yes, they are violating your space, but I stand by what I said before: you catch more flies with honey.

AKA: there's no reason to be a total jerk about it, unless you want to make things super awkward every time you bump into each other.

I wouldn’t mind it.

I wouldn't consider apologizing the the neighbor for their illegal and rude actions.

Ashley, any updates? Have you guys managed to talk to neighbor about it?

I have not heard anything yet

The next time he sets off your ring camera, I would run out there and flag him down. I would tell him you just got a new ring system installed and that he’s setting it off when he uses your driveway and that you need to know when the alert is for real.

Ashley

Your husband was home for the weekend? Y'all discussed this? Had he given the neighbor the okay nod to use your driveway? If not, what did y'all decide to do? Solar lights?

The more I think about it, the more I think I would just play stupid and act like I never even knew he drove across it. I wouldn't say anything to the neighbor and I would just go about installing whatever fence, landscaping, etc to block it off like it was the plan all along. Because that's a normal action when you buy a new house. Pretty it up! And it's also normal to not consider that the neighbor would be driving across the yard.

And just a side note I've noticed the a lot of the male usernames on here are all "who cares! I wouldn't mind! blah blah!" and the women usernames are "gtfo of my lawn a$$hole" (albeit nicer words haha). And I'm intrigued by this division and think men should take note: We don't like you encroaching into our space!

poollivingthedreamnow suggests you go ahead and do your improvements to your new yard without any conversation with the neighbor -- agree with that wholeheartedly.

Adding solar lights (w/stakes) both beside your sidewalk and both sides of your driveway is a practical upgrade for your new yard.

Planting a taller solar post by the driveway entry and water meter -- perhaps with a house number on it -- is a practical upgrade.

Planting another taller solar post -- perhaps with a pair of brackets for hanging potted plants ... and/or planting shrubs -- in your half of the green "v" between the driveways by the garage is totally a normal thing for a new home owner to want to do.

I think maybe Ashley has left the building, and 195 responses later, who could blame her. ;-)

Ashley has actually replied many times in this thread with additional info and liking some comments. It’s possible she’s read them all, is discussing with her partner and checking with HOA. These things don’t get resolved at the speed of an Internet forums wants!

Yup. Pool has it nailed. Just doing your thing...wave happily, while putting up the solar lights. Nothing to complain about there!

You guys must think this neighbor is really stupid.

If it were my place, I would be much more concerned about the fact that I can barely do a 360 degree turn in my driveway - while standing up!

I would actually be relieved to have the flexibility to cross over on neighbor’s side if necessary, with such a tight driveway situation.

Also, I would hope I had other things to do beside watching neighbor’s comings and goings, 24/7 - on camera!

What stands out for me, about a million replies in now, is that we all value different things....differently. (Yeah, I know - I'm brilliant. LOL.)

Speaking only for me, I value amiable relationships with my neighbor more than I would value him driving over that tiny little strip of land. I understand different people feel differently. That's the beauty of the internet.

Sometimes people post things that hit a nerve and you get a bazillion replies that are all over the place. Again speaking only for me, that ends up being more helpful because as you sort through all the replies, you start to solidify what sounds like the best path forward for you personally.

like isaid before be passive aggressive as last resort

@Ashley. I had a male co-worker who moved and bought a $ million plus house in CA with a shared driveway. He had a lousy neighbor who would occasionally block him in. Polite requests did not get the desired result. In a final episode, tempers flared and the neighbor went to push my co-worker and pushed my co-worker’s wife instead who was standing next to her husband. She fell backwards and hit her head on the driveway and died. Then my co-worker sued and the neighbor went to jail. My co-worker moved. I suggest you avoid discussions with your neighbor about this issue!

If your red line is correctly placed, it looks like your neighbor owns most, if not all, of the grass strip near the garage end of your driveway. If that’s the case, he can legally run over his own grass.

Find out where your exact legal boundary line is. Then find out from your county office if you have restrictions on what you can place on your own property (some counties don’t let you put fences or permanent things right up to your property line). If it is legal, get some boulders delivered (really HEAVY ones) and combine them with landscape design to “beautify” your property. I have a feeling only big boulders will stop this guy.

I have a feeling if you put in anything less than boulders, your neighbor will run right over your blocker. He’ll run over a tricycle or throw it aside. He’ll ignore efforts by your HOA. He’ll plow through hedges and lighting posts. If he asks about the boulders, just smile, say “Aren’t they pretty” and hightail it inside!

Yikes! What a cautionary tale!

I think that is part of the reason for the variety of responses here on how to handle this. Once bitten, twice shy, as the saying goes. People with difficult experiences with neighbour's have a different perspective.

That's a heavy story though...a cautionary tale of how things can escalate.

It looks like you own very little of that strip...tread carefully.

Iknow this may be extreme but explain what is going on to the city planning commission and may be they might know how to handle this

I just noticed something. After daisy said it looks like you own very little of that strip, looking back at the photo and the layout plan of the two properties, it doesn't add up. If you just look at the layout on paper, it looks like neither of you have a full driveway, but looking at the photo, both driveways look adequate and about the same. And the strip of grass between them, seems to be very narrow at the top where the neighbor cuts into your driveway, and wider at the bottom. So, at the top of the strip where he cuts into your driveway, it seems narrow enough to preclude installing a garden with rocks and solar lights. And I wonder if putting large boulders in between two driveways is asking for a problem.

I think Howard's suggestion to try to see if the city planning department can weigh in on it is worthwhile. To me, it seems like the developer tried to squeeze in both driveways in as little space as possible and the strip was meant as a dividing line. Both driveways are designed in such a way that parking cars and blocking people in and having to go out and move cars, is completely inevitable. Perhaps, you're not in a position to have multiple cars in the family and be forced to have to keep moving them, but, I can say that only having had a single driveway like that once and remembering the experience of having to get up and go move the car at the drop of a hat, was annoying enough, that the next time we looked for a place to live, we took the driveway into consideration.

So, hopefully, there is parking on the street there, so that is the solution for the neighbor is to have the 2nd car parked on the street or to put up with having to move it all the time. Or he could alternate weeks. Leave the 2 cars in the driveway when things are going smoothly in their lives and park it on the street, when they're having a particularly stressful week. And it is your driveway and you are in the right, to want. him to stop using it. Especially with little kids in the family, it's dangerous.

Just a little more to think about.

I think some of the recent comments have not read the OP carefully. She is not concerned about her neighbor driving onto her little strip of grass, which would be a minor inconvenience. Here is what she said:

"When his son’s car is blocking him in, rather than asking his son to move the car, he cuts through the grass & uses our driveway to bypass said car. When he returns, he backs up into OUR driveway, and crosses back over the grass median into his driveway."

The neighbor is using her driveway, not just her portion of the grass. That makes this a much more serious issue if I were her. But I would guess that this is something the neighbor has done for a long time with either the previous owner's permission or their indifference. That possibility makes having a conversation about it the most important first step.

I completely understood that. It doesn't change my comment. Maybe you didn't read my entire comment - my last sentence....

"And it is your driveway and you are in the right, to want. him to stop using it. Especially with little kids in the family, it's dangerous."

Prairiemoon, the neighbor has a two-car garage. He doesn't need to park in the street or shift cars around.

Thank you for pointing that out. All the better, makes for a much easier solution for him and fewer obstacles for the neighbor wanting him to stop using her driveway.

So what did you decide to do Ashley?

We are having this same problem with our neighbors and they know we dont want thrm using out driveway, but they still do. i think it is so rude to think/assume you are entitled to our drivway. A liittle communication goes a long way! were think of getting a fence. ashley, what happened?

I think Ashley is long gone. She has only posted 2 questions on this forum. I highlighted her name, but if she did not sign up for notices from Houzz, she will probably never see this.

A car cannot compete with any of these items.

Is the greass being damaged? If so, show the neighbor the damage. If not, ignore it. Life is too short.

There are only a few inches of grass there. It's not enough to landscape and if you put lights or whatever in it, you run the risk of hemming both of yourselves into a tight space. It doesn't appear that he is damaging anything by driving around his son's car. This just seems like sort of a trivial problem, honestly. I'd feel different if he was parking in your driveway or blocking you.

Most people's responding here are clearly misreading, failing to read, or not understanding the situation posted about. The poster is not complaining that her neighbor is driving onto the grass strip. She is complaining that the neighbor drives over the grass strip and onto her driveway to use HER driveway to enter and exit his property, instead of using his own driveway for that purpose. 

The neighbor has his own driveway, and that's the only driveway he should be using. But, the neighbor is too lazy to do that. He has no right, and no good reason to use her driveway. If one of his cars is blocking another of his cars in his driveway, it is his responsibility to move it. He doesn't get to be lazy and drive down her driveway instead. If the city allows for a fence or bollards or wall to separate the properties at the property line, she should do exactly that asap. Her slug of a neighbor should move the car that's blocking him or park one of his cars elsewhere. Either way, he has no business and no right to use her driveway as if it were his own.

This thread is one year old

Original post was made in July 2020 so thread is now almost 3 years old!! And Ashley (OP) has not been back here since that time, so any further comments are just a waste of time.

WestCoast Hopeful, no it is not one year old. It is actually from July of 2020. What exactly is your point? Despite its origination date, people have continued to react to the post and I chose to do that today. If that's a problem for you, then I suggest you simply disengage from it.

I guess the point is that after all this time your opinion isn’t needed or helpful or even an original solution.

Exactly Olychick. The last comment was a year ago and there is no reason to revive this thread.

I don't get it - do we have hall monitors here? If you feel the thread is dead, why do you post to chastise the person who posted a new response and keep it going? If there is no interest in the thread or the new post to it, then no one will respond and that would be that.

GardenWeb has content that goes back years and with how little current activity there is on the forums it's not unusual to see an old thread revived. Besides, if you haven't noticed, Houzz is always linking to these old threads and connecting them to the current thread by topic not date. Half of the time people don't even realize they responded to an old thread.

And I fail to see the reasoning that because the OP is no longer responding that the topic is a waste of time. Someone else can come along and have the same issue and gain something from the old thread coming up.

Not really hall monitor more like heads up. Some people don’t t realize they have replied to an old thread and lowly wasted their time. Or that the original person who posted never replied etc.

Hi WestCoast Hopeful - your first post was exactly that and right on the money. So many times people post after hitting links on the right side of the page, to the old thread without realizing it and it is confusing until you realize it. So, very appropriate to alert someone to that fact. But then it went past that...

"so any further comment is a waste of time"

"your opinion isn't needed or helpful or even an original solution"

"there's no reason to revive this thread."

It's funny though that those statements are opinions that weren't really necessary to add or helpful. Especially after you already got a response from NmgKB that indicated that he saw a reason to respond and was content to do so, but that you didn't need to follow along if you weren't interested.

With so little activity on GardenWeb, I don't understand why anyone would discourage anyone from contributing, let alone to make it an unpleasant experience where they might hesitate to post at all the next time.

And that’s your opinion. The person who revived the thread didn’t like anyone saying it was old. They also took the time to, years later, tell basically all previous commenters how wrong they were for commenting. Bold. People can comment however they want on this forum and do all the time. That also comes with critique at times. Interesting that you took the time to critique my comment then suggest people shouldn’t do that very same thing. Welcome to the internet.

It takes just one to raise the dead, but it takes many to keep it alive.

" And I fail to see the reasoning that because the OP is no longer responding that the topic is a waste of time. Someone else can come along and have the same issue and gain something from the old thread coming up. "

And that is not always a valid assumption. In many cases, the issue being discussed is specific the OP and their situation. Adding more comments (and those which added nothing new to the discussion and were directed specifically to the OP) do not add any current value to the discussion and are really just a restatement of previous comments and/or suggestions. Where precisely is the value in that??

If new posters are interested in the topic, just a Google search will turn up related Houzz/GardenWeb comments without the need to provide additional and uninformative current comments. That is the way these stale threads become resurrected in the first place!!

I'm sorry, but I thought this was intended to be forums where friendly discussion on all things garden was the goal? From my point of view, just my own opinion, this kind of heavy handed attempt to control the content to suit how an individual sees the 'value' of threads and posts takes something away from friendly and open discussion.

Is this an attempt to start 'making rules' about what and when posts should be made? I personally find that stifling. And if there were a situation where a "rule" should be considered, I'd think it should be something that gardenweb members decided as a group and rules decided by individual members are really not the way to go. The rules already given by Houzz to maintain respectful discussion are entirely appropriate and we all agree to those when we become members. I would think that would be enough.

The gardeners here who post are all adults and capable of making their own decisions about when and what to post. To try to step in and make decisions 'for them' about the appropriateness of their post, is disrespectful. And as a matter of fact, NmgKB has identified himself as a Professional. But you think we all need instruction?

And really...what is the harm to you or anyone else if there are old threads hanging around, or if there is a post that has no value 'to you' added to an old thread? Why would that be difficult to just let it go and ignore it?

It seems it was really hard for you to let it go and ignore it too? And NmgKB identifying as a pro doesn’t really mean anything. Many pros on here are the worst offenders or condescending, judgemental and rude comments. Their comment essentially condemned all previous comments and told everyone that their comments were wrong. This forum is anything but friendly.

I've been a member here for more than 25 years and this has always been an ongoing issue. Old, dated threads are resurrected for no other reason than the current commenter has not noticed the original post date (or the date of subsequent comments) or has chosen to tack on a similar question rather than starting a new thread addressing their specific issue and attaching photos or other necessary information. Often these new, late comments are ignored just by virtue of the fact that the original thread is so old.

And all this does is serve to confuse the issue. Why is the clarification of this so hard for some to accept?? It is certainly not intended to be "disrespectful" and any comments made by established Houzz or GW members to that effect are made so that the issue is less confusing.

btw, anyone can sign up to be a "professional".....that designation provides no more validity to the comments made by a pro than it does for anyone else responding. In fact, many of the so-called pros that respond to the gardening or landscaping questions have no more expertise in these matters than any of the hobby gardeners that may respond. Just how much does a kitchen and bath designer know about landscape design??

@ WCHopeful - I chose not to ignore the multiple comments made to a poster, that were attempting to monitor the content of the thread. That is something that affects me as I try to post here on GW.

And your opinion of this particular forum, may be valid. I assume that what you are pointing to are experiences you’ve had posting to this forum. I don’t frequent this forum. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that complaint, though. But - if we want it to be a friendly place to come to - how is that going to happen? I don’t have the answer to that. All I know is that it isn’t easy.

On a landscape design forum - meant for all comers, many gardeners without expertise, feel free to simply offer an opinion. If I were asking for help here, I would certainly want to hear all ideas. Perhaps, gardeners who have training and see things in a certain way, object to the amateur input. It can’t be an easy mix. But to me, you can say anything that is honestly your opinion if you do so with some tolerance and respect for the other people on the thread. Sometimes that helps and keeps a discussion from going off the track and sometimes no matter what you say, someone is offended and at some point, everyone throws up their hands and abandons the thread. Which is the best thing at that point.

People find these threads through google search sometimes, or houzz brings them up in the recommended list. You don't notice it's an old one. It happens. No big deal. I have often been glad that someone added a comment to an old thread if it answers a question I have.

@ GGal - You do recognize my screen name right? [g] Yes, I’m aware that you have been here for 25 years. I’ve been here since 2002, so that’s 22 years. It may have been an ongoing issue to you, but it hasn’t been for me. I’m happy to see old threads resurrected. And either it is of interest to me or it isn’t and I ignore it and find something else to read. I’ve resurrected old threads plenty of times intentionally and unintentionally. I don’t see a problem with that at all. So we basically just disagree on the subject. That is inevitable on a public forum.

I’m not following you GGal, about the confusion issue. What is the issue about confusion? The only confusion I see, is when someone clicks on a link that Houzz has intentionally put adjacent to a new thread that they have not noticed is an old thread. Why does Houzz place them in that way? Because they think that all their “old” content is valuable to them as a garden discussion website, I would assume. You evidently don’t agree with them.

And going by my own experiences with old threads, once you have commented on an old thread unintentionally a couple of times, you figure it out and only post to old threads intentionally after that. It seems a problem that takes care of itself.

And I am happy to hear that anything that was perceived as disrespectful was not intentional. I certainly post pretty direct and strong worded comments some of the time and do my best to communicate in a way that is respectful but you don’t always know how something you say is going to be received, all you can do is remind yourself once in awhile to do your best.

As for the different forums…. Landscape design forum - I would assume gardeners and professionals gravitate to that forum and try to offer advice. That doesn’t limit the input you get to professionals. And are you referring to all gardeners who do not garden for a living as ‘hobby’ gardeners? [g] Anyway - to me it’s simple. You want advice on landscaping your yard, you go to the Landscape forum and you get all kinds of ideas from all kinds of gardeners and you thank them and consider what appeals to you and go away happy.

Whoever started this thread chose to post it in both the Landscape Design forum and the Home Decorating and Design Dilemma forums. I think the OP would soon figure out what kind of advice they would get from each forum.

Personal attacks are not allowed under HOUZZ forum guidelines. Please just stop.