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Adjacent driveways!

(36 Posts)
anniezzz09 Sun 14-Dec-14 11:42:37

I live in an end terrace of late 1990s houses. They were built so that each house has space for one car (two at a pinch parked end to end) and the rest of the driveway is taken up with a raised bed and an adjacent space for rubbish and recycling bins.

We have one car. Our neighbours who moved this summer, had 3 cars but we each managed perfectly well in our respected spaces. They never asked to use ours or trespassed in any way and in fact, if their children strayed over our side, then their very nice young mother would call them away. We got on well.

This summer a new young couple moved in next door with a one year old. In the space between neighbours moving and moving in, we spent a sizeable sum on having the raised bed removed and the drive repaved. Because of a space on the other side of our former raised bed and the fact that we are end of terrace, we now have a drive which will fit three cars parked closely side by side. There is a narrow strip between the drives (about 18 inches). The neighbours have one car.

I try not to feel mean about this, but as soon as the new couple moved in, I noticed that he would leave his front door and walk diagonally across our drive to the road. They park half on the intervening strip. Then a few weeks ago, they had a number of friends around to lunch and he came and to the door and asked, in a way that suggested he expected the answer yes, if they could park on our drive. He said it would only be a little over from them. I said yes and then wondered if he knew that we all have free residents' permits for our visitors to park in any surrounding spaces (we are a controlled parking zone). When I mentioned this, he looked vague and said yes the last people had left him some permits. I went out shopping and found several cars parked on our drive in a fairly spacious way when I returned.

This morning I noticed a man standing staring at our house. Some time later I noticed he was still there. I was about to go out and ask what he was looking at when I realised he was looking at a small child (next door's) who was wandering around by our house and side entrance. I don't know who he was - a brother or friend?

When these people moved in, they immediately, with little discussion, took down the 6ft hedge between our gardens and put up a 4ft fence with a trellis on top. They didn't seem to understand that this felt like a major change of privacy on our part (especially as they seem to be always noisily out in their garden with one or other set of parents and friends). We put up a screen on our side, at our cost and they seemed surprised but accepted that that was what we wanted (they suggested a couple of young trees as a screen!!).

They are a nice enough couple from London who have only lived in a flat before. However, I feel quite invaded by them and annoyed with myself for minding about the drive but I also feel it is our property after all and if there was a wall, they couldn't wander across. No one else in our cul de sac on either side of the road shares drives and in fact, everyone is discreetly careful about the delicacies of living closely side by side.

Any thoughts on dealing with this in a positive manner?

Elegran Mon 15-Dec-14 20:59:15

Put a row of planted-up containers along the boundary. You could just about plant them now with something that will bloom in spring, or be evergreen foliage. Or put supports into them to hold up some non-existent plants "when they come up". You can complain to the neighbours later that those plants you put in were sheer rubbish and have not done at all well. How about artificial plants?

Put a couple of garden chairs outside your French windows to at least look as though you sit out there (possibly cementing them down in case they walk away) You would freeze at the moment, but if you wait until the summer they will have got well into the habit of using the space as a highway.

Park your car beside the containers, so that the neighbours have to walk round it to cross the rest of your drive.

Make a big thing of needing lots of space to get in and out of your car, use a couple of sticks ostentatiously to show that you (or DH, or a visitor who is game to act the part for you) would struggle if there were another car parked beside it.

On bin days, use your drive as a halfway house for the bins on their way from the back to the pavement. Put them there when it is too early to put them out properly, but convenient for you to have them ready for the short distance when it is time.

Be very sweet and nice to them. Tell them you do hope that the little boy won't come to any harm if he wanders into your garden, where there are some rather dangerous plants, with leaves and berries that could cause him a nasty tummy upset - nothing really poisonous, of course, but unpleasant for him.

You could, of course, just ask them nicely if they would mind leaving your drive for you to use, and you will keep off their property in return. It may never have occurred to them that you would prefer that, if they have been used to flats with a little bit of communal garden/yard at the back and a strip of weed-infested gravel at the front.

Tegan Mon 15-Dec-14 21:00:04

I once saw my neighbour pulling up the Californian poppies that I have along my driveway; he said they were 'poppy weeds'. Then, not long afterwards he was on my drive with his grandaughter collecting pine cones. They're really good neighbours and we've never had an arguement in nearly 40 years but I came close to it then sad. Thankfully it never happened again.

durhamjen Mon 15-Dec-14 21:05:10

My drive is a foot lower than my neighbour's. I cannot imagine her trying to park her car half on my drive.

TwiceAsNice Mon 15-Dec-14 23:49:28

I live in a semi which is attached to me on the left hand side. The neighbours friends and relatives park right outside my house when they visit even when there is room on his drive it really annoys me as I can see the car just outside the living room window all the time, not so bad at the moment when it's dark and I have the blinds shut but very annoying in the summer when its light and the blinds/window is open. They never speak to me and rarely answer even if I say hello. The neighbours on my right have an adjacent drive to me and we park side by side with no problems at all. They are lovely friendly people and have been so kind to me since I moved I,n earlier this year. If we go away we put one another's bins out and if I am away she parks on my drive so it looks as if someone is still home. I sympathise because the first neighbours really get on my nerves but I feel so lucky to have the second neighbours. It's the luck of the draw I guess. Hope you have nicer ones when you move next year.

FlicketyB Tue 16-Dec-14 07:18:47

We live on a private access road that serves three houses, we are furthest from the access point. Our houses do not really have front gardens and the middle one has no garaging or off road parking. Both owners of this house have always been very considerate about parking. It is visitors to their house that cause us grief.

They park both sides of the access road, and sometimes in the centre, so that we cannot get past them to our house, they constantly back into our short garage access, which is private property, to turn round. The worst problems were with the previous neighbour who used to run flower arranging courses at her home. Despite her giving course attenders instructions to park on the public road, they would park on the access road, blocking us in completely and were outraged when we complained and made them move their cars.

In the end we bought some traffic cones and when our neighbour told us she was going to run a course we would put the cones out all along the front of our house and across the garage access

Greyduster Tue 16-Dec-14 09:32:39

Twice, your situation sounds pretty similar to the one I outlined. My neighbour had no qualms about her visitors parking in front if our house (and neither did we, as long as they didn't block the drive, but if the situation was reversed and anyone visiting us parked outside hers, she would make the most enormous fuss. My SIL's mum came to visit me one day and the back end of her car encroached beyond the boundary. My neighbour came out and took issue with her - told her to move it up or she would call the police. "Oh" said A with a nice smile, "I'll just call my husband, shall I? He's a JP, he'll be able to tell you whether I'm breaking the law." Next door turned on her heel and went back indoors. All our other neighbours were lovely, but it only takes one to make life a misery.

papaoscar Tue 16-Dec-14 10:27:23

People! Our son lives in a pleasant village, in a nice semi-detached bungalow in a small cul-de-sac, with three off-road car spaces in front of his house. The cul-de-sac contains three other houses each with off-road parking for at least three cars, so there should be no parking problems. But there are, because people and visitors will insist upon parking in the cul-de-sac restricting and sometimes blocking-up access to the houses. It drives my son nuts. Because of traffic density he leaves for work very early in the morning and sometimes cannot get out of his own drive and has to drag his neighbour out of bed to move his car. Further up his road people park on both sides of the road or on the verge and pavement and this restricts the flow to just one lane. At peak times it will take five to ten minutes to turn out from the village onto the main road. That's country living for you!

janerowena Tue 16-Dec-14 11:41:34

We didn't think out parties and parking when we moved here, there is only our drive, three cars, our grass, one car, and our verge outside, maybe two or three. So we don't have any large gatherings. Our neighbours however are not so considerate. The ones across from us could ask everyone to use the entrance on the top lane, but they don't, they come by our bottom lane and clog up the whole lane. Sometimes it's almost impossible to get out of our lane, especially where there are houses where the older DCs still live at home and leave their cars on the lane rather than have to shuffle cars on the drive.

jeanie99 Mon 29-Dec-14 22:30:15

Years ago we lived in a terrace house and had to put up with noise from both sides, parking problems etc. a nightmare.
We had an outside toilet no bathroom and the man who shared our yard used to pee out of his upstairs window because he couldn't be bothered to go to the toilet. He was disgusting and always drunk.
We saved and saved and bought the cheapest detached house we could afford.
We have never looked back it as worked out and we don't have any problems with neighbours.
Heaven.

FlicketyB Thu 01-Jan-15 23:02:57

My uncle had a house with a garage and access in a narrow road where his was one of only a few garages. As a result cars often parked across his access. This caused him real problems as his wife had a heart condition which meant he sometimes had to rush her to hospital at all times of the day and night.

After his polite notes, personal requests etc not to block his access were ignored he spoke to his Neighbourhood Watch police officer. After that whenever his drive was blocked, he phoned the police and if there was a police car in the area they would come and slap a parking ticket on the offending car for obstruction. To begin with he called them frequently, but after about a month as the offending drivers got the message - and the tickets - his drive was no longer obstructed.