Neighbours!! What would you do?

Eleanor Roosevelt “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent”
Keep calm and remain classy.
I live in a very crowded street in NW London. A day does not pass when some obnoxious neighbour does not beep their horn because someone is going too fast, too slow, trying to park, trying to pull out, getting in the car, getting out of the car. All I ever think is what miserable lives they must lead. You cannot change these people. Smile and continue on your blessed life.

Having seen the photo I withdraw the last sentence of my previous post.

What the neighbour has done and why he has done it, is abundantly clear. The pots are there, to protect the neighbours themselves from damaging their car or themselves by going over the edge of the wall and down the drop into next-door's drive.

Everything they are doing is on their own property. The Op and family need to understand and respect what their neighbour has done and why and make sure that they too can intrance and exit their caar entirely on their land.

I cant see the pic. Just never be available for them again. Any help, sorry we are to busy. They sound a nightmare, and very petty.

Mo65

I cant see the pic. Just never be available for them again. Any help, sorry we are to busy. They sound a nightmare, and very petty.

I thought so but, having now seen the photo with identifying details omitted, I have changed my mind.

I'm rather confused, though.

I thought the gates were at the entrance to the drive but they're at the house end 🤔

I still believe forfeiting some of the front garden is the answer.
Less to mow/weed as well. Win win.

Germanshepherdsmum

I doubt my car doors would clear the wall.

OP said wall is 6 inches at its highest. Either an optical illusion is happening or that square beige planter is very small. The difference in height looks a good 12 inches near the gates. Even the doors of my bog standard hatchback only clear the ground by 10 inches.

I once lived in a village house on a hill where our drive was higher than next door’s. We had not lived there very long when DH reversed up the drive one dark night and missed the edge. Nobody was hurt but it did the car’s suspension no good at all not to mention the embarrassment of having to enlist neighbours to lift the car back onto our driveway and explain to a garage next day what he had done!

It would be unfair and maybe unkind to jump to conclusions about why the neighbours behave as they do in case one or other is suffering from a mental illness. OP has mentioned that one of her neighbour’s has experienced a breakdown. Maybe her behaviour now is something that has arisen from that.

I helped a former neighbour a great deal but also accepted that she could behave very strangely when it came to her own boundaries and even things in her field of vision. She hadn’t always been that way but a particularly traumatic event in her life seemed to change her, making her very protective of what was hers and what she regarded as her space.

Well, you could say nothing, smile sweetly if you see them, as you let your passenger out, then park at the end of "your" drive, right next to their car! (I wonder how long it will before they might want to initiate a conversation with you about getting in and out of cars/plant pots/boundaries etc!) Of course, if they open their passenger door and hit your car and damage it you can send them the bill!

Alternatively - you could be the bigger person and transplant your special plants (carefully!) and make your drive wider, and keep the peace with your neighbours!

I know what I would do (although option 1 would be tempting!)
Oh, and as others have said, have a sudden bad back next time they want some logs stacking!)

I can’t see any photo, so can’t comment