A first-time homeowner was keen to make changes to her property now she’s no longer renting and in full control, but her driveway plans have sparked a heated dispute with a neighbour who’s threatening to take action
The woman’s driveway plans have riled up her “busybody” neighbour (stock image)(Image: Richard Newstead via Getty Images)
A first-time buyer was keen to make a significant transformation to her driveway now she’s finally a homeowner and in full control of her property , but her “busybody” neighbour is making her have second thoughts about her plans. The homeowner, who had spent ten years as a council tenant, was over the moon to finally purchase a modest terraced house but not long after moving in, she realised there was a problem with her driveway.
Every other property on her road has a front garden, but hers had been “rejigged and the hedge was replaced with gates to a gravel driveway instead of garden” and the kerb has been dropped.
While many consider a driveway a desirable feature, in this instance it’s far from ideal. It’s so “tiny” that when she parks on it, her car nearly touches the exterior wall of her living room.
Should she open the living room window, it would actually hit her car. So, given there “isn’t a shortage of parking spaces” on her street and there’s consistently plenty of room to park, she’s determined to undo the previous owner’s alterations and convert the driveway back into a front garden.
With this in mind, she has “slowly started shifting the gravel and replacing it with grass”, while leaving her car parked on the road outside her home.
Recently, however, a neighbour turned up at her door and warned he was “going to put in a complaint” if she carried on not using the driveway to park her car. The woman, who “absolutely loves gardens”, was gobsmacked by her neighbour’s outrage.
She took to Reddit to share her experience and said: “He wanted me to start using my front garden as a driveway like the previous owners and said that’s what my driveway was for.”
When she told him it was “actually a very tight squeeze for a car”, he maintained “the previous owners were able to fit a van in the front drive”.
She continued: “I asked him if he felt there were a shortage of car spaces and he said no, but said if you have a driveway you should use it! He strikes me as a busybody who just wanted to control the street as he has been living in the street he told me since the 70s.
“I let him know that I was wanting to enjoy my front garden as a front garden, just like he had a front garden. He said he’d be contacting the council.”
The homeowner is now concerned she’s “going to be in trouble” and is contemplating “pausing work” on her garden.
Lots of people offered their opinions in the comments section. One jokingly suggested she cultivate a variety of shrubbery and plants on the drive, then trim them into the shape of a car to wind up the “busybody” neighbour.
Another offered reassurance and said: “The absolute worst that’ll happen is someone may call you from the council, just so they can tell him they did, to appease him.
“He’s a busybody who seems to think he can tell you what to do with your land. The only regulations I could find were for the creation of a driveway and dropped kerb, not reversing that.”
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