Having a shared path or yard with a neighbor can be annoying.

This person shares a story about his parents and how their neighbors have access to their backyard so they can access their back gate.

Since their privacy is being invaded, his parents decided to create a new path.

The neighbors were not happy!

Read the full story below for all the details.

Fences make good neighbours.

My parents lived in a house where the neighbour had right of access across my parent’s back garden to get to their’s.

This is a Standard U.K. Victorian end terrace rules.

They were jerk neighbours.

They would let their grandkids run around our garden and drop their rubbish.

His parents couldn’t do much about this.

They would also come out and stand in our garden while my parents had family BBQs, and stare at us.

My folks couldn’t do much about it because they had the right to be there.

My parents were fed up of this, as well as them walking across the flower beds and leaving the gates open.

So when the farmer who owned the land surrounding my parents house offered to sell about 1/4 acre of it, my parents jumped at the chance.

The old path allowed the neighbors to cross his parents’ yard before they got to their house.

Imagine the original path to the neighbour’s back gate before the sale.

They would walk up the path beside my parent’s house, across the yard (where they could look into our kitchen),

And walk to their gate which was located on the boundary between our two houses, about halfway up the garden.

So, the parents created a new, longer path to ensure that they don’t have to enter their garden.

My parents bought the land and erected two 7-foot fences around the perimeter of the land.

The fences were about 4-foot apart.

The entrance was around 30-feet away from the original gate.

And when you walked all the way around the new path, it led directly to the neighbour’s back gate.

Essentially, they had their own path and didn’t need to enter our garden.

The neighbors were not pleased.

The neighbours didn’t like this because it meant they had to walk much further to get to their back gate.

My parents reminded them they have fulfilled their legal obligation to give them access across their land to the neighbours back garden.

It didn’t say anywhere that it has to be the shortest route.

The neighbours threatened legal action but didn’t follow it up.

They created their own path, so his dad put a lock on the path he made.

The farmer sold the rest of the land to a developer.

The neighbour contacted the developer to ask if they could create their own exit onto the developer’s land at the far end of their garden so they didn’t have to use our path.

The developer agreed as that area was going to be a pathway.

They gloated to my dad that they didn’t need our path anymore and he’d wasted his money for nothing.

So my dad put a lock on the gates to ensure privacy as they no longer needed it.

The neighbors complained about the building being erected near their house.

When the foundations for the first buildings went up, the neighbour complained to council and company.

They were too close (by 2 metres) and had to be moved.

The fuss cost the developer a lot of extra money, so they sent a letter to all the neighbours informing them that a path will no longer be running along the back of our gardens as it will now be used as garages to offset the cost of reworking the foundations.

They had to ask his dad again to reopen the path he made.

They built a garage block directly behind the neighbour’s garden.

The neighbours now had a gate at the bottom of the garden that led to an ugly concrete wall.

The neighbour then had to come cap in hand to ask my dad politely to removed the locks, so he could start using the path again.

My father obliged.

The neighbours only stayed a few more years as it seemed that the son-in-law actually owned the house and when he divorced the daughter, he sold the house and kicked them out.

I don’t think I’d want to buy a house where the neighbors legally had to walk through my yard to get to their back gate.

Let’s check out what others have to say about this on Reddit.

Now they know why…

This user shares their personal thoughts.

The dad was so accommodating, says this person.

Finally, here’s another honest opinion.

Indeed, good fences make good neighbors.

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