'Peeping Toms'

Garden privacy and peeping toms

My swimming pool is located in my front garden. When we first bought our property you could look straight in to the pool area from the road. We knew that for privacy we had to try and make some improvements. You would thing this would be relatively easy as we are a front line property with just almond groves in front and a no through road. The only people that pass are those going to the next property and dog walkers.

We wanted to get the right balance between privacy and beautiful views over the almond groves, so decided to raise our wall by around 60cm and put some rejas on top. This way we felt that we had the best of both worlds. We could enjoy our pool in private from those walking casually past as our pool would not be in view of the road unless you came right up to our wall and walked alongside made the concerted effort to look over.

We got the necessary permissions for our project from the Ayuntamiento and started getting the work done. Once the work was complete we immediately felt the privacy the new wall and rejas provided. You’d see the heads of dog walkers bobbing up and down as they walked past our property, there was no awkwardness over privacy no did we feel our views had been compromised.

As the months passed we started to see random walkers with or without dogs popping their heads right up against our rejas and peering over the wall and looking into our pool area. We had tough by making this small increase in wall hight it would give the subliminally message that we enjoyed our privacy within our garden and this would be enough to deter ‘peeping toms’. What we had in fact created was some way of encouraging people to be curious to want to look over the wall.

Last summer we decided to park our cars in the street along our wall. This we though would make it difficult for people to get close enough to be able to see over the wall. We was wrong. This then meant that people would literally squeeze between out cars and wall to walk past, despite there being 2.5 meters of freely walkable road on the other side of our cars. Quickly we realised that if people are so brazen to undertake this type of squeezing manoeuvre then they really don’t care about one our privacy and two whether they scratch our cars whilst trying to squeeze their bodies through.

We even had some Belgians one evening whilst out on their walk have the cheek to pop their heads and look over our wall. I had no idea who these people were, but my CCTV had caught them in the act. Me being so infuriated at the time I posted this video clip on my Facebook page to ask if anyone knew the cheeky, nosy, sods. My Spanish builder, who must have done work for these cheeky, nosy, sods saw this video and told me who they where and where they lived. Me being me thought lets see how they like their privacy being invaded whilst sitting in their garden. I took a short walk over to their villa with the intention of doing exactly to them as what they did to me. Only my plan was foiled. I go to their villa only to see that it was entirely surrounded by a 2 meter wall. I could see nothing, I could not even try and invade their privacy. They had decided that they valued their privacy by building a wall around their garden so no one could see in! And that my friends is the classic example of pot, kettle , black. Its an irony they value their privacy so much but this doesn’t come in to their minds when they go around being so noisy and invading the privacy of their neighbours.

Winter came and went, as we were not using the pool we didn’t really notice the ‘peeping toms’. Spring is now here and the amount of time we are in our garden has increased with the warmth of the sun. Now the invasion of our privacy has started all over again. Mainly noisy dog walkers, looking over the wall as if they are looking at some national monument of Spain. I just don’t understand why they need to be so obvious with their noisiness, and why do they seem to be so interested in looking over the wall? After all my garden and pool area is representative of thousands of villas built in the early 2000s up and down Spain.

I though its about time that if I value my privacy so much that I consider blocking the view into my garden from the road. There are several options; build the wall up to 2 meters, place shading material over the rejas or cover the rejas in sheet metal. I prefer the latter as it can be as temporary or permanent as you like whilst looking easier on the eye.

I telephoned my metalwork person to arrange for them to come and measure up and give me an approximate price. As soon as I made this arrangement, I popped out of my front door to let my partner know. However, I did not see my partner straight away, instead I saw a face of a man I did not recognise, looking through the rejas into my garden and then at me. He just stared for a while, I though maybe he wanted me for something. I was naive to think that all he wanted to do was be a ‘peeping tom’ and look into my garden!

7 Abril 2024 en Almería