd turn left and be right at your kitchen window/your back door/the window looking direct into your living room. Would this idea worry or bother you? Would it bother you more if you lived near a busy street with a couple of pubs?
A little worried about security/the lack of, with the ginnel. I don't like the thought of someone lurking in it when I come home/leave the house via the back door. Or someone just waltzing down it and coming to nose in my back windows (or smash them, or worse, with some yoofs I guess). Am I overthinking it? Mostly don't want randoms coming round the back unseen (I can't view the ginnel in any way from inside the house, if someone comes up on the left side of the road, i.e. not past my front window, I'd never know they were there).
Ideally I would want to install a gate on the front that's lockable. But this is also a) down to the other neighbours, plus decisions about maintenance etc, and b) the ginnel may likely belong to the freeholder, so I don't know if it's an option. Currently trying to suss all this out, but any advice in the meantime?