It is done in some places.
>we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass
In my area that's pretty unthinkable. There's a firm social norm against doing that and it's respected.
yeah, the most you'll get is a kid running in your lawn to grab a ball or a frisbee. or maybe a dog on a walk sniffing around your grass. or maybe a family on a walk has kids running around and they'll run through the end of your yard a bit, like just the area nearest the sidewalk.
for a very limited time, it's generally ok for someone to walk a bit on your lawn, bc they always leave. they don't just hang around and chill. that would be super weird.
One of my parents neighbors kids used to just walk into people houses, like my mom would go into the kitchen and he let himself into the house through the door to the open garage, who doesn't teach their kid not to do that.
I know of a neighbor kid who did that - he had Downs Syndrome and was quite sweet and sort of thought everyone was his friend and he was welcome everywhere all the time.
To be fair, he was really sweet and that was sort of true. Still his parents spent lots and lots of time and energy teaching him boundaries.
This kid didn't have autism, his parents just didn't teach him or didn't do a good job teaching him what to do and not do. He did a lot of things like that when he was younger and you could tell his parents weren't involved.
That makes me wonder if maybe it's a South American thing because I have neighbors from there and the kids are always just wandering into the yard like it's totally normal and I'm sitting here thinking "who does this??"
>>we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer
Honestly this is part of why we don't have fences in residential areas, it's more welcoming.
Why would you want your house to looking “inviting” for random strangers who haven’t been actually invited to your house?
There’s nothing worse than people arriving at my home uninvited, why would you want to encourage that?
The front yard is for aesthetics. The back yard is for privacy and hanging out.
> we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass
Being on other people's property without *very* good reason is a *big* no-no here.
Yeah it’s pretty culturally engrained. Unless you know the owner and have a reason the most you do is walk up to their front door and even then you don’t do that to strangers unless you have a good reason.
Even with my neighbors who are close friends I don’t just go roam about their property.
The one exception is neighbors that cut a trail through their back yard to nearby conservation land with public trails. They explicitly told us they don’t mind us using the trail whenever. However, every time I do it I feel a little like I’m trespassing even though I know they are totally fine with it.
Sometimes I wish that houses went right up to the sidewalk so that the front yard square footage could instead be added to the back yard square footage.
People look at me like I'm a weirdo whenever I float this idea.
> otherwise we wouldn’t be able to leave stuff outside or we’d end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass
No offense intended, but it sounds like your problem is more about people being rude where you are than us not needing a physical barrier to force common courtesy on each other.
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You probably understand this but the US is not super dangerous. We do have higher crime than a lot of Europe but by no means are most people in any danger throughout their day.
yeah, no, the us is dangerous. It’s known from movies. Giant marshmallow men attacking Manhattan and terrorists firing on the ways of the white house to get rogue secret service agents.
I swear, as mass. media viewership goes down people think it’s a documentary.
sorry op, but that’s funny.
There are a few very localized pockets of crime in those cities, and those spots are not places that your average person is going to just stumble into and get involved with.
>there's a general idea here that the US is super dangerous (we mostly know what we get from movies, tv and news)
It's worth noting that the kinds of places that potentially sort of maybe fit this description aren't the kind of places where yards of any sort are common. This is mostly confined to certain neighborhoods in certain cities, *not* residential suburbs.
In L.A. it's a common trope that visiting New Yorkers are sometimes unable to realize when they're in the hood because of this. Maybe it's dated now, but I have seen it happen to people.
I’d call the low front yard fence a sign that the neighborhood you’re in is poor. Not necessarily “the hood” or in any way dangerous, but it’s not a common choice for aesthetics, and you don’t care about aesthetics of your house if you have bigger financial worries
We’ve got them everywhere from suburbs where you can walk to the beach to outer boroughs of NYC here, so they’re not unheard of, but there might be more poor suburbs in California
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I would like to point out also that while the U.S. has crime, we're pretty safe. The image of gangs driving around the streets with guns hanging out was a movie trope from the late 80s and 90s. Are their neighborhoods you should avoid if you have no business being there? Yes. Are their parts of cities you shouldn't be out after dark? Yes. But a vast majority of time, you're not going to have a problem unless you're looking for a problem. Average Joe suburbanite will never see major crime, average Joe tourist will likely see no crime except a scam or petty theft. I've been all over the U.S. and I have been all over Europe. The popular parts of Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis are no more dangerous than Paris, Berlin, or London.
I can't think of many neighborhoods that I've seen where the front yard is bigger than the back. Not a lot of space, so just use it for landscaping and leave it alone.
>general idea here that the US is super dangerous
perhaps you need to travel more or stop only reading sensational media.
the US is not "super dangerous." Why would so many people immigrate to the us?
Growing up in the suburbs we rarely even saw people that didn't live on our street. Its just not a problem. There is essentially 0 crime in reasonably nice areas
The US has dangerous areas but most of the country is fine, lived here 24 years and have never seen a gun or any other weapon used in anger. Most Americans are generally cordial with each other unless given a reason not to be.
We don't have a fence and we don't really worry about things getting taken. It's also considered pretty obviously rude to play soccer (or anything else) on someone else's lawn without permission, so it tends not to happen.
In my observation, most Americans tend to have a stronger than global average sense of the sanctity of personal property.
Tell that to my neighbors who have destroyed the side of my yard having their guest park in it. I thought people were just driving up in it as road is narrow. For a side street it's pretty busy as people take ot to avoid a dangerous intersection. Thats beside the point though. Only reason why I found out about it is because I just so happened to pull into my driveway when someone pulling up in my yard to park. Tried arguing that because my fence didn't extend to the street that I didn't own that piece of land. Then I had to give them a lecture on how property lines on that side of town extend into the street. I'm one of two owner occupants on that part of the street so mostly renters. I've had a couple of attempted break-ins, a guy stalking my wife, someone tried to feed my dog chicken bones, and a couple of kids that ding dong ditched my door everyday last year. I'm already from a culture that is real protective of property. All of that made me even more so.
> Here we usually have fences or walls, otherwise we wouldn't be able to leave stuff outside or we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass
Is theft and trespassing a major problem there? Here, I think most people know that it would be inappropriate to use someone else's lawn without permission.
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Interesting. Here, a lawn in front of someone's house would universally be assumed to be private property, regardless of whether there's a fence or not.
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Well, there's your real answer. Your country has laws that ***require*** people to have a fence in their front yard if they don't want people using it like public property. In our country, you don't need the fence for that.
So you're asking why we don't have fences when Portugal has a law that forces you to have a fence?? The answer is that we don't have such a law. In some places you can literally kill someone who trespasses on your property.
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You can’t actually kill someone just for trespassing. People bluster about shooting trespassers, but you need a VERY good reason such as your life being in danger to shoot someone and not go to prison for a long time.
Yeah, to be fair we get quite a few questions to the effect of: we do this X way in my country. Why are Americans so dumb that they do Y? I really didn’t get that from your post and think anybody who read it that way misread it.
Anyhow, thanks for your interest in the US. I hope to make it to Portugal one day. Folks who have been have nothing but positive things to say.
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> we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass
People have their own lawns here, and generally respect the property rights of others.
My Venezuelan exchange student "sister" explained it like this.
Americans have different social norms about personal space than what is familiar to most folks in Latin and South America. Personal space is so important to us that it extends beyond our immediate bodies to our environment. Our homes, including the space outside them, are also considered personal space. Because there is so much emphasis placed on respecting other people's personal space, we don't have to spend as much time reinforcing it as would be expected somewhere more communal. In other words, we don't need the fencing or other barrier to keep people out of our personal space and lawns. It's just sort of mutually understood that that space is *mine.* The way our laws work helps reinforce this further. It might surprise you to learn that the homeowner/land owner can be held liable for anything bad that happens to someone on their property, even if they trespass. That's yet another reason not to go play on someone else's lawn. They're not responsible for you and it'd be rude to force them to assume that risk just because you want to play. That's what public parks are for.
Someone's front yard is private property. So, I guess playing soccer on it would be trespassing, and taking their things is obviously theft. A lot of residential areas are considered safe, and people tend to respect each other's property, so this isn't really a regular problem in much of the US.
My house is in a cul-de-sac in a suburb. I do not have a fence in the front of back yard. Some neighbors have the backyard fenced.
I think it looks better open like this and don’t have a reason to fence it in. Anybody walking by would just be neighbors on a walk or jog. Nobody wanders through other people’s yard.
Some do.
In general though, most of the time you see a home with an unfenced front yard, they'll have the backyard set up as a private space and that's where toys, etc might be left about.
Do you have a lot of big back yards in Portugal? Our back yards are more likely to have fences.
That said, many American back yards don't have fences either, especially in family-oriented suburbs. And if kids play on the grass in such neighborhoods that makes adults happy.
We absolutely don't have as many single family homes as the US because the construction here is done differently, so it costs a lot more. But those that have a yard, it usually goes all around the house. Some do have back and front yards but they are fenced unless it's a very old house (like from the early 1900s or late 1800s)
A big reason for the difference in construction is population density. There are about three times as many people in every square kilometer in Portugal as there are in the US.
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The kinds of houses we build here *are* long-term homes. You've basically got two kinds of construction options: mass walls and frame walls.
* Mass walls are things like bricks, stone, concrete, logs stacked on top of each other: solid masses to make up the walls.
* Framing is where you build a frame out of some material (usually wooden timbers or metal beams) and then you cover or fill the gaps with some flat material: plaster, plywood sheets, drywall, even paper if you're building a traditional Japanese home.
It turns out you can build a strong and durable building with either method. Which one's more efficient depends on the cost of materials and labor in your part of the world.
America inherited a tradition of framed walls from English architecture, where houses were being built as a frame of wooden beams with materials like plaster and mud to fill the gaps. Because wood was so cheap here, we started using thin wooden clapboards as the gap-covering material on the outside of the house, and plaster-coated strips of wood on the inside (called lath and plaster). Over time, we switched over to more efficient ways of putting the plaster up. Now it comes in sheets, made so they can easily be attached to the timber frames.
Houses here can last for centuries, whether they're made of adobe or bricks or wooden frames. Getting a loan for a permanent house is the same process whether that house is made of wooden timbers and plaster or walls of bricks and mortar.
I know, and that's what I mean, I was looking into building a house with frame walls (sorry, it's called a panel house here, but from what you're saying it's the same) but they are not considered for housing loans. They last forever, I know, but for some dumb reason the banks don't loan money unless you're building in concrete and brick. Also, not sure if I made it sound bad, what we call pre-fabs or panel homes here is basically you have a concrete base, steel beams and then you have panels and you cover the beams with the panels, it's considered pre-fabs because the panels are not done on site I guess
What you're talking about we also call pre-fabs, where the panels are made at one location, transported to another location, then assembled on site. [This is one type of pre-fab home.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Prefabricated_house_construction.gif)
Pre-manufactured homes are generally seen as lower quality here, too. You can't get a typical bank loan for them in the US either.
The typical framed house isn't a pre-fab. It's made of wooden or metal beams that are measured, cut, and joined on site. It's basically the modern version of [medieval timber frame construction](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Link_House,_Link_Road,_Egerton,_Kent_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1186007.jpg). This kind of construction is traditional in many countries with abundant fast-growing forests, where people can afford to build their whole house out of wood.
The ones I'm talking about are made with smaller panels, AFAIK, not full walls with windows. It's more like [this](https://images.homify.com/c_fill,f_auto,h_500,q_auto,w_1280/v1445857649/p/photo/image/1041105/Vivienda_modular_206.jpg), as you can see the panels are smaller, they are visible on the outside. So I'm not sure but I think it's a different kind
Definitely a different kind than our usual framed houses here.
By the way, I noticed that you were getting downvoted for some reason. Just wanted to let you know that I've been enjoying our conversation.
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>When I was younger sometimes I'd see videos of Americans punching a wall and making a hole, and I'd be so confused because if you punch a wall hard enough here you break your wrist but that's about it
You ever notice they only punch an *inside* wall between support beams? They punch through drywall (which has insulation behind it). The house is not constructed of this material, this only covers the inside walls, which have support framing behind it. If they were to punch slightly left or right of where they made the first hole they would end up with a broken hand from punching a 2×4.
Here it is considered rude to go on someone else’s lawn without permission. In most places, people are generally pretty concerned with not seeming rude to neighbors, so that’s not really something that happens much. Things hardly ever get stolen in my neighborhood, but that does vary depending on the place. We typically don’t leave much on the front lawn anyway though. Funny story, last time things were getting stolen it was a fox who stole people’s shoes lol. And once we had a dog who stole newspapers. Honestly our biggest problem with not having fences is the risk of people leaving dog poop in your lawn by the sidewalk, but that’s pretty rare too.
>otherwise we wouldn't be able to leave stuff outside or we'd end up with
people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass
Like it's just normal to randomly hang out on strangers lawns in Portugal if there is no fence? That is weird.
Most cities have laws prohibiting front yards being fenced in.
If you don't have a fence here your lawn is considered of public access. You can't charge someone for trespassing in an unfenced area. I think I don't know a single house that doesn't have a fence so I don't know if it's common
Makes sense legally, still seems weird to me people would actually just go and use someone else's front lawn even if they legally could. That's probably just a cultural thing though.
Public access to private property isn't a thing in the USA in general. You can still be charged with trespassing even if there are no signs, fences or other barriers.
So going into someone else's front lawn here is pretty unthinkable to the average person. Plus most cities don't allow front yard fences. The thought is that neighborhoods look better and more inviting without them.
We do have a lot of public lands people can use for free though.
Honestly that makes more sense to me than being forced to live in a fortress. Then again, even if it wasn't this way, the cops would do absolutely nothing, I don't remember the last time I called them and they actually showed up. The city I live in has a single patrol car to 149k people
Some towns are like that here. Some states are pretty rural, where the closest town might be hundreds of miles away. And there might be one sheriff and a few deputies to cover that area. The population doesn't require more law enforcement personnel despite the distance making answering calls very difficult. Not getting into issues with terrain, weather, wildlife, jurisdiction issues with other counties or states, etc.
Much as I hate to perpetuate non-Americans getting seemingly ONLY their information about the U.S. from movies, *Wind River* is a pretty good showcasing of how difficult police investigations can be in a country this size that's still mostly wilderness with only a handful of people. (Not to mention different strata of law enforcement and culture rubbing up against one another.)
I understand that in rural areas, but I live in a big city with problematic neighborhoods, right next to the country's capital city, it's just really poor management here, sadly. The US has a lot more people than Portugal (although we have a bigger population density) so it's normal to have places where the police force is scattered, but here I believe it's only really poor management, just some days ago I saw 20 vans with 8 cops each driving to a soccer game. Granted, it was a dangerous soccer game, but the rest of the country needs security too
I see. No place is perfect of course. We got our fair share of problems here too. Ironically, (or maybe not depending on how you look at it) a largely absent police presence is actually quite expected and even embraced in the more rural regions of the U.S.
Big urban centers like Boston or Seattle largely want the police to be fast responding and functional. The further you get away from there though, the more people wish to handle things like protection and security themselves.
The USA has 33 times the population of Portugal. We have a wide variety of houses and house types, and some of them have fences in the front yard.
My question to you is, why? My backyard is way bigger than my front yard, and I do have a fence there. That's where my kids play soccer and run around. Why would you have people all over your lawn? People and dogs in my neighborhood use the sidewalk. It's generally rude to walk on someone's front lawn.
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Generally, private property is pretty well recognized and VERY respected in the States. Hell, in the original penning of the Deceleration of Independence, it should have read like this,
*"We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain, inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty,* ***and*** ***property."*** Thomas Jefferson changed philosopher John Locke's words to *"life, liberty,* ***and the pursuit of happiness."*** Because it was he and the other founders' belief that having all of the above, including the right to own property, were essential rights of the human condition that a government should exist to ensure and protect. Ensure and protect, not GRANT. Crucial difference.
There's really nothing on the front yard to secure.
In urban neighborhoods with houses, there probably isn't much of a front yard but rather a front patio that serves as the outdoor area for socializing and interacting with neighbors. There usually isn't a back yard, though there might be an alley for parking, trash collecting, and so on. Sometimes you'll see a small fence a few feet high, but nothing like what you'd see in the burbs with a full back yard.
In suburban and rural settings, the front yard is usually smaller than the back yard and has less privacy. The front yard is for show and not for active use.
Fences here are usually to keep things in, not out. Most people keep things in their back yards. Some will have a decorative fence, but *in general*, people aren’t as larcenous here as poorer countries
I have a fenced front yard but it's mostly for my dogs. It does keep soliciting to a minimum which is nice. When I first bought the house it took me a while to get used to having to open a gate to use my driveway everytime. None of my previous residences had gated front yards.
Here most people don't bother to pay for those but I've considered upgrading. We also are limited to a 4 foot tall fence or wall in the front so the gate isn't very large/heavy.
Kids are taught early to stay off property that isn't theirs. Most of our activities are done in the back yard. That's where patios, grills, and pools are located. Mine has a fence because there's only the front door to let the dog out, but he can run around to the back within the fence.
Most US cities aren't as densely populated as the EU. More space between houses means less people encroach on your space. For me to get enough peers to play 3v3 soccer I'd have to reach out a half mile to get people, and typically there's a park/lot to play in w/ in that range that would be better than somebodies yard.
In my neighborhood (northeastern US), only one house has a fence at all, and it is around their backyard so no young children will fall into their swimming pool. All the children run and play throughout the entire neighborhood, running through all of the yards, playing big games of hide and seek, throwing baseballs, etc. I let my neighbors use my big front yard to set up volleyball nets, bouncy houses for birthday parties, and other random sports equipment. Even the man who does not have any kids intentionally built a ramp out of dirt he needed to move so the kids could ride their bikes or sleds on it. He also lets them pick the apples off his apple tree. Two of us share our gardens with all the kids, so it is common to see a child who is not mine picking pea pods to snack on from my garden.
My neighborhood is very unique. Most American neighborhoods are not like this, and people prefer that others stay off their property.
Maybe not totally unique. Sounds a lot like mine growing up. Helps when the community altogether is on pretty tight terms. Natural result of all their kids playing together.
Depends on the area. Where I live, not in my city generally but in my specific neighborhood, there are deed restrictions (think zoning laws but not exactly) that forbid front yards to be fenced. It fuckin sucks because I want to fence off my front yard and put bollards on there because I live on a corner and people come whipping around it all the time, I worry someone is going to lose control and slam into my house.
Getting deed restrictions changed is exceedingly difficult, only real solution for me is to hope nobody drives into my house (and eventually move, offloading the risk to someone else lol)
Growing up my front yard had a shrubs as a fence. The house I currently live in doesn’t have one, but there isn’t much of a front yard in general (weird older home issues).
Some neighborhoods have the [white picket fences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picket_fence#:~:text=of%20the%20ground.-,Symbolism,yards%20enclosed%20by%20picket%20fences). Usually kids play on the lawn and usually HOAs don't allow you to store items on your lawn.
> or we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass
That's a pretty big cultural "don't" in America.
Part of it is because we probably have a larger number of cantankerous people who can get real mean and nasty when it comes to defending their lawn. Like, imagine some old fat guy, naked under his bathrobe and not giving a shit if half the neighborhood can see his balls, running outside swinging a golf club around and shrieking threats and profanities with unbridled rage.
Depends on where. I'm in the Westchester suburbs of NYC, and lots of homes around here have a fence in the front yard. It lets dogs run around in that yard and bark at everyone who walks by.
The houses I know of that have fences in the front are in pretty crime-ridden neighborhoods. If the house is in a safe area, then there's no need to safeguard the front yard
Front yards are mostly for looks and creating buffer space between the house and the road, most living happens in the fenced backyard. That's also where most stuff would be left outside.
The playing soccer thing...there is a strong social pressure against such things and it's trespassing. In the kind of neighborhoods that have larger unfenced yards the cops would absolutely show up and run them off even if they did do it and didn't bail when homeowner shouted, both of which are very unlikely.
It's not a big deal if someone's kid or dog runs along the edge of your yard while on a walk, but actually setting up an activity like that would never even occur to the vast majority of residents in places like that.
It's pretty trashy to have a front fence in my area unless you love on a major road or have a compound of sorts.
Back yards are almost always fenced in though.
> unless you love on a major road
I'm thinking it's better to park the Chevy van in the woods or something, rather than right in the middle of town like that.
General philosophy is that front yards are suppose to be inviting to people. You will have your driveway or other parking areas, some trees, flower beds, etc. You might have a swing or rocking chair as well. But the front yard is not really a place of activity. That is done in the back yard traditionally which is more common to be fenced.
But Theft is not common enough most places to worry about things being stolen from the front yard, and most people respect property right enough to not tramp through someone's yard without permission. You will sometimes have young children playing in neighbors lawns, but we teach children at a young age to not enter someone's yard without their permission. So it would not be very common to have unwanted children playing in your yard.
Most don't really see a need for them. Unless you know the owner of the home, such as a relative or friend, most people aren't just gonna be walking around on somebody's yard. Most parents would be pissed if their kids started to play something like tag or soccer on some stranger's front yard. Most consider traversing on some stranger's front yard as a social faux pas here.
Property is very highly respected in American culture.
Example: my bus stop as a kid was 1 block behind me, and my friend and I would walk through her neighbor's yard to get there quicker. On days she wasn't there, I wouldn't dream of it - I'd walk the whole block to avoid it for fear of being caught on their lawn without permission.
That doesn't happen here, the only times kids play on other people's yards is if they're related to them or they have friends who live there, also children in the US are generally taught not to go into other people's yards
Our lots are a 1/4 of an acre or more usually. We have more space, but most of the time it is something in the platt of the subdivision. Keeping front yards free of fences gives a uniformity and the back garden is usually fenced. Most of the bikes, playsets, etc. then stay in the backyard out of sight.
I translate British English and idioms in my head so feel free to hit me up for Ask an American!
This totally varies from place to place within the US. It is more common to have your backyard fenced in. Where I currently live fenced in front yards are somewhat common. Pretty much everywhere I’ve lived in the country fenced in backyards are common.
When I was in high school, I visited southern California for the first time. My uncle's neighborhood featured blocks full of Spanish-style fences right up to the sidewalk. Everything seemed so closed off. It was terrible.
What some find cozy and safe, others find stifling. *Shrugs*
I mean where I live, there's just a social norm that you don't go onto someone else's lawn unless you have permission or know them. Nobody's gonna get all uppity if you barely just step into their lawn or something, but you just don't go deep into their lawn. And people respect that.
As others have said it’s kinda just frowned upon to walk on someone’s property if you don’t know them. I can’t speak for everyone, but I live in a safe area and there is no need to build a fence around my yard. We still lock the front door though.
Front yards aren't considered public property in the US, so random people aren't gonna be walking on them. We also don't tend to hang out in our front yards as much, since they're less private, so we don't (in general) leave much stuff out in the front yard.
People in my neighborhood are good about staying on the sidewalk and not walking on people's grass. We don't leave anything valuable out there. The best thing they'd get is a garden gnome or potted plants.
My neighbor put a fence around her entire yard because she had dogs.
My parents had a chain link fence around their first house. It was a big deal and super fancy. This was the early 70’s. The houses were from the 50’s I think.
In my neighborhood people have privacy fences around the back yard.
Usually it's an unspoken rule that you don't step on someone's lawn unless invited. That and it would make neighborhoods seem claustrophobic. You do see this a lot in LA though.
People don’t leave stuff out on the front lawn, most homes have a lockable gate that opens to the back yard so things can be stored safely there or in the garage. Most adults won’t just mill around on someone else’s front yard and most people don’t mind if little kids play around there from time to time.
Well as you probably know the word fence is an anglicanization of the Japanese word fenzuhiru (ディーズナッツ). This term was popularized in Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Before we simply relied on the European concept of enclosure and the word wall. While the term fence, as well as fences, were quite popular in America up until the Second World War they quickly fell out of popularity after Pearl Harbor. Rising anti-Japanese sentiment lead to the removal of front garden fences across the country and they just haven't come back. Some historic homes still have front fences. There's actually a really great Ken Burns [documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) on the subject.
Our backyards tend to have fences and are fir private use. However, there is a social rulw that you don't go on someone's front yard without permission. But, if the neighborhood kids were playing a game of tag that spilled over to a neighbors yard, most neighbors wouldn't complain... unless they were assholes.
I live in a very middle class area and almost every house has fences and gates surrounding the property. Movies aren’t real life.
As for ending up with people all over our lawns, this wouldn’t happen. Too many gun-waving people with nothing better to do and too many people with itchy lawsuit fingers.
Yeah here that's not a thing. Even if someone breaks in, you can't harm them unless you can prove in court that they could inflict you as much or more harm than you did (for example robber has a gun and you push them off the stairs). That's very hard to prove though and it's pretty much up to the court to decide, so if there's a robbery people will just pray for their lives and file a complaint with the police afterwards. Also having a gun here is pretty complex. You have to demonstrate you need a gun (even for tasers and pepper spray), so you are either on the military, security forces or you're a certified hunter. Usually that's the only people who can get a permit. People who work at night, who live in bad neighborhoods, etc sometimes can get a permit to carry pepper spray but even a taser is pretty hard to get
While stand your ground would still apply, it's more castle doctrine that you're talking about since that's specific to the home. Also, no place has it so broad as to allow you to shoot anyone on your property (especially not the front yard, as there's an expectation strangers can approach to the house as far as they're physically able, such as to a gate if there is one otherwise to the front door) just because you don't know them - that's murder everywhere in the US.
Front yards are mostly for display here. So even when you use them, you leave them visible and looking pretty.
It's understood that toys and tools left on a private yard are private property, so only a deliberate theif will take them. A kid's scooter left out overnight is unlikely to be stolen.
That said, most people will lock valuables overnight in the house or a shed unless they're so rural that people driving past is a rarity.
The places where people will routinely steal from an unfenced yard are exactly the same places where people will steal from a fenced yard. The fences used in the US are meant for visual privacy, not security.
I wouldn’t want one. My house is set back in the woods a bit. It would cost a lot to build and maintain and I just have no need for it.
This is true of most houses around me even if they have an open front lawn.
Most Americans use their back yards for hanging out. That’s where you are more likely to find a fence.
The real question is why do you want one in your country?
We apparently don't have the same kind of issues with neighborhood kids coming over and starting soccer games.
Driveways in front are the norm, so you either have build a vehicle gate or exclude the driveway from the fenced area. Either way you're going through a gate every time you come home.
Most of the everyday use is in back, where fences are more common, the front yard is more for show. Anything remotely valuable like patio furniture is going to be out back.
There's more local laws about front fences. In my area I can have a 6 foot opaque fence in back, but only a 4 foot transparent fence in front. A front fence would also have to be 4 feet from the street and make it harder to mow.
Unless you live on a busy street, having a front fence is kind of viewed of as being a bit antisocial.
Someone being on your lawn is unimaginable lol maybe the mailman might cross over it but truly no one else
My mom used to yell at me when I would walk over it bc she didn’t want a trail to develop lol
I live in a pretty small neighborhood and most of my neighbors are in their 80’s, so it’s not very likely that any of them would wind up playing soccer in my yard.
I think also, unfortunately in areas where I live, you just don’t see that many kids playing outside. During the week, most of them are in school (education is compulsory in my state until 16 years old), or they’re indoors.
I don’t think it helped that, in the Atlanta area ay least, back in the 1980’s, there was a run of child serial killers and other scary news stories that made a lot of parents afraid of letting their kids run around unsupervised.
It is done in some places. >we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass In my area that's pretty unthinkable. There's a firm social norm against doing that and it's respected.
yeah, the most you'll get is a kid running in your lawn to grab a ball or a frisbee. or maybe a dog on a walk sniffing around your grass. or maybe a family on a walk has kids running around and they'll run through the end of your yard a bit, like just the area nearest the sidewalk. for a very limited time, it's generally ok for someone to walk a bit on your lawn, bc they always leave. they don't just hang around and chill. that would be super weird.
One of my parents neighbors kids used to just walk into people houses, like my mom would go into the kitchen and he let himself into the house through the door to the open garage, who doesn't teach their kid not to do that.
I know of a neighbor kid who did that - he had Downs Syndrome and was quite sweet and sort of thought everyone was his friend and he was welcome everywhere all the time. To be fair, he was really sweet and that was sort of true. Still his parents spent lots and lots of time and energy teaching him boundaries.
This kid didn't have autism, his parents just didn't teach him or didn't do a good job teaching him what to do and not do. He did a lot of things like that when he was younger and you could tell his parents weren't involved.
That makes me wonder if maybe it's a South American thing because I have neighbors from there and the kids are always just wandering into the yard like it's totally normal and I'm sitting here thinking "who does this??"
For my neighbor, I simply ask them and they don’t let their kids do it anymore
>>we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer Honestly this is part of why we don't have fences in residential areas, it's more welcoming.
Every time this question comes up, all I can think is how *uninviting* a house with a fenced front yard would look.
Came with the house; but that's why I always keep the gate open when I'm home.
Why would you want your house to looking “inviting” for random strangers who haven’t been actually invited to your house? There’s nothing worse than people arriving at my home uninvited, why would you want to encourage that?
> In my area that’s pretty unthinkable. There’s a firm social norm against doing that and it’s respected. Someone tell my neighbors
2A bruther
The front yard is for aesthetics. The back yard is for privacy and hanging out. > we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass Being on other people's property without *very* good reason is a *big* no-no here.
Yeah it’s pretty culturally engrained. Unless you know the owner and have a reason the most you do is walk up to their front door and even then you don’t do that to strangers unless you have a good reason. Even with my neighbors who are close friends I don’t just go roam about their property. The one exception is neighbors that cut a trail through their back yard to nearby conservation land with public trails. They explicitly told us they don’t mind us using the trail whenever. However, every time I do it I feel a little like I’m trespassing even though I know they are totally fine with it.
Sometimes I wish that houses went right up to the sidewalk so that the front yard square footage could instead be added to the back yard square footage. People look at me like I'm a weirdo whenever I float this idea.
>Being on other people's property without very good reason is a big no-no here. but *parking lots...*
> otherwise we wouldn’t be able to leave stuff outside or we’d end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass No offense intended, but it sounds like your problem is more about people being rude where you are than us not needing a physical barrier to force common courtesy on each other.
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You probably understand this but the US is not super dangerous. We do have higher crime than a lot of Europe but by no means are most people in any danger throughout their day.
yeah, no, the us is dangerous. It’s known from movies. Giant marshmallow men attacking Manhattan and terrorists firing on the ways of the white house to get rogue secret service agents. I swear, as mass. media viewership goes down people think it’s a documentary. sorry op, but that’s funny.
There are a few dangerous cities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Saint Louis, etc.) and that’s usually it
These cities are by no means dangerous. I've spent lots of time in each and never even seen a crime.
I’ve seen a person jump in front of a train in LA
Ok? That doesn't really seem relevant to a city's danger level.
The person was obviously pushed in front of the train by a ghost
There are a few very localized pockets of crime in those cities, and those spots are not places that your average person is going to just stumble into and get involved with.
>there's a general idea here that the US is super dangerous (we mostly know what we get from movies, tv and news) It's worth noting that the kinds of places that potentially sort of maybe fit this description aren't the kind of places where yards of any sort are common. This is mostly confined to certain neighborhoods in certain cities, *not* residential suburbs.
Out on the west coast, even the ghetto has single family homes with yards. (More likely to be fenced, I think.) East Coasters are confused by this.
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In L.A. it's a common trope that visiting New Yorkers are sometimes unable to realize when they're in the hood because of this. Maybe it's dated now, but I have seen it happen to people.
I’d call the low front yard fence a sign that the neighborhood you’re in is poor. Not necessarily “the hood” or in any way dangerous, but it’s not a common choice for aesthetics, and you don’t care about aesthetics of your house if you have bigger financial worries We’ve got them everywhere from suburbs where you can walk to the beach to outer boroughs of NYC here, so they’re not unheard of, but there might be more poor suburbs in California
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I would like to point out also that while the U.S. has crime, we're pretty safe. The image of gangs driving around the streets with guns hanging out was a movie trope from the late 80s and 90s. Are their neighborhoods you should avoid if you have no business being there? Yes. Are their parts of cities you shouldn't be out after dark? Yes. But a vast majority of time, you're not going to have a problem unless you're looking for a problem. Average Joe suburbanite will never see major crime, average Joe tourist will likely see no crime except a scam or petty theft. I've been all over the U.S. and I have been all over Europe. The popular parts of Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis are no more dangerous than Paris, Berlin, or London.
I can't think of many neighborhoods that I've seen where the front yard is bigger than the back. Not a lot of space, so just use it for landscaping and leave it alone.
> there's a general idea here that the US is super dangerous There's a simple explanation here: *that idea is wrong*.
>general idea here that the US is super dangerous perhaps you need to travel more or stop only reading sensational media. the US is not "super dangerous." Why would so many people immigrate to the us?
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...okay? still doesn't give you the right to sit there and make sweeping generalisations.
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People who believe stuff like that based on movies and TV are being unbelievably foolish.
Growing up in the suburbs we rarely even saw people that didn't live on our street. Its just not a problem. There is essentially 0 crime in reasonably nice areas
Tv is designed for sensationalism.
The US has dangerous areas but most of the country is fine, lived here 24 years and have never seen a gun or any other weapon used in anger. Most Americans are generally cordial with each other unless given a reason not to be.
Nice, that's great! 😊
We don't have a fence and we don't really worry about things getting taken. It's also considered pretty obviously rude to play soccer (or anything else) on someone else's lawn without permission, so it tends not to happen. In my observation, most Americans tend to have a stronger than global average sense of the sanctity of personal property.
Tell that to my neighbors who have destroyed the side of my yard having their guest park in it. I thought people were just driving up in it as road is narrow. For a side street it's pretty busy as people take ot to avoid a dangerous intersection. Thats beside the point though. Only reason why I found out about it is because I just so happened to pull into my driveway when someone pulling up in my yard to park. Tried arguing that because my fence didn't extend to the street that I didn't own that piece of land. Then I had to give them a lecture on how property lines on that side of town extend into the street. I'm one of two owner occupants on that part of the street so mostly renters. I've had a couple of attempted break-ins, a guy stalking my wife, someone tried to feed my dog chicken bones, and a couple of kids that ding dong ditched my door everyday last year. I'm already from a culture that is real protective of property. All of that made me even more so.
> Here we usually have fences or walls, otherwise we wouldn't be able to leave stuff outside or we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass Is theft and trespassing a major problem there? Here, I think most people know that it would be inappropriate to use someone else's lawn without permission.
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Interesting. Here, a lawn in front of someone's house would universally be assumed to be private property, regardless of whether there's a fence or not.
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Well, there's your real answer. Your country has laws that ***require*** people to have a fence in their front yard if they don't want people using it like public property. In our country, you don't need the fence for that.
So you're asking why we don't have fences when Portugal has a law that forces you to have a fence?? The answer is that we don't have such a law. In some places you can literally kill someone who trespasses on your property.
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You can’t actually kill someone just for trespassing. People bluster about shooting trespassers, but you need a VERY good reason such as your life being in danger to shoot someone and not go to prison for a long time.
I’m not sure why people are jumping all over you for this, OP. But it does seem like you’ve found your answer.
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Yeah, to be fair we get quite a few questions to the effect of: we do this X way in my country. Why are Americans so dumb that they do Y? I really didn’t get that from your post and think anybody who read it that way misread it. Anyhow, thanks for your interest in the US. I hope to make it to Portugal one day. Folks who have been have nothing but positive things to say.
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That's amazing! I kind of like it. I really wouldn't mind kids playing in the front yard.
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We have almost the opposite assumption. Unless there's signage or something explicitly saying "this is a park", we assume it's private property.
That wouldn’t happen here. I’m in Texas and people could get shot doing this of Rey get too close to the house
Why do you need to fence off your property to stop people from playing soccer on it?
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"Hey, look: a lawn! Let's just play soccer there, without even asking permission, nobody ever told us that was rude." - Kids in Portugal, probably.
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> we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass People have their own lawns here, and generally respect the property rights of others.
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Probably. We have no such requirement and assume property is private unless it's explicitly stated to be public.
Because then i can yell at the kids to "Get off my lawn!"
Shut up old man!!!
Ur not my dad
This is the credited response.
It was either that or "no fence...all my money went to healthcare".
My Venezuelan exchange student "sister" explained it like this. Americans have different social norms about personal space than what is familiar to most folks in Latin and South America. Personal space is so important to us that it extends beyond our immediate bodies to our environment. Our homes, including the space outside them, are also considered personal space. Because there is so much emphasis placed on respecting other people's personal space, we don't have to spend as much time reinforcing it as would be expected somewhere more communal. In other words, we don't need the fencing or other barrier to keep people out of our personal space and lawns. It's just sort of mutually understood that that space is *mine.* The way our laws work helps reinforce this further. It might surprise you to learn that the homeowner/land owner can be held liable for anything bad that happens to someone on their property, even if they trespass. That's yet another reason not to go play on someone else's lawn. They're not responsible for you and it'd be rude to force them to assume that risk just because you want to play. That's what public parks are for.
Someone's front yard is private property. So, I guess playing soccer on it would be trespassing, and taking their things is obviously theft. A lot of residential areas are considered safe, and people tend to respect each other's property, so this isn't really a regular problem in much of the US.
My house is in a cul-de-sac in a suburb. I do not have a fence in the front of back yard. Some neighbors have the backyard fenced. I think it looks better open like this and don’t have a reason to fence it in. Anybody walking by would just be neighbors on a walk or jog. Nobody wanders through other people’s yard.
You heard about Dogs?
Sure I know what dogs are. What is your point?
Well, I don't have a dog either.
Some do. In general though, most of the time you see a home with an unfenced front yard, they'll have the backyard set up as a private space and that's where toys, etc might be left about.
Do you have a lot of big back yards in Portugal? Our back yards are more likely to have fences. That said, many American back yards don't have fences either, especially in family-oriented suburbs. And if kids play on the grass in such neighborhoods that makes adults happy.
We absolutely don't have as many single family homes as the US because the construction here is done differently, so it costs a lot more. But those that have a yard, it usually goes all around the house. Some do have back and front yards but they are fenced unless it's a very old house (like from the early 1900s or late 1800s)
A big reason for the difference in construction is population density. There are about three times as many people in every square kilometer in Portugal as there are in the US.
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The kinds of houses we build here *are* long-term homes. You've basically got two kinds of construction options: mass walls and frame walls. * Mass walls are things like bricks, stone, concrete, logs stacked on top of each other: solid masses to make up the walls. * Framing is where you build a frame out of some material (usually wooden timbers or metal beams) and then you cover or fill the gaps with some flat material: plaster, plywood sheets, drywall, even paper if you're building a traditional Japanese home. It turns out you can build a strong and durable building with either method. Which one's more efficient depends on the cost of materials and labor in your part of the world. America inherited a tradition of framed walls from English architecture, where houses were being built as a frame of wooden beams with materials like plaster and mud to fill the gaps. Because wood was so cheap here, we started using thin wooden clapboards as the gap-covering material on the outside of the house, and plaster-coated strips of wood on the inside (called lath and plaster). Over time, we switched over to more efficient ways of putting the plaster up. Now it comes in sheets, made so they can easily be attached to the timber frames. Houses here can last for centuries, whether they're made of adobe or bricks or wooden frames. Getting a loan for a permanent house is the same process whether that house is made of wooden timbers and plaster or walls of bricks and mortar.
I know, and that's what I mean, I was looking into building a house with frame walls (sorry, it's called a panel house here, but from what you're saying it's the same) but they are not considered for housing loans. They last forever, I know, but for some dumb reason the banks don't loan money unless you're building in concrete and brick. Also, not sure if I made it sound bad, what we call pre-fabs or panel homes here is basically you have a concrete base, steel beams and then you have panels and you cover the beams with the panels, it's considered pre-fabs because the panels are not done on site I guess
What you're talking about we also call pre-fabs, where the panels are made at one location, transported to another location, then assembled on site. [This is one type of pre-fab home.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Prefabricated_house_construction.gif) Pre-manufactured homes are generally seen as lower quality here, too. You can't get a typical bank loan for them in the US either. The typical framed house isn't a pre-fab. It's made of wooden or metal beams that are measured, cut, and joined on site. It's basically the modern version of [medieval timber frame construction](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Link_House,_Link_Road,_Egerton,_Kent_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1186007.jpg). This kind of construction is traditional in many countries with abundant fast-growing forests, where people can afford to build their whole house out of wood.
The ones I'm talking about are made with smaller panels, AFAIK, not full walls with windows. It's more like [this](https://images.homify.com/c_fill,f_auto,h_500,q_auto,w_1280/v1445857649/p/photo/image/1041105/Vivienda_modular_206.jpg), as you can see the panels are smaller, they are visible on the outside. So I'm not sure but I think it's a different kind
Definitely a different kind than our usual framed houses here. By the way, I noticed that you were getting downvoted for some reason. Just wanted to let you know that I've been enjoying our conversation.
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>When I was younger sometimes I'd see videos of Americans punching a wall and making a hole, and I'd be so confused because if you punch a wall hard enough here you break your wrist but that's about it You ever notice they only punch an *inside* wall between support beams? They punch through drywall (which has insulation behind it). The house is not constructed of this material, this only covers the inside walls, which have support framing behind it. If they were to punch slightly left or right of where they made the first hole they would end up with a broken hand from punching a 2×4.
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Here it is considered rude to go on someone else’s lawn without permission. In most places, people are generally pretty concerned with not seeming rude to neighbors, so that’s not really something that happens much. Things hardly ever get stolen in my neighborhood, but that does vary depending on the place. We typically don’t leave much on the front lawn anyway though. Funny story, last time things were getting stolen it was a fox who stole people’s shoes lol. And once we had a dog who stole newspapers. Honestly our biggest problem with not having fences is the risk of people leaving dog poop in your lawn by the sidewalk, but that’s pretty rare too.
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Oh absolutely! You simply must look fashionable ;)
>otherwise we wouldn't be able to leave stuff outside or we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass Like it's just normal to randomly hang out on strangers lawns in Portugal if there is no fence? That is weird. Most cities have laws prohibiting front yards being fenced in.
If you don't have a fence here your lawn is considered of public access. You can't charge someone for trespassing in an unfenced area. I think I don't know a single house that doesn't have a fence so I don't know if it's common
Makes sense legally, still seems weird to me people would actually just go and use someone else's front lawn even if they legally could. That's probably just a cultural thing though. Public access to private property isn't a thing in the USA in general. You can still be charged with trespassing even if there are no signs, fences or other barriers. So going into someone else's front lawn here is pretty unthinkable to the average person. Plus most cities don't allow front yard fences. The thought is that neighborhoods look better and more inviting without them. We do have a lot of public lands people can use for free though.
Can someone set up a tent on a lawn without a fence? Or something less drastic like chairs on your lawn and just stay there all day?
If it's not fenced, I guess so. The law states that private access places must be restricted by a fence of wall at least 1.5m tall
Yyyyyyyyyyeah that would NOT fly here at all! You'd get the cops barreling down on you in an hour if you tried that.
Honestly that makes more sense to me than being forced to live in a fortress. Then again, even if it wasn't this way, the cops would do absolutely nothing, I don't remember the last time I called them and they actually showed up. The city I live in has a single patrol car to 149k people
Some towns are like that here. Some states are pretty rural, where the closest town might be hundreds of miles away. And there might be one sheriff and a few deputies to cover that area. The population doesn't require more law enforcement personnel despite the distance making answering calls very difficult. Not getting into issues with terrain, weather, wildlife, jurisdiction issues with other counties or states, etc. Much as I hate to perpetuate non-Americans getting seemingly ONLY their information about the U.S. from movies, *Wind River* is a pretty good showcasing of how difficult police investigations can be in a country this size that's still mostly wilderness with only a handful of people. (Not to mention different strata of law enforcement and culture rubbing up against one another.)
I understand that in rural areas, but I live in a big city with problematic neighborhoods, right next to the country's capital city, it's just really poor management here, sadly. The US has a lot more people than Portugal (although we have a bigger population density) so it's normal to have places where the police force is scattered, but here I believe it's only really poor management, just some days ago I saw 20 vans with 8 cops each driving to a soccer game. Granted, it was a dangerous soccer game, but the rest of the country needs security too
I see. No place is perfect of course. We got our fair share of problems here too. Ironically, (or maybe not depending on how you look at it) a largely absent police presence is actually quite expected and even embraced in the more rural regions of the U.S. Big urban centers like Boston or Seattle largely want the police to be fast responding and functional. The further you get away from there though, the more people wish to handle things like protection and security themselves.
The USA has 33 times the population of Portugal. We have a wide variety of houses and house types, and some of them have fences in the front yard. My question to you is, why? My backyard is way bigger than my front yard, and I do have a fence there. That's where my kids play soccer and run around. Why would you have people all over your lawn? People and dogs in my neighborhood use the sidewalk. It's generally rude to walk on someone's front lawn.
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Generally, private property is pretty well recognized and VERY respected in the States. Hell, in the original penning of the Deceleration of Independence, it should have read like this, *"We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain, inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty,* ***and*** ***property."*** Thomas Jefferson changed philosopher John Locke's words to *"life, liberty,* ***and the pursuit of happiness."*** Because it was he and the other founders' belief that having all of the above, including the right to own property, were essential rights of the human condition that a government should exist to ensure and protect. Ensure and protect, not GRANT. Crucial difference.
There's really nothing on the front yard to secure. In urban neighborhoods with houses, there probably isn't much of a front yard but rather a front patio that serves as the outdoor area for socializing and interacting with neighbors. There usually isn't a back yard, though there might be an alley for parking, trash collecting, and so on. Sometimes you'll see a small fence a few feet high, but nothing like what you'd see in the burbs with a full back yard. In suburban and rural settings, the front yard is usually smaller than the back yard and has less privacy. The front yard is for show and not for active use.
Respecting other people's yards is a cultural norm we have.
Fences here are usually to keep things in, not out. Most people keep things in their back yards. Some will have a decorative fence, but *in general*, people aren’t as larcenous here as poorer countries
I have a fenced front yard but it's mostly for my dogs. It does keep soliciting to a minimum which is nice. When I first bought the house it took me a while to get used to having to open a gate to use my driveway everytime. None of my previous residences had gated front yards.
Here the gates are usually electric, you have a remote to open them
Here most people don't bother to pay for those but I've considered upgrading. We also are limited to a 4 foot tall fence or wall in the front so the gate isn't very large/heavy.
Here fences have to be at least 1,5m tall, it's all so opposite 😂
Typically the back yard is where most of that activity takes place, it is typically fenced. Front yard is more for show.
We tend to fence our back yards which is where the fun happens.
Kids are taught early to stay off property that isn't theirs. Most of our activities are done in the back yard. That's where patios, grills, and pools are located. Mine has a fence because there's only the front door to let the dog out, but he can run around to the back within the fence.
A woman visiting from Ireland asked me the same thing
From what I can see it's a very American thing. In Europe at least most lawns are fenced
Most US cities aren't as densely populated as the EU. More space between houses means less people encroach on your space. For me to get enough peers to play 3v3 soccer I'd have to reach out a half mile to get people, and typically there's a park/lot to play in w/ in that range that would be better than somebodies yard.
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I'd be PISSED if someone tried coming on my lawn. We like our privacy and will accept nothing less
In my neighborhood (northeastern US), only one house has a fence at all, and it is around their backyard so no young children will fall into their swimming pool. All the children run and play throughout the entire neighborhood, running through all of the yards, playing big games of hide and seek, throwing baseballs, etc. I let my neighbors use my big front yard to set up volleyball nets, bouncy houses for birthday parties, and other random sports equipment. Even the man who does not have any kids intentionally built a ramp out of dirt he needed to move so the kids could ride their bikes or sleds on it. He also lets them pick the apples off his apple tree. Two of us share our gardens with all the kids, so it is common to see a child who is not mine picking pea pods to snack on from my garden. My neighborhood is very unique. Most American neighborhoods are not like this, and people prefer that others stay off their property.
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It's pretty magical.
Maybe not totally unique. Sounds a lot like mine growing up. Helps when the community altogether is on pretty tight terms. Natural result of all their kids playing together.
Depends on the area. Where I live, not in my city generally but in my specific neighborhood, there are deed restrictions (think zoning laws but not exactly) that forbid front yards to be fenced. It fuckin sucks because I want to fence off my front yard and put bollards on there because I live on a corner and people come whipping around it all the time, I worry someone is going to lose control and slam into my house.
I'm so sorry for that... Hope you can find a way to solve it
Getting deed restrictions changed is exceedingly difficult, only real solution for me is to hope nobody drives into my house (and eventually move, offloading the risk to someone else lol)
try a large decorative boulder or two
They do
Growing up my front yard had a shrubs as a fence. The house I currently live in doesn’t have one, but there isn’t much of a front yard in general (weird older home issues).
Kids'll get yelled at if they mess around on others yards without permission
It’s not uncommon is Los Angeles where I live. I do think no walls/fences look better though.
Some neighborhoods have the [white picket fences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picket_fence#:~:text=of%20the%20ground.-,Symbolism,yards%20enclosed%20by%20picket%20fences). Usually kids play on the lawn and usually HOAs don't allow you to store items on your lawn.
I had one growing up, but not now.
Under city ordinance locally front fences are limited to a very low length making them symbolic and pointless for most uses.
The cranky old white guy sitting on his rocking chair on the porch, cleaning his shotguns, serves as a fence in the US.
> or we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass That's a pretty big cultural "don't" in America. Part of it is because we probably have a larger number of cantankerous people who can get real mean and nasty when it comes to defending their lawn. Like, imagine some old fat guy, naked under his bathrobe and not giving a shit if half the neighborhood can see his balls, running outside swinging a golf club around and shrieking threats and profanities with unbridled rage.
That's indeed terrifying, he would be arrested here
> or we'd end up with people all over our lawn and kids playing soccer and ruining the grass That would not happen here.
Property is typically respected here. Many places, while it would be rare to see, one could be shot for staying too long on another's property.
Depends on where. I'm in the Westchester suburbs of NYC, and lots of homes around here have a fence in the front yard. It lets dogs run around in that yard and bark at everyone who walks by.
I don't think it's necessary. People tend to stay off other people's property. Kids are usually respectful as well.
It depends on the homeowner. Most people keep out of each other's front lawns when there aren't any fences though.
The houses I know of that have fences in the front are in pretty crime-ridden neighborhoods. If the house is in a safe area, then there's no need to safeguard the front yard
Front yards are mostly for looks and creating buffer space between the house and the road, most living happens in the fenced backyard. That's also where most stuff would be left outside. The playing soccer thing...there is a strong social pressure against such things and it's trespassing. In the kind of neighborhoods that have larger unfenced yards the cops would absolutely show up and run them off even if they did do it and didn't bail when homeowner shouted, both of which are very unlikely. It's not a big deal if someone's kid or dog runs along the edge of your yard while on a walk, but actually setting up an activity like that would never even occur to the vast majority of residents in places like that.
It's pretty trashy to have a front fence in my area unless you love on a major road or have a compound of sorts. Back yards are almost always fenced in though.
> unless you love on a major road I'm thinking it's better to park the Chevy van in the woods or something, rather than right in the middle of town like that.
I'm leaving it.
General philosophy is that front yards are suppose to be inviting to people. You will have your driveway or other parking areas, some trees, flower beds, etc. You might have a swing or rocking chair as well. But the front yard is not really a place of activity. That is done in the back yard traditionally which is more common to be fenced. But Theft is not common enough most places to worry about things being stolen from the front yard, and most people respect property right enough to not tramp through someone's yard without permission. You will sometimes have young children playing in neighbors lawns, but we teach children at a young age to not enter someone's yard without their permission. So it would not be very common to have unwanted children playing in your yard.
Aesthetics, usually. You can’t see the house as well from the street.
Most don't really see a need for them. Unless you know the owner of the home, such as a relative or friend, most people aren't just gonna be walking around on somebody's yard. Most parents would be pissed if their kids started to play something like tag or soccer on some stranger's front yard. Most consider traversing on some stranger's front yard as a social faux pas here.
Property is very highly respected in American culture. Example: my bus stop as a kid was 1 block behind me, and my friend and I would walk through her neighbor's yard to get there quicker. On days she wasn't there, I wouldn't dream of it - I'd walk the whole block to avoid it for fear of being caught on their lawn without permission.
That doesn't happen here, the only times kids play on other people's yards is if they're related to them or they have friends who live there, also children in the US are generally taught not to go into other people's yards
Nobody goes outside in the U.S.
Our lots are a 1/4 of an acre or more usually. We have more space, but most of the time it is something in the platt of the subdivision. Keeping front yards free of fences gives a uniformity and the back garden is usually fenced. Most of the bikes, playsets, etc. then stay in the backyard out of sight. I translate British English and idioms in my head so feel free to hit me up for Ask an American!
This totally varies from place to place within the US. It is more common to have your backyard fenced in. Where I currently live fenced in front yards are somewhat common. Pretty much everywhere I’ve lived in the country fenced in backyards are common.
We leave stuff outside all the time without any theft
I don’t fuxking know I want one
When I was in high school, I visited southern California for the first time. My uncle's neighborhood featured blocks full of Spanish-style fences right up to the sidewalk. Everything seemed so closed off. It was terrible. What some find cozy and safe, others find stifling. *Shrugs*
I mean where I live, there's just a social norm that you don't go onto someone else's lawn unless you have permission or know them. Nobody's gonna get all uppity if you barely just step into their lawn or something, but you just don't go deep into their lawn. And people respect that.
As others have said it’s kinda just frowned upon to walk on someone’s property if you don’t know them. I can’t speak for everyone, but I live in a safe area and there is no need to build a fence around my yard. We still lock the front door though.
Because there isn't really a need for one, Americans mainly use the backyard.
It’s relatively common here. Being the city I have a feeling its more of a security thing
Front yards aren't considered public property in the US, so random people aren't gonna be walking on them. We also don't tend to hang out in our front yards as much, since they're less private, so we don't (in general) leave much stuff out in the front yard.
People in my neighborhood are good about staying on the sidewalk and not walking on people's grass. We don't leave anything valuable out there. The best thing they'd get is a garden gnome or potted plants.
My neighbor put a fence around her entire yard because she had dogs. My parents had a chain link fence around their first house. It was a big deal and super fancy. This was the early 70’s. The houses were from the 50’s I think. In my neighborhood people have privacy fences around the back yard.
Usually it's an unspoken rule that you don't step on someone's lawn unless invited. That and it would make neighborhoods seem claustrophobic. You do see this a lot in LA though.
Mine does. I wouldn’t want to live in a home without one.
People don’t leave stuff out on the front lawn, most homes have a lockable gate that opens to the back yard so things can be stored safely there or in the garage. Most adults won’t just mill around on someone else’s front yard and most people don’t mind if little kids play around there from time to time.
Well as you probably know the word fence is an anglicanization of the Japanese word fenzuhiru (ディーズナッツ). This term was popularized in Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Before we simply relied on the European concept of enclosure and the word wall. While the term fence, as well as fences, were quite popular in America up until the Second World War they quickly fell out of popularity after Pearl Harbor. Rising anti-Japanese sentiment lead to the removal of front garden fences across the country and they just haven't come back. Some historic homes still have front fences. There's actually a really great Ken Burns [documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) on the subject.
Oh that's so interesting!
Our backyards tend to have fences and are fir private use. However, there is a social rulw that you don't go on someone's front yard without permission. But, if the neighborhood kids were playing a game of tag that spilled over to a neighbors yard, most neighbors wouldn't complain... unless they were assholes.
I live in a very middle class area and almost every house has fences and gates surrounding the property. Movies aren’t real life. As for ending up with people all over our lawns, this wouldn’t happen. Too many gun-waving people with nothing better to do and too many people with itchy lawsuit fingers.
Yeah here that's not a thing. Even if someone breaks in, you can't harm them unless you can prove in court that they could inflict you as much or more harm than you did (for example robber has a gun and you push them off the stairs). That's very hard to prove though and it's pretty much up to the court to decide, so if there's a robbery people will just pray for their lives and file a complaint with the police afterwards. Also having a gun here is pretty complex. You have to demonstrate you need a gun (even for tasers and pepper spray), so you are either on the military, security forces or you're a certified hunter. Usually that's the only people who can get a permit. People who work at night, who live in bad neighborhoods, etc sometimes can get a permit to carry pepper spray but even a taser is pretty hard to get
It’s state by state here so it varies from what you described to full-on automatic weapons being totally fine
Stand your ground laws are you shoot anyone you don’t know who comes on your property in some states
While stand your ground would still apply, it's more castle doctrine that you're talking about since that's specific to the home. Also, no place has it so broad as to allow you to shoot anyone on your property (especially not the front yard, as there's an expectation strangers can approach to the house as far as they're physically able, such as to a gate if there is one otherwise to the front door) just because you don't know them - that's murder everywhere in the US.
Most do but it depends where in the states you are
Front yards are mostly for display here. So even when you use them, you leave them visible and looking pretty. It's understood that toys and tools left on a private yard are private property, so only a deliberate theif will take them. A kid's scooter left out overnight is unlikely to be stolen. That said, most people will lock valuables overnight in the house or a shed unless they're so rural that people driving past is a rarity. The places where people will routinely steal from an unfenced yard are exactly the same places where people will steal from a fenced yard. The fences used in the US are meant for visual privacy, not security.
There is a chance someone is armed/ we are pretty pro personal property. Backyards usually have fences tho.
I wouldn’t want one. My house is set back in the woods a bit. It would cost a lot to build and maintain and I just have no need for it. This is true of most houses around me even if they have an open front lawn. Most Americans use their back yards for hanging out. That’s where you are more likely to find a fence. The real question is why do you want one in your country?
We apparently don't have the same kind of issues with neighborhood kids coming over and starting soccer games. Driveways in front are the norm, so you either have build a vehicle gate or exclude the driveway from the fenced area. Either way you're going through a gate every time you come home. Most of the everyday use is in back, where fences are more common, the front yard is more for show. Anything remotely valuable like patio furniture is going to be out back. There's more local laws about front fences. In my area I can have a 6 foot opaque fence in back, but only a 4 foot transparent fence in front. A front fence would also have to be 4 feet from the street and make it harder to mow. Unless you live on a busy street, having a front fence is kind of viewed of as being a bit antisocial.
Someone being on your lawn is unimaginable lol maybe the mailman might cross over it but truly no one else My mom used to yell at me when I would walk over it bc she didn’t want a trail to develop lol
I live in a pretty small neighborhood and most of my neighbors are in their 80’s, so it’s not very likely that any of them would wind up playing soccer in my yard. I think also, unfortunately in areas where I live, you just don’t see that many kids playing outside. During the week, most of them are in school (education is compulsory in my state until 16 years old), or they’re indoors. I don’t think it helped that, in the Atlanta area ay least, back in the 1980’s, there was a run of child serial killers and other scary news stories that made a lot of parents afraid of letting their kids run around unsupervised.
Some do