I have a neighbour who is, well, strange. He has taken to parking his vehicle against the stairs that form my only access to my home unit. While I can usually wiggle through I am concerned that ambulance officers couldn’t get to me in an emergency or that I couldn’t get shopping in or out or have furniture delivered etc. I have asked him to stop it, he tells me to make him.
Is there someone I can call when he does this? I really do see it as a safety issue as well as a complete annoyance. He has to drive past my stairs to get to his garage but there is no logical reason for his parking in such a manner, he has plenty of room near his garage as well as another on site parking spot, clearly he is trying to annoy me and succeeding.
I am aware I can contact our real estate agent (we both rent) but they tend to be pretty useless. I live with a disability that means the thought of ambulance folks not being able to get to me is a real concern, not just pie in the sky stuff.
If the stairway is your only exit from the apartment, you might try calling your local council and asking for the municipal fire safety officer (or similar title).
Under the Building Code Of Australia, all fire exits must be kept clear at all times. It sounds like your neighbour is blocking what may be classed as a fire exit. If this is the case, you might be able to get some results if you get the local council involved.
It would really be a shame if something in your hand (something that you needed to have handy, say a house key) happened to scratch the side of his car while you were squeezing through. I wonder if he has thought about that.
you don’t say exactly what kind of place this is, but at least in most U.S. cities if someone is parked on a sidewalk or some other non-parking place in public space the authorities will be more than happy to slap a ticket on the windshield and tow the car away. if it’s private land the landlord is entitled to enforce parking restrictions with a tow truck.
apart from calling your management and the fire authorities, you might try calling the police and telling them you are trapped in your home. i suspect that when they arrive and assess the situation they will go straight to your neighbor, and they won’t be happy.
it is four units in a L pattern. I am halfway down the upstroke, his garage is where the vertical and horizontal meet. He has to drive passed my door to get to his garage but he is supposed to park in his space on the other side of the property if not in his garage, not in front of his garage (which I really couldn’t care about though it is under my windows and I get filled with exhaust fumes whenever he starts his car there) and certainly not my my stairs. He tinkers in his garage all day every day so he is always parking out of his garage.
Thanks for the advice, I won’t try the vandalism though, I am a disabled woman living alone next to a man with some roos loose in the top paddock, I am not suicidal
Thyalcine, what state are you in? Most Australian states now allow tenants to legally cease to pay rent if a landlord fails to fix a problem. Since the problem is being caused by another tenant the problem is the agent’s, not yours. Contact your local tenancies authority or ombudsman and clarify the situation. If you can stop paying rent then do so. You can be pretty sure that two weeks with no income will see the agency solve the problem.
Whoa, calm down Blake: don’t get Thylacine into trouble. Keep paying your rent until playing that card becomes necessary. Communicate your problem to the landlord, it’s their problem, they are obliged to provide you with proper access to what they rent you. What your landlord can do depends on whether they own the whole block or just one flat. If the latter they may have to work through the Body Corporate. Raise the issue with the landlord in writing. Set a time by which you want something done: it’s a safety issue, three days should be plenty. If nothing is done, go to the tenancies authority and see if they agree with Blake that you can withhold rent: don’t do this without advice, you can get yourself into bother, depending on the state you live in and the nature of the tenancy.
Don’t stop paying. Generally how it works is that the tenancy authority in your State can receive and hold the rent while your dispute is settled. That is you pay your rent to an independent third party.
That authority is normally the same body you pay your rental bond to. It’s likely there is a residential tenancy hotline in your state that should be able to answer your questions. Poke around the net and see.
However I agree that contacting your local council is the appropriate step at this stage.
Secondly, if that fails a quiet visit and chat from the police should sort it out quick smart.
Well, my suggestion of scratching the vehicle was tounge in cheek.
However, is there a way of placing a physical barrier by the stairs that would ensure that no one could park there? The ugly solution would be a bollard or two, but a concrete planter with some bushes in it could look nice and block someone from parking there.
Of course, it sounds like the guy needs the space to drive though to get to his place, so maybe it can’t be passively blocked like this.
Also (sort of tounge in cheek), maybe you could put a bird feeder at the top of the stairs. Parking under birds isn’t really what most people would prefer to do.
It is complicated here, there are 4 different owners of the four units (including a government department) and in the past they have proven that communication between them is near impossible. Somehow there is no body corporate due to the government department. They also have no way to divide up the common land clearly with the stupid design. This is very much the lower end of the rental market, they really do not care about keeping tenants, they know another will be along any moment.
He has always been a grumpy old man but I fear his marbles are slipping further. However, given his obsession with money I imagine if I can get someone to mention large fines he will cease. I just wasn’t sure which authority should be involved. The police just seemed a little extreme for what I was perceiving as mostly annoyance but I hadn’t really thought about the fire aspect. I feel empowered and will take action as required. Thanks folks.
