New Homeowners Want To Enjoy Their Yard And Pool Alone, Upset Neighbors When They Fence Their Land
Some folks just can’t take a hint, and unfortunately, these people always seem to end up living next door. The kind of neighbors who act like they own the entire street and demand special treatment like they’ve got VIP access to your life… You know the type. From casually strolling into your backyard to using your pool as if it’s a community amenity, some neighbors can’t comprehend the concept of personal space.
And one Reddit user who knows this all too well shared a story detailing just how bold her neighbors have become. After moving into her dream beachside home, this woman soon realized that her biggest issue would be the people next door.
Some neighbors think “private property” means “community playground,” especially when they’ve got their eyes on your pool
Image credits: Martin Alonso / Flickr (not the actual photo)
A new homeowner found out just how bold neighbors can be when they asked her to allow them to walk through her yard to reach the beach, and even use her pool
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The woman and her husband bought their dream beachside home, complete with beach access, a pool and a beautiful yard, which they decided to fence in, angering their neighbors
Image credits: Sandra Seitamaa / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
One neighbor asked the woman if she would allow the residents to use her pool and walk through her yard every time they wanted to reach the beach, but she refused
Image credits: OddTry3520
Image credits: SHVETS production / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Arian Fernandez / Pexels (not the actual photo)
The woman posted an update saying she contacted the police and the previous homeowners to confirm that she is not obligated to grant access to her neighbors
Image credits: Chris F / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: wirestock / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: OddTry3520
The woman and her husband refuse to allow her neighbors to use their pool or walk through their yard at their convenience, building a fence around the yard
Just imagine that you bought your dream home – a beachside oasis complete with a pool, hot tub, fountains and a gorgeous view of the beach. Basically, your very own slice of paradise. For me, that sounds like a dream life.
But for this 26-year-old homeowner, her relaxing beachfront haven quickly turned into a battleground with her neighbors from across the street. Why? Because they felt entitled to stroll through her yard whenever they wanted to reach the sandy beach and maybe even use her pool. Yes, her private pool.
The OP (original poster) of this story and her husband decided to protect their little oasis by putting up a fence around their yard. Reasonable, right? Well, not according to her neighbors from the condos across the street.
Marie, one of those neighbors, decided to pay the OP a visit. But she wasn’t there to deliver a friendly “Welcome to the neighborhood” basket. Oh, no, she had much bigger things in mind: access to the OP’s yard for her and all the condo residents.
Turns out, the previous homeowners had been letting their neighbors use their private yard as a shortcut to the beach. Why walk 5 whole minutes to the public entrance when you can stroll through someone else’s private paradise, right?
Not only that, but they’d even let people use their pool sometimes. Sounds like a community perk, except the OP wasn’t on board with continuing the tradition.
When Marie asked if they could keep this little arrangement going, the OP’s response was a big No. She wasn’t interested in sharing her sanctuary with people she didn’t know, and who could blame her? After all, she bought the house for the yard, not to run a public pool party.
Marie didn’t take kindly to the OP’s refusal. In fact, she got downright mad. How dare the OP gate off the beach path and ruin their “way of life”? Marie even played the “think of the kids” card, saying parents would be devastated if their kids had to walk a whopping 5 minutes to reach the beach. The horror!
Our OP, however, didn’t back down. She wasn’t about to turn her home into a community road for strangers just because it was more convenient for them.
But Marie wasn’t alone. Soon enough, other condo residents were buzzing about OP’s “selfish” fence. Some even confronted her directly, questioning if she was really going to block off their precious shortcut. If only the beach drama could have stayed between the OP and Marie, but no, now she had an entire condo’s worth of opinions raining down on her.
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
While the OP’s friends and family were divided on the issue, legal experts, and a whole lot of Redditors, weren’t. In fact, experts say that property owners like the OP are 100% within their rights to limit access to their private property and are under no obligation to grant easement rights to neighbors, unless such an agreement has been made in writing, which, in this case, it hasn’t.
“If you’re thinking about purchasing a particular piece of property, it’s important to know if there are any easements involved. The term easement refers to the right of persons or entities other than the legal owner to use or control a portion of the property. Easements often involve neighboring homeowners such as when a neighbor uses a shared driveway,” experts advise. Good to know.
This, however, is not the case in our story, and the OP made sure of that by contacting the previous owners of the home for confirmation. And, if that wasn’t enough, the local police also confirmed that the condo residents had no legal right to use her property as a beach path.
So legally, the OP was in the clear. Plus, as many Reddit users pointed out, allowing people to walk through her yard isn’t just annoying but also a potential premises liability nightmare if any accidents were to occur on her property.
While the OP may not be winning any “Most Popular Neighbor” awards anytime soon, at least she gets to enjoy her little slice of paradise in peace. After all, that yard is the reason she bought the house in the first place.
What do you think of this story? Is our poster a jerk for fencing in her yard and blocking access to her private property? Drop your comments below.
Netizens side with the woman, saying she has every right to protect her private property and enjoy her home
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My thoughts exactly. I know there's a lot of similar stuff, but this one feels identical.
Load More Replies...Trying to decipher the new BP behavior... Both Trillian and Ace posted links to last year's version of this. Replies are disabled for both, otherwise I would have replied to one of them. But Ace's comment was "hidden" and Trillian's was not. Ace used the "http..." protocol prefix, and Trillian did not. Mysterioso.
I noticed this sort of thing in another comments section. The top comment had something like +35, but was hidden. The next most popular was something like +19 and was visible. One theory is that if a person get to -4 it doesn't matter if they have any subsequent upvotes, we are still unable to reply to their post.
Load More Replies...Oh wow Bp have started to hide comments with upvotes now also or is it just my phone arguing with me? Both Trillian’s and Ace’s comments with links to the original upload are hidden. And you can’t reply to them.. ”This comment is hidden, Click here to view” For years thats only been the case with heavily downvoted comments..
BP have started hiding any comments with an links at all. I tried to download a pic of our kitten, no great threat to those who advertise on BP, I would have thought, but no, "This comment is hidden. Click here" etc as soon as you press send.
Load More Replies...omg, parents will have to walk 5 minutes!!!?? That's the most american complain I have ever heard in my life
No, not an American complaint, just a lazy-a*s people complaint—-and there are lazy-a*s people in every country all over the world. So, not a nationality thing, but a personality thing.
Load More Replies...It's a FIVE MINUTE walk to get access to the beach otherwise. Not like it's a 20 minute hike or anything. And it's not like it's some rich person claiming public land and cutting off access or anything. In addition to the condo people exaggerating what the previous owners allowed.
"My sister feels like it's a rich person issue" So is having to walk a few extra blocks to get to the beach.
Doesn't matter if it's a rich person issue or not. It's still an issue that needed to be addressed. I wonder why the sister cares more about strangers than her sister.
Load More Replies...One word, "liability". No strangers on my private property, since I don't want to be sued if they get hurt. PERIOD.
Oh so funny - I wrote the exact same thing before seeing your post!! Have an upvote! :)
Load More Replies...BP really has lost it, and I'm seriously thinking of giving up on it. Repeated articles can now be added to the list of 12-year-old posts, absurd censorship, constant spam, links that don't work, quiz errors, inappropriate headlines, political bias and bizarre comments, which mean it's no longer fun. The only thing they're improved in my time here is not banning people from commenting for periods when they received 10 downvotes; but it's rapidly getting further away from the site I joined for a quick digest of social media. They need to up their game, or it's going to disappear completely.
Add the "buffering" that sometimes happens. This means, apparently, that BP are trying to stuff so many adverts/videos etc into one article that the browser just can't cope. Well, my browser, anyway. Come on BP, up your game!
Load More Replies...If they've been open abiut using it as a right of way for long enough, there may be legal protection against cutting access off. They wouldn't have to come into the yard but OP may have to leave a path between her fence and the neighbor's fence. We had a similar issue with street access, where it was ruled use had been established and no building could block, but we still retained the land. Lawyers said cases go about 50/50.
Thanks for sharing your anecdotal information. It prompted me to do internet research on “easement by prescription in California”. Fortunately, all relevant information is included in the post or comments. The criteria for prescriptive easement are: minimum 5 years, open, continuous and notorious (in the legal use of notorious it means the use was common knowledge including the owners who chose to do nothing about it - isn’t legal terminology a wonderful thing?). The previous owners only permitted access to the beach through their yard for 3 years when they weren’t in residence; OP should be safe.
Load More Replies...On top of the cameras I'd also get the meanest looking dog possible.
They could offer to sell a 6 foot wide "right of way" to the condo owners with the stipulation that they also pay to shift the fence accordingly. The price (ignoring the fence modification) could be set anywhere from $1,000 to $100 million, depending on how they feel. It should be further stipulated that the "new owners" must maintain that strip of land.
Letting strangers onto your land creates a liability issue. If someone gets injured or assaulted they could sue you. Allowing strangers (with their pets, potentially) would add another layer of potential problems if you choose to have children or pets of your own.
My thoughts exactly. I know there's a lot of similar stuff, but this one feels identical.
Load More Replies...Trying to decipher the new BP behavior... Both Trillian and Ace posted links to last year's version of this. Replies are disabled for both, otherwise I would have replied to one of them. But Ace's comment was "hidden" and Trillian's was not. Ace used the "http..." protocol prefix, and Trillian did not. Mysterioso.
I noticed this sort of thing in another comments section. The top comment had something like +35, but was hidden. The next most popular was something like +19 and was visible. One theory is that if a person get to -4 it doesn't matter if they have any subsequent upvotes, we are still unable to reply to their post.
Load More Replies...Oh wow Bp have started to hide comments with upvotes now also or is it just my phone arguing with me? Both Trillian’s and Ace’s comments with links to the original upload are hidden. And you can’t reply to them.. ”This comment is hidden, Click here to view” For years thats only been the case with heavily downvoted comments..
BP have started hiding any comments with an links at all. I tried to download a pic of our kitten, no great threat to those who advertise on BP, I would have thought, but no, "This comment is hidden. Click here" etc as soon as you press send.
Load More Replies...omg, parents will have to walk 5 minutes!!!?? That's the most american complain I have ever heard in my life
No, not an American complaint, just a lazy-a*s people complaint—-and there are lazy-a*s people in every country all over the world. So, not a nationality thing, but a personality thing.
Load More Replies...It's a FIVE MINUTE walk to get access to the beach otherwise. Not like it's a 20 minute hike or anything. And it's not like it's some rich person claiming public land and cutting off access or anything. In addition to the condo people exaggerating what the previous owners allowed.
"My sister feels like it's a rich person issue" So is having to walk a few extra blocks to get to the beach.
Doesn't matter if it's a rich person issue or not. It's still an issue that needed to be addressed. I wonder why the sister cares more about strangers than her sister.
Load More Replies...One word, "liability". No strangers on my private property, since I don't want to be sued if they get hurt. PERIOD.
Oh so funny - I wrote the exact same thing before seeing your post!! Have an upvote! :)
Load More Replies...BP really has lost it, and I'm seriously thinking of giving up on it. Repeated articles can now be added to the list of 12-year-old posts, absurd censorship, constant spam, links that don't work, quiz errors, inappropriate headlines, political bias and bizarre comments, which mean it's no longer fun. The only thing they're improved in my time here is not banning people from commenting for periods when they received 10 downvotes; but it's rapidly getting further away from the site I joined for a quick digest of social media. They need to up their game, or it's going to disappear completely.
Add the "buffering" that sometimes happens. This means, apparently, that BP are trying to stuff so many adverts/videos etc into one article that the browser just can't cope. Well, my browser, anyway. Come on BP, up your game!
Load More Replies...If they've been open abiut using it as a right of way for long enough, there may be legal protection against cutting access off. They wouldn't have to come into the yard but OP may have to leave a path between her fence and the neighbor's fence. We had a similar issue with street access, where it was ruled use had been established and no building could block, but we still retained the land. Lawyers said cases go about 50/50.
Thanks for sharing your anecdotal information. It prompted me to do internet research on “easement by prescription in California”. Fortunately, all relevant information is included in the post or comments. The criteria for prescriptive easement are: minimum 5 years, open, continuous and notorious (in the legal use of notorious it means the use was common knowledge including the owners who chose to do nothing about it - isn’t legal terminology a wonderful thing?). The previous owners only permitted access to the beach through their yard for 3 years when they weren’t in residence; OP should be safe.
Load More Replies...On top of the cameras I'd also get the meanest looking dog possible.
They could offer to sell a 6 foot wide "right of way" to the condo owners with the stipulation that they also pay to shift the fence accordingly. The price (ignoring the fence modification) could be set anywhere from $1,000 to $100 million, depending on how they feel. It should be further stipulated that the "new owners" must maintain that strip of land.
Letting strangers onto your land creates a liability issue. If someone gets injured or assaulted they could sue you. Allowing strangers (with their pets, potentially) would add another layer of potential problems if you choose to have children or pets of your own.

















































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