How about just saying “no”? i don’t know why you continue to make trouble for yourself. She asks, you say no. Period.
Why has the story changed from the OP. At first it was an unimproved road between your houses with about 3 parking spaces on either side. Now, you OWN the spaces? Do you own the road, or half the road? Do your property lines meet down the center line of the road? Are these spaces ON the road or are they separate.
I do not understand why your story has changed – the first complaint was that she was asking you to move to another space, and now she’s telling you where you can put your car on your own property? Something isn’t right here.
I don’t think it’s changed. It sounds to me as though normally she does not park in any of the spaces by the street, but rather up closer to her house. Because there are no cars in the spaces on either side of the road, the bus has room to come down & turn around.
Now there are birds in the trees (or wires?) under which she normally parks & her car ends up covered in poop. She would like to put her car in one of the spaces on her side of the road and keep it poop-free. But if she does, the bus will not have room to turn, and Entitled Mama will have to walk her kid down the road a bit to get the bus. Entitled Mama doesn’t want to do that, and is giving the OP hell for it, despite the fact that she really has no say in the matter.
That’s how I understand the story.
One of the things I was taught in Driver’s Ed is that you DO NOT have a right to use other people’s driveways to turn around. (I know states have varying rules, so this might not apply everywhere.)
Anyway, if your state has a similar rule, you could call up the school department and complaint that the school bus driver has been regularly trespassing on your property and that you want him to stop.
If in no other way, in the OP there was no claim that any of the parking spaces actually were owned by either party. Now the OP is claiming he owns the spaces and the neighbor is trying to dictate to him where he can park, on his own property. That is a major change.
Your neighbor sounds like she could be more reasonable.
As the parent of an autistic child, I do fully empathise with her though. Living with autism 24/7 is straining. I take Serena to her school bus every morning and it’s about 50 yards away down the corner. it would make my life so much easier if the bus could pull up to my front door. It’s really enjoyable being out there at the stop for the 20 minute window every school morning, especially when it’s raining. There’s a lot of baggage in dealing with a special needs child and while any one thing may not seem like a big deal to outsiders, cummulatively all those “one things” you deal with all day and night long do add up. I don’t know where your neighbors daughter is on spectrum, nor how big a deal it is or not is for the bus pickup at the front door.
TupeloRose, please keep in mind that however unreasonable your neighbor is, you’re doing a good turn for her child. And the kid is probably a sweet kid too.
Well, she’d have a hard time being less reasonable, telling other people what to do with their own car on their own property.
Most likely is that the child is not capable of being at the bus stop on her own, so the mother would have to be out there with her child every day waiting for the bus to arrive. That takes a chunk of time out of her day, that she doesn’t want to give up. If the bus comes to her front door, the child can just stay inside the house until it arrives.
Uh, this is beginning to sound like maybe child services should be getting a call. It’s one thing that she is too lazy to walk her kid to the bus and back every school day, but to not bother to potty train her and expect the school to deal with it? What else is she not doing for that kid?
No, it was additional information. An OP cannot, and shouldn’t, include every possible detail that might be needed in further discussion. Even if we were all that psychic, such a post would take up a whole page.
Nice that it took all the way to the second page for someone to come in and suggest that other people inconvenience themselves for the choices of strangers. Yes, it’s probably a giant pain to take care of an autistic child, but that isn’t the only stress any given person might be living with. Before you think someone should go out of their way to make your life easier, stop and consider that their life may be even more of a struggle than yours.
Or not. Your choices, your responsibility.
Not to be snarky, but “autism” is not a choice. Project much?
Having a child is. Entitled much?
All the more reason why the neighbor lady should suck it up and deal for a week or so rather than lose that convenience forever because she played bitch hardball and lost.
Not quite sure why “empathise” is interpreted to mean I think the neighbor lady is reasonable?
Hmmmm… Well, have you thought about picking the berries? They should be useful for levelling your alchemy, and that way the birds won’t be tempted to poop on your car. As for the birds themselves, I’m afraid most birds can’t be killed, or even interacted with, but they should go away on their own eventually. Lastly, if your speechcraft is high enough, you can most likely persuade your crazy neighbor to mind her own business. All else fails, just shout her away.
Entering into war with a neighbor should be avoided at most costs and should only be a last resort. Even when you are in the right- it’s rarely worth it. You might have to live next door to this person for years, and it can get very awkward. Plus, they might see someone breaking into your house, or you collapse in the front yard and need an ambulance. I would do what I could to accommodate a crazy neighbor lady, even as I acknowledge to myself that she is crazy. Within reason, of course.
Give the birds some Abilify. That should stop the doo-doo with a quickness.
Is monstro feeling constipated? (:
Ahem. Having a child is *usually *a choice. Not always. Maybe irrelevant to your side-track pissing match. Sure, the tangential argument is that sex is always a choice. Again, that’s a usually, not an always, even when it’s not outright rape. Also, birth control is *usually *a choice, not always, as dishonesty is always a possiblity.
Also, the particular needs of the child that is yet to be born are never a choice. Nor can someone ever be expected to plan for every possible problem, like autism, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, or other irregularities.
Do you *usually *have to work this hard to make yourself look like a terrible person? Or is that an always? Because here you’re doing a bangup job. Based on previous conversations with you, I’d say I’m seeing a trend. But that’s just me talking. Why don’t you ride on over to a ladder and climb on down from that high horse so you can take a more active role in the conversation at hand, instead of taking pot-shots at “parents of autistic children” as a group?
I think most of the contributors to this thread are basically echoing my initial sentiment of “tell the bitch to fuck off” in various polite ways. I can only imagine what kind of fun conversation the OP would have if he/she pulled the “Having that child was a choice” line. Hell if some vaginal skinwad used that line on me, regardless of the context, I’d be pretty pissed. See that’s what saying something like that does. It makes **you **look like the “entitled” taintstain by putting yourself in a position of judgement.
Keep it simple, stupid. The bitch neighbor is in the wrong for obvious legal reasons, and most agree for basic ethical reasons, so take that and run with it. No need for you to digress into an argument over the validity of the complaints of autistic parents overall. You’re bad at it.
One thing you know for certain, though, is that the people who are being expected to make accommodations for other people’s children had no say at all in the choice to bring that child into the world.
Having a child is always a choice. Woman gets pregnant, she has the choice of continuing or not continuing the pregnancy; if she has it she has the choice of keeping or not keeping the baby. If someone has some religious problem with any of that, it is still a choice - no one is forced to subscribe to any religion in this country.
Side track? The OP is about the neighbor using her child as an excuse. China Guy seems to think that when child raising becomes difficult, neighbors should cut the parent(s) extra slack. How is that side tracking?
Doesn’t matter. Only an extremely stupid person wouldn’t know that there is a chance that any given baby might be born with something wrong with it, that will create extra work. Yet people go forth and have children even when they know they carry for genetic disease, and then expect the world to feel sorry for them, and/or consider them heroes, and/or given them free stuff and help. In this case, autism has gotten enough press that anyone should know that they may end up with an autistic child and something of what that might entail.
Ha. I take it you are talking to yourself here? You are the one on the high horse here, trying to make a case for parents to be entitled. You could try reading for comprehension as well, since I wasn’t “taking pot-shots at “parents of autistic children” as a group”, and what you misinterpreted there is far from all I said on the subject.
Again, try actually reading what I write instead of riding off on your horse of “all children are teh bomb”. I used the “Having that child was a choice” just on China Guy, because he was trying to make excuses for the entitled neighbor of the OP. It’s obvious that is your problem area, since that is all you got out of my post, but that doesn’t mean that is all I said, or that I was saying it as advice to the OP.
And you are an idiot. I win.
Yup! It’s got to be the only personal choice a person can make where they routinely expect everyone else to accommodate them.