Ok…does this ever happen to you? Your neighbor who lives across the street decides to take the parking space right in front of your house, even though they have plenty of space in front of theirs? Maybe because the person who owns this car is only 16 so he doesn’t see a big space for him in front of his own house but still. It’s annoying.:mad:
This happened to my mother-in-law, so she started parking her car right in front of her neighbor’s house. They got the message.
(I have the coolest mother-in-law)
This happens to me constantly.
My next door neighbors, who are very nice, went through the trouble of getting a handicapped parking sign next to the space in front of their house. I’m not sure why they need it but I’m sure it’s legit. Thus I never park in their space. They’re good neighbors.
Some bitch with a handicapped sticker parks her ass in the space all the time (and if not their space, then she parks in my space), as she goes to visit the people directly across the street from my next door neighbor’s. First off, she looks pretty damn healthy to me but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she has like, horrible asthma or something. The kicker, though, is THE PEOPLE SHE VISITS HAVE A BIGASS DRIVEWAY!
Pisses me off.
She knows it pisses me off, too.
I am soooo tempted to park in the driveway belonging to the people across the street.
I checked it out and turns out that anyone can park wherever they want to on our street, regardless of who lives where (I have had to park literally a half-block away from my own house before). So when she does it I can’t do anything about it. Except give her dirty looks.
Folks, I don’t want to belabor an obvious point, but it’s a public street. The fact that it is in front of your house gives you no rights to the spot. It’s not like walking an extra 50 feet is going to kill you.
There’s a street near me where about every 5th house has a chair or trashcan or traffic cone in the street in front to “save” their parking space. In winter, I can almost forgive someone for using that tactic to save a spot that they shoveled out, but for the rest of the year, it’s catch as catch can.
Of course I have my own parking spot behind my house…
Hey, I used to live an apartment with one assigned covered parking spot per unit…and the lady who lived downstairs from me always assumed that if someone parked in her spot, I knew them.
So she’d trudge upstairs and bang on my front door, bitching about whoever had stolen her spot. Like I give a flying fuck! All of my friends knew better; there was plenty of street parking available!
One time she came upstairs when it was just Mr. Levins and I at home, and when I went to get the door, she said, “Are you having visitors? Did they park in my spot?”
“No, and no.”
“Well, somebody did. Are you SURE?” (This accompanied by furtive glances over my shoulder, as if she could somehow spot the guilty party hiding somewhere in my apartment.)
“Yep.”
“Well, I’m going to have it TOWED.”
I shrugged. “Okay! Feel free.”
“I’m serious! I WILL HAVE THAT CAR TOWED.”
“And I think that’s great! Tow that car.”
“But it would be so much easier if you could just get them to move it!”
“I DON’T KNOW THEM.”
“Are you sure?”
Fucking psychopath.
And as per the OP, I do think it’s common courtesy not to park all the time in front of someone else’s house/apartment when there’s space availabe in front of your own. Sure, it’s legal to park anywhere on a public street, but it’s also legal to stiff your waiter. There’s a lot of things you have every right to do that anyone with any real courtesy would refrain from doing.
And I feel for you, Devron. This woman who lived in the duplex next door would never park in front of her building; she ALWAYS parked in front of ours, so she could “keep an eye” on her fucking Beamer from her kitchen window.
We called her Beamer Bitch.
And we hated her.
Not only do I have my own parking space, but I pay $25 extra a month to park my car in my own garage. We have a 6 car garage, in addition to a parking lot behind my 6 apartment house. Everyone that lives here rents a garage spot, most use them for storage and they park in front of their garage door. I park in mine. The lot is for guests or residents that have more than one car. It holds at least 6 cars so there’s plenty o’ room all the time.
The guests of apartment 2 don’t quite get it. They seem to think that if my garage is empty they can park there. Or they park BEHIND MY CAR when it’s in the garage. It’s happened three times this month. Got up for work one day and was blocked in. I had to knock for 10 min before she woke up and moved her friend’s car. Swore up and down it wouldn’t happen again and apologized profusely. I said “Ok, just please tell your guests that number one, I pay $25 a month for that spot, and also, please don’t park behind me because you never know when I might want to LEAVE MY GARAGE.”
Today after work, I look out and… someone’s behind me. I waited an hour, car was still there. As I was putting my shoes on to go knock on her door, they left before I could say anything.
She’s getting evicted anyway so I won’t have to deal with it much longer. So I didn’t bother to go knock on her door and tell her off. But really, who goes to visit a friend, and when faced with an empty garage and an empty lot thinks “I’m a guest, the garage MUST be for me!” Sheesh.
Yeesh. Some of you guys’d never make it in San Francisco. Save a few small areas, you’re lucky if you have a spot on your block.
I agree. Parking near my place here in Baltimore is fine during the day, but if you come home after about 9pm, you might have to park your car a few blocks away. There is a street one block over where there are always spaces available at night, but all cars have to be off that street by 7am to allow morning traffic to pass, so parking there means getting out of bed early the next day.
I also hate people who feel they have the right to reserve a spot with a garbage can or a cone. As Telemark says, it is somewhat understandable if you’ve just spent an hour shovelling your car out of the snow. However, this winter when we had the biggest snowfall in the city’s history (26"–don’t laugh, people from New England or upstate NY) people were still marking their spots over a week later, when there was virtually no snow left on the ground. Just because you shovelled it out once doesn’t mean it’s yours forever.
Amen. My girlfriend’s from SF originally, and parking there can be a nightmare, although on a recent visit (two weeks over Christmas/New Year) we had excellent parking karma, having no trouble finding spots even in normally-crowded areas. And her mother’s place has a garage. The great thing about having a garage is that it effectively gives you two spots–one in the garage, and one across the front.
I agree with mhendo and Telemark. In the development I used to live, spaces weren’t assigned. Therefore, anybody could park anywhere they wanted. In general, people parked close to their own home so others could park close to their homes.
And as for snow shoveling, it seems to be a trend here in the mid-Atlantic region that people “mark” their spots after shoveling but come on, if the snow is gone, so should be the mark.
Visitors were not allowed to park in the spaces but towing didn’t start until midnight. Therefore, some jerks (well, jerks IMHO) would tell their guests to park in the spaces as long as they were leaving before midnight. Pissed me off but couldn’t do anything. The crap Board of Directors refused to change the towing hours.
Well, I now live in a house with a driveway and two-car garage. No parking problems for me. 
I am pretty lucky this doesn’t happen too much to me as I live on a backroad, and there is hardly any traffic at all. However, my neighbor has these insane parties, and his friends have actually parked on my lawn! :eek: There was a few times when I went to leave for work and party-boy neighbors car along with another couple of cars have blocked my driveway.
I have to confess, I have never seen anyone “save” their space with a cone. Do you move it, or just let it be?
Man, if somebody parked on my grass or blocked my driveway, I would have them towed.
As for moving the cones, I’ve heard (and it could be “urban legendish”) that the cars are “damaged” when the owners return. In my neighborhood, somebody parked in a cleared spot (not saved with a cone) and the person who felt she “owned” it, piled snow behind the car.
I’d just charge them a rental fee, $20 for each wheel they wanted back.
Christ what a lame rant. Maybe the space in front of their house wasn’t available at the time they needed to park? It’s a public street, so they can park wherever the hell they want, welcome to reality.
I like it 
But I wonder, in today’s legal system, you would probably get in trouble for touching their property. I know, doesn’t seem logical that you would get in trouble but who knows.
Ethilrist, I got more satisfaction from walking into his wide open front door at 6:30am, and turning all the lights on, so party-boy and his friends wake up after only an hour of sleep so they can move their cars.
Oops, I ment Fin_Man.
[related-story hijack]
A couple of weeks ago, I helped a friend move out of her apartment. I took my pickup truck and 12’ U-haul trailer, and parked it in one of those hashed “blocked” spots which isn’t really a parking spot. About 75 feet away from the curb was a row of garages. My truck and trailer took up a lot of space (I was perpendicular to the curb), but left a decent enough lane (10’ or so) for a careful driver to sneak through.
Fast forward to “halfway done” and “sweaty, tired Tripler”. Some idiot of a woman walks up and swears that she “can’t get through and you’ll have to move the pickup truck or else I’ll have it towed immediately!!” Politely, I ask, “Oh! Did I block you in the garage?”
“No, but nobody can get through here. It’s too narrow. You have to move it now!”, sayeth the fool.
“Ma’am, I can’t move the truck. The trailer is half full, and if I disconnect it, I’ll never be able to get the tongue back on the hitch.”
“You’re not even in a parking space. If you don’t clear out, I’ll call the city and have you towed !! If you don’t move blah blah blah. . .”
Maybe it was the sweat dripping into my eye. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the mosquito on my neck. I don’t know: “Lady, take a hike. This isn’t a parking spot, but I’m using it as a loading zone. I’ll be out of here in a couple of hours. Sixteen cars have made it through here, and if you are too damn stupid to slow down when you squeeze through here, then when you hit me in my truck, I’ll sue your ass for willful endangerment and damages. This is a private lot, so the damn town could care less what the hell you think. [Gunnery Sergeant Hartman Voice] STEP OFF![/GySgt Hartman]” :mad:
“How dare you! I’ve lived in this apa. . .” I turned my back and went back to work. She continued to vent and spout, but I wasn’t paying attention. She walked off muttering something. . .
A squad car actually did show up 45 minutes later and circled the lot. I politely waved, and the cop waved back. Three hours and a beer later, I locked the trailer and shifted into “drive”.
[/related-story hijack]
I feel your pain, especially you, Rasa. I rent the basement apartment in a house, so I’m always moving my truck from the garage/driveway. We all realize it’s a part of the game though, so we do things pretty nonchalantly.
Tripler
I’m an asshole. I park in loading zones.
The patriarch of the family who lives across the street from my parents sells cars from his home. There are two spaces in front of his house, a one-car driveway, and room for at least five cars on either side, because he’s bordered by two corner lots. Consequently, a good portion of the block is taken up by his wrecks.
One winter, his adult son decided to “mark” a shoveled spot with a stolen highway cone. And not an average cone - one of those three-foot tall monsters. Since my family was jockeying four cars at the time, I was a tad resentful of him saving “his” place. So I “liberated” the highway cone.
To the next county.
Yes, they’re public streets, but like Audrey said, it’s about more than just legality. We live on the bend of a cul-de-sac where people park nose-in. We have two small cars that don’t even take up the room in front of our own house, but we are constantly fighting to get space in front of our house because our neighbours (yes, the asshats with the tree-killing cat) take at least three spots in front of their house (usually spilling over into our tiny space), two spots in the back alley, and they have a TWO CAR GARAGE! That’s on a normal night; if they have guests, they invariably park in the little space that we wedge our two small cars into. And, as the icing on the cake, they had the nerve to ask Jim’s mother not to park in front of their house when she parked there for a couple of hours once (we tell everyone who visits not to park in front of the houses).
It’s not illegal, but it’s damned annoying to try to get along with your neighbours and respect that they want to park in front of their own house (along with the 10 teen-age boys they seem to have living there) and not have that consideration returned in the slightest. Asshats. Don’t even get me started about the garbage from their yard that I’m always picking up.
Agree.