Message Forums

I'm also someone who gets niggled by people encroaching on our pitch.  If they asked "mind if I leave my car there while we erect our tent/awning - will move it when we are done" then fine, go ahead, but if  they just do it, then I get narked.  In that case, I would bring out the wind breaks and up would go the baracades.  Moat and drawbridge to go with it if needs be.  Ok, so maybe I am an old whinger, but we have a 21ft motor home, and also frequently pay extra to take along our car.  We put out our awning/safari/privacy room but with all that, still take up less room than a caravan with awning and car.  If I have to pay extra to have a car on the pitch, when I am taking up less room than the caravan with huge awning and car on the next pitch, and they have paid less, then yes I do get ratty.  I have to have my car on my pitch as I'm disabled and my scooter is stored in the car where it is insured.  I can't walk to the car park so need to be able to park next to or in front of my motor home. 

When we first started out, I wondered why people kept setting up wind breaks all around their 'plot', now I know why and aim to invest in some more long wind breaks to stop kids kicking balls near my motor home or riding their bikes through my pitch or shouting as they run past the door of the awning and causing my dog to bark.  I've told my children to use the paths and NOT to go through anyone else's pitch.  We are off this coming weekend and the first thing I will be doing is setting up the wind breaks to stop people coming so close.

Please or offend, I don't like having to tell the dog to shut up when we are all asleep and she is woken by someone walking by right outside our awning.

Sara

I don`t use windbreaks.

But I do get a bit peed off when I arrive on my well marked out pitch (big white lines on the grass) and find the neighbours tent pitched so that there was at least three feet of their side pod on my pitch. The pitches were pretty narrow (5m) and they had a 12-man dome and the pitch on their other side was crammed...so they didn`t have anywhere else to go but over the boundery line.

Now...I could have marched back to reception and demanded another pitch (they were full) or demanded that they get the neighbours to take down part of their tent. After due consideration though I decided not to bother, because where would have the neighbours have gone? No-where else TO go...no other pitches, no other campsites for thirty miles. And I`d brought my narrow Oregon 600, so there was in fact space for us, our table and chairs plus their pod. Just. Anyhow, we were just using the campsite as a B&B, so their need for space was greater than ours. 

Did I get any thanks for this though? No I did not. They ignored us and we ignored them. Their children kept on running round their tent though...ie onto our pitch...untill I parked the car neatly between two sets of their guylines to block the route.

Difficult one though...I`d have been well within my rights demanding to the warden they take their tent down, and I might have had to if I`d taken a bigger tent. (No guidelines as to either pitch size or tent size on website.) If it came to a straight fight between my tent and their`s, they would have lost, belive me. But I settled for some mild inconvenience and let them have their weekend...after all, they had kids and I`d have hated to spoil their weekend just because of me insisting on getting something I didn`t really need . It would have been nice if they`d come round to say thanks though.

(I did get a mild revenge though...part of their footprint groundsheet was sticking out under the encroaching pod and it was raining pretty hard that weekend so there was a fair bit of water being channelled underneath. Normally I`d have mentioned it...but somehow, I didn`t. Bad Val! There went any good camping karma points for that weekend!)

Oh come on everyone why get so stressed out and uptight?  I can appreciate your dissapointment if you pitched up to the equivilant of the 'neighbours from hell' but why so territorial? Goodnesss gracious you are only there for a few days and most of that time you will be out and about enjoying yourselves so unless your new neighbours are particularly troublesome, in which case the site owners should be informed immediately so that they can ask them to be more considerate to their fellow campers I would just grin and bear it if I were you and just enjoy your break!. I know some people can be rude and inconsiderate and there is no excuse for bad manners but hey ho I wouldnt let them get me down that much that I entered into a war game with them during my travels I would simply just think to myself "what a plonker" and if I really felt miffed I would simply move on to pastures new!

So come on lighten up some of you and remember that life is too short to let simple and unimportant little things get you down so much and the beauty of camping, caravanning and motorhoming is that you have the freedom to come and go as you please and if you dont like somewhere you just up and go!

By the way ................. only 6 more 'night nights' until we get our new motorhome and I can hardly wait wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Sooh

I can see your point Sooh, but when you have saved long and hard to be able to afford even just a few days away, I think you are entitled to get what you have paid for.  I've been on sites before where there was a 'pitch invasion' from a tent on the neighbouring pitch, who's guylines were over the boundaries.  The people who's pitch was encroached upon had a disabled guy with them who was wheelchair bound.  The warden made them move their car to the car park because it was not within the boundary of their pitch.  Had the neighbour's tent guy lines not been on their pitch, they could have got the car in.  They pointed this out but the warden said that they had to peg their tent down somehow (no mention was made of the trailer, car, pup tent, swingball, bikes and other paraphanalia that was filling the tenters pitch.  The disabled guy's wife had to walk down and bring the car up each time they wanted to go out, and drop him off then go and take the car to the car park then come back.  It was all so totally unfair.  If I had paid for a pitch, (paid £200 for one this past BH weekend), I certainly wouldn't be prepared to pack up and move on because of someone else being inconsiderate and ignorant.  There would be no garantee of getting a pitch elsewhere at such short notice, and probably no chance of a refund either.  Besides, who wants to be driving around trying to find somewhere else when you have already booked a pitch weeks in advance.  Fine if whatever is on your pitch is not giving you a problem, but in the instance mentioned above, it clearly was, and spoilt that couples enjoyment. 

I would personally never encroach onto someone else's pitch, they have paid for theirs as much as I have paid for mine.  It's just bad manners and ignorance to simply take things for granted like that.

If someone was having difficulty with lack of space and they asked, then so long as it wasn't causing us a problem, then I would be fine about allowing guy lines etc be pegged over the boundary, but would warn them of when we were going as the next person may not be so happy to allow it. 

In the majority of cases, I think it is the park's fault for having pitches that are really too small or crammed together.  We went to Littlesea this past weekend, and some pitches really did seem crammed in with caravan, awning, car and a couple of chairs.  The only ones who wern't were those with no awning or other extras.

Good luck with your new motor home!

Sara

I do see your point Sara and I apologise if I come across as not ever feeling miffed about out and out rudeness and bad manners because I too would feel very cross and annoyed myself if someone was very thoughtless and spoilt my enjoyment and just like anyone else, I would feel inclined to speak out if that ever happened.  But such people I would like to think are in the minority and are thankfully few and far between and I hope that most responsible site owners would have meaures in place for dealing with such behaviour. I personally have never encountered any problems like this to be honest with you but maybe we have just been extremely lucky or something?

Anyway, let's hope we all can enjoy lots of lovely peaceful holidays from now on and none of us pitch up next to anyone who is rude and unpleasant as like I say life is too short to spend our holidays feuding with neighbours and if we can avoid such situations it is far nicer  isn't it?

Thanks for the good luck wishes re my motorhome Sara and we have only 5 more night nights left now lol!

Sooh

No apology needed Sooh

On the whole, we haven't had that much trouble ourselves.  We were given a pitch once where the caravan on the next pitch was obviously seasonal, as the grass had grown up round it.  The back corner of their van was on our pitch meaning that if we'd wanted to put our awning out, we couldn't and would not have got out of the door.  The owner of the van wasn't there while we were, so we couldn't have done anything anyway, other than ask to move, but we were only there a couple of nights, so just left it and didn't use the awning.

The past two times we have been away, we have seen plenty of pitch encroachment, with guy lines, cars and even a folding caravan parked on neighbouring pitches.

I think pitch hoggers are in the minority, and most people are friendly and careful to stay within their own boundaries.  I know I wouldn't want anyone coming to me saying I'd parked too close or my car was on their pitch or something similar, so I make hubby move the van a bit if it looks like we are going to be too close.

Hope your first trip is pitch hog free

Sara