Climbing frame/fort

[Shortperson]

I’ve mentioned this already but can’t find the thread.

Ive recently moved in to a new property. I never noticed a climbing frame/fort in my neighbour’s garden but after I’d exchanged a climbing frame appeared. It’s situated right in front of my kitchen, dining room and living room doors/windows at my boundary fence. They have a little boy who climbs the fort/frame and stares in at my home or me sitting in the patio. So for privacy I put up trellis and lollipop trees. It sort of works except when he has tall friends around or when the parents climb on the platform too! It’s right up against my boundary and I have no privacy. Recently he’s started climbing the trellis from the platform in the fort.

The advice here was report to the council but I thought I’d try talking to the parents first as the council had advised me that they’d ask them to move it if they called round.

i popped round this week with a cake as ‘opener’ and they were friendly. I mentioned - politely - about the trellis, my privacy and asked if they’d move the frame please. Apparently, they say the frame (or fort) has been there for two years and is concreted into the ground and they say it can’t be moved. I explained that it’s the platform that their son stands on was the problem but they didn’t believe me about their son climbing the trellis,

when I mentioned that I’d to go to the council for advice the husband got really angry and gave me the cake back! So I left, feeling very uncomfortable.

Not sure what to do next. Any ideas?

Just give it a few days and then go round and try again. You can either keep the communication lines open, or resort to the council or legal, or you can just live with it.
Which option is depending on what level of stress each will cause to you.

My friend had a problem like this & the council could do nothing as it was withing height allowances. So sorry OP. I also had something similar, with neighbours dc climbing in a tree & staring over my garden, it was horrible.

Thank you all for your help,

ive decided I’ll live with it but find somewhere to go in the holidays.

Some good friends said that children grow, will get bored with the fort, the trees will grow..nothing stays the same.

I could be homeless or dying of some horrible disease…so I’m counting my blessings xx

Can you look at satellite images on Google earth to see when it was constructed?

how do I do that please?

it's not worth having a neighbour dispute over, esp as you would have to declare it on property particulars if you tried to sell, which would reduce the value.
grow some screening plants.

The kids will grow up and stop using it before long. I get that it’s frustrating but do you genuinely think they’re likely to remove a concreted in structure that was there before you moved in because you didn’t notice it and now find it annoying? Don’t be that neighbour. I doubt the dc are spying on you.

Whose fence is it that you have attached the trellis to? Is the climbing frame high enough to need pp or just a regular one? If the overlooking is an issue would a pergola with climbing plants help screen?

It's not worth falling out over.....but I might be tempted to set up a sprinkler over night that just happens to hit it, speed up the rotting process a bit!

To be fair to them it probably is impossible to move it but they should be considerate with how he uses it. Maybe there's something that could go on that side so he can't look over at you. Might be a good safety feature for them if he's a climber