Can you scavenge a cctv camera - working or non-working…as long as it looks like it’s working - and put it up prominently next to the no parking signs? I’d think that would give people pause
Apparently not. Yes, we tried that. Also, the bar on the other side of us is bristling with cameras, which have done little to discourage mischief. Including the idiot who broke into the bar - the bar has it on camera from the time the little skank walked up, busted out a window, crawled in, got caught on interior cameras narrowly missing the fryer in the kitchen, made her way from the kitchen to the bar proper, and then, after breaking into the register, proceeded to drink herself unconscious with the various liquors stored behind the counter. All on camera. Needless to say, she’s doing time now.
I think people are so used to being photographed these days that cameras no longer register.
Also, some of these folks genuinely seem to have no clue about concepts like “private property” and “trespassing” and why other folks get pissed at being inconvenienced. And some of it is our neighbors being frustrated at how truly, epic bad their landlord is.
I recommend shouting at people. In my experience, that usually does the job.
Don’t shout at the residents or the landlord, though - they don’t care. The weak link is the Uber drivers, I think. Whenever they park in your driveway, get out and start shouting at them like a crazy person. Waving arms, bugged-out eyes, the whole spiel. Make them understand that they’re dealing with a crazy person. Do that every time they come by, and sooner or later they’l decide they don’t need the headache and park somewhere else.
Also, shouting at people is fun.
During peak pick-up hours, pay a tow truck driver to park on the street next to your driveway, with the motor running and ready to do his thing. This will cost some money, but maybe you can work out a deal where he’s willing to do it for a cut rate if he gets enough towing business from this.
I figure a visible, immediate threat of being towed might be more convincing to an Uber driver than a mere “I’m getting ready to call the tow truck on you.”
You may have to do this for several days to start changing their habits. Might see if others in the building are interested in going in on this with you.
Check with your local law enforcement, but find out if he can tow cars from your driveway even if the driver is there, once you’ve told the driver that if he doesn’t move, he gets towed.
It’s generally illegal to tow a car that has a person in it. As well as pointless, all the driver has to do is move the car a bit when the tow tuck driver tries to hook it up.
I suspect there is no winning this. The Uber app is probably mis-identifying the location of its customers by a few feet into the wrong driveway, and the Uber-using neighbors have no incentive to adjust the location as long as a car shows up.
Signs saying “Private driveway” won’t help as the Uber drivers are expecting to pick up people at their home. Such signs are just visual noise as they’re so common.
A sign saying “No Uber pickups or dropoffs” will probably be cheerfully ignored, and what happens on the day your car breaks down and you need an Uber?
Telling one or two Uber drivers to move down the road is pointless as there are so dang many of them, and it’s not like they compare notes.
Does Uber block addresses when people are known problems, ie don’t pay or tip, often drunk, assault drivers?
If so, then perhaps Uber refuses to pick up from that building.
Hell, I had that problem with my new phone number (like 7 years ago) and a nearby Pizza parlor. They refused to deliver because “Shannon” had done something they didn’t explain. I ordered from someplace else and then later went into the first place, showed them my drivers license and had them put me in the computer instead of her.
Well, to start, there’s apparently no way for me to use Uber as I don’t have a smart phone. Apparently, I am not a demographic they’re interested in.
Also, when my car breaks down I take my pick up truck. When the pick up truck breaks down I take my car. Also, I have these things called “friends” and, failing that… I can call a taxi like I’ve done the past, oh 35 years or so.
But this sort of problem is yet another example of why people sometimes think Uber is something evil.
I recently saw this on Twitter.
Oh, shouting. The first time I read that, I thought it said something different.
Having had to drop off and pick up at SFO recently, I can say this is absolutely true.
Given that Uber is evil, do you have any local media who might be interested? It sounds like they could get footage, and maybe even get to talk to the idiot Uber drivers. The skanks next door might get nervous, and the sheriff might get motivated.
Damn shame that gates with passcodes are too expensive.
I’m pretty sure Uber drivers can add information about addresses when there’s a problem. The trick is to get them to do it. When I first started using it, they would stop at the building next door - the pin on their maps told them to stop there rather than my building. I suspect that’s happening in your case and no one’s bothered to correct it. It will take someone from your building going out to the waiting driver and having a non-hostile conversation, starting with asking out of curiosity what address they were given in the first place (if it’s your building’s address then it’s a neighbor not an Uber problem) and if it’s the next door address, where the pin is on their map and can they put a correction in there. Since it sounds like the cars stopping in your driveway is universal it will likely take more than one driver putting in the correction to solve it - several drivers will likely need to add the same correction before the app will recognize it’s a legit correction.
If the neighbors are using your address as the pickup, I don’t know if the Uber drivers can put it in as a bad address not to pick up at - though others in your building/business who use Uber might not appreciate that.
Due to a quirk of when the addresses were assigned on my street the building has not one but FIVE street addresses - not the exact numbers, but the two unit upstairs on the north side of the building have the addresses 1200 and 1201. The ground floor unit on the north side is 1203. My unit is 1204. The unit above me is 1205. The entire street is like that, so people winding up at the wrong address or confused is not unusual because many buildings have multiple addresses, and a lot of those addresses are poorly marked. Which is one reason, when going out to ask someone what the hell they’re doing in the driveway/in front of the building, I ask “are you lost?” or “who/what are you looking for?” Because a certain number of people really are baffled. But correcting Uber would probably mean correcting multiple addresses.
At present, no one else in my building is using Uber. But that might change in the future.
Of course, between the bar to the south and the skanks to the north there’s also a fair number of drunk/drugged fools and assholes, occasionally not entirely sure which planet they’re on, much less anything more detailed or specific than that.
One of the recent ones, from about two weeks ago, was a guy on a tricked-out Harley with a sick engine (looks good, sounds like shit) who attempted to squeeze his ride between my dumpster and a property like marker between my building and the bar. He was bitching the driveway was too narrow and I heard someone from the bar yelling “That’s not a driveway, you asshole, get the fuck off the neighbor’s property. Driveway is over here.”
And last week I heard another guy banging around my building’s dumpster, which is locked except on pick-up day, yelling about why is the dumpster locked. From the bar “That’s not our dumpster, asshole. Ours is over here.”
I’m actually getting along OK with the bar these days. And in the building to the south there’s an older guy who’s OK and who comes over to bitch with my landlord about the jackasses living in the building with him. So it’s not like all the neighbors are horrible. Just some of them.
Odd and even addresses on the same side of the road? Yikes! No wonder Uber is confused. I wonder how long it takes new UPS and FedEx drivers to figure it out?
If the same dumpster stays on site, a small investment in stick-on numbers or a stencil and paint may help keep bar staff (?) from trying to get into yours.
Similarly, a sign like
Private driveway for
1200-1205 Your Street
No access to 1206-1210
might help.
And if the Uber drivers still ignore it, there’s always yelling and paintballs. 
I have read on Quora that Uber is responsive to emails. The email listed in the Quora narrative was support@uber.com.
It might be worth a try to see if they respond.
Uber driver here. Uber often sends the wrong address to the driver, I’ve had passengers complain that I incorrectly parked in their neighbors driveway and then showed them the address I was given was actually their neighbors (not what they typed in). That and often I am directed to the back of a store instead of the front entrance, I think Uber software was originally developed for commercial deliveries.
If I report that the address is incorrect that means I just spend more time in your driveway while I report the issue to Uber and then they do nothing. Most likely I will not be back to your address for months unless you are a nightclub or restaurant.
Basically I don’t care about your driveway, but you knew that. I’mm just picking up and dropping off as fast and safe as I can and your driveway looks safer than blocking the city street.