We live in a subdivision, at the end of a cul-de-sac. We have neighbors about 4 doors down that we don’t really know. Every night, they park their truck in front of their house, on their side of the street, about 50 feet behind the sign that says “No Parking This Side”.
They have a 2-car garage and driveway that could hold up to 4 vehicles. They sometimes have 1 car in the driveway, and occasionally 2. They could easily park the truck in the driveway. Or they could, even more easily, park across the street where it’s legal. There’s never a car on the other side.
This isn’t a huge issue, except for last week when our street was icy, and steering around them was a bit of a chore. I could call the cops, who would likely ticket them, but I don’t know if it’s worth even that escalation - our street probably ices up only 5 times a year.
A friend suggested that I put a friendly, anonymous note under their wiper pointing out that it was a bit tough to pass the truck on icy days, or something non-threatening like that. But I hesitate because if they consequently get a ticket, they will blame whoever left the note, even if they get a ticket because a passing cop saw the illegal parking.
What do Dopers suggest? I surrender myself to your wise counsel yet again.
This isn’t one of those streets where it alternates every other day, is it? I used to live on one of those and probably parked on the wrong side at least half the time. I mean, who moves their car every day?
I’m guessing you don’t have a homeowner’s association there? Last place we lived had no parking at all on the street, no commercial vehicles at all in the driveways, no boats or RVs visible from the street, blah blah blah. They’d call the sheriff all the time.
Anyway, this could be one of those situations where an HOA could actually have value.
Unless it is really causing a problem, I would just try and ignore it. It doesn’t seem worth the hassle to me.
We had a neighbor across the street park his semi truck and trailer on the street and let it run for hours. He did this a few times a week. I suppose the rest of the time he was out doing some long runs.
Our town’s ordinance says that semi’s have to be parked on an outlying street. My town is tiny, pop. 400 and only has about 8 streets, so it would mean the guy would have to walk one, maybe two blocks to where he could park his truck. But he parked on the street anyway. This went on for a few years. There is another Semi just down the block too. Same story. But he is far enough down that I don’t see or hear his truck, unless we walk or drive by.
It never bothered me until we had a baby, and that running semi outside the baby’s room would wake him up quite often. I was just about to complain, when they moved. Whew!
I have no idea why the town has this ordinance, and then lets two semi’s park on one of the two main streets. We also have a church and a k-12 school on this street, and sometimes the semi was blocking the church parking area.
I wonder if he was warned a few times, but just chose to ignore it?
Anyway…I guess I am a wimp, and would rather not piss the neighbor guy off, as long as it isn’t a huge problem.
They have a two-car garage and there’s no room for their “work truck”?
To hell with them. They obviously aren’t gardeners or hauling junk for a living. Anyone who has too many vehicles to follow petty municipal parking laws deserves a ticket every once in a while. Actually, as soon a possible. I say drop the dime.
I thought this thread was going to be about neighbours from across the street who park in front of YOUR house (like our neighbour does). It drives me bug-eyes - yeah, it’s legal for him to park there, but residential area etiquette says you park in front of your own house, not your neighbour’s. You might stop there occasionally, but week after week parking? That’s a no-no. On the plus side, though, if anyone’s car is going to get hit from our icy corner, it will be his car, so he can park there all he wants and protect OUR car.
As for the OP - I’d be tempted to call it in on an icy day when it was making my driving more difficult, especially since they have all kinds of private parking options. The sign says “No Parking” for a reason, I assume.
Do you have parking officers where you live? In a similar situation here, I would just call the local council and they’d send a parking officer to issue a fine.
Be an ass without violating the law. Next time it snows and the car is absent, dump all of your snow in that exact spot on the road, or clear your snowbank onto that spot. They may get the message.
Here in Hamilton, the by-law requires homeowners to clear the sidewalk, and preferably a path to the mailbox. Anything else is fair game
I used to have a neighbor whose son would park his godawful old junker right smack in front of my house, and then leave it for 2-3 weeks at a time. It wasn’t that I needed to park there, but it made it look like the eyesore belonged to my house. Plus there was no car parked in front of his own house, so I have no idea why he’d park at my place.
So I started calling parking enforcement, who would come out and put a “move this car in 24 hours or we’ll assume it’s abandoned and tow it” bright orange sticker on the car. After the third time I did that, he finally caught on and stopped parking there. And his parents actually apologized to me, even though I’d never copped to it directly to them or to him.
I say wait till it’s icy and then go over and ask them politely to park on the other side of the street to make it easier for folks to pass it, not to mention lessening the likelihood of it getting hit. They may honestly have not even noticed the no parking sign, or may be ignoring it since they don’t realize it’s causing a problem.
Then if they don’t move it, drop the dime. Or, better yet, have someone else drop the dime for you so you can protest in all innocence, “Hey, I wasn’t the one who called the cops on you!” But I’m devious that way.
It’s not worth potentially starting something with a neighbor that could ruin your neighborhood if it snowballed into a back and forth, or just a back. If you can ignore it, do ignore it.
The St. Louis (Mo.) police once said the most common response they gave callers was, “No, you don’t have any special right to the parking spot in front of your house on a public street.”
As for the OP, I agree with my fellow lou. Wait until an icy day, then call the cops to report it.
Yeah, I know; it just bugs me, you know? It’s like mowing your lawn right at 8:00 am every Saturday morning; sure the noise bylaw is off at 8:00 am, but most of us don’t run right out and fire up the mower.
The village I lived in had alternate side of the street parking, and if you didn’t get out there and move your car by 9 a.m. on the dot, the police (who didn’t have enough crime to investigate) would give you a ticket. No need to call, they were johnny-on-the-spot.
A cul de sac is usually a circular end to a street. Makes turning around to get out of the street easy, right? They’re parking in front of their house. Yeah, maybe not on the correct side of the street and maybe they have room in their driveway for more vehicles but maybe their schedule is that someone there has to get out at a certain time and they would have to move the truck.
If it were me, on the rare occasion when it is icy and difficult to get around, I would knock on their door and ask them to move the truck if necessary. Otherwise, it wouldn’t bother me and I would leave it alone. Never know when you need that neighbor with that truck to help you out of a jam… Know what I mean?
I’m not a fan of the anonymous note. It basically says “I bet you’re a retaliatory asshole, so I’m not gonna sign my name to this. But I’m watching you!”. If you have a hunch the neighbor is an asshole, there’s also good reason to believe they won’t be swayed by an unsigned note. You’re probably better off just getting them ticketed, at least a ticket has some authority behind it. If you are willing to bet your neighbors are not assholes, then ditto others, go over on an icy day and nicely explain the problem (which of course they weren’t aware of,etc.).
Personally I would let it go, but then I live in the city. Someone parks illegally, hey, thats one more more legal spot for the rest of us.
Maybe you could get to know these neighbors? If you dropped by to introduce yourself and made an attempt to be friendly, you would probably be able to bring up how difficult it is to get around the truck when the street is icy. Knowing your neighbor’s name is usually a good idea anyway.
I’d try almost anything instead of the anonymous note, which IMO has an undertone of “I don’t care enough to speak to you directly, but…” and definitely won’t do anything to create a comfortable neighborhood vibe. If your neighbor finds out you wrote the note, he’s going to resent you. If he doesn’t find that out, he’s going to resent the entire street, and that could get messy–literally. Someone in my little brother’s neighborhood reported his next-door neighbor for having a messy yard, and the neighbor responded by filling his yard with more junk, then getting into a pissing match with every neighbor on the block that included nasty yard signs and newspaper editorials and possibly flaming bags of poop.
If making nice with the neighbor doesn’t work, I’d just let it go. Eventually some cop will visit your block on an unrelated matter and write your neighbor a ticket, and that will be that.
I have the same problem with my neighbor parking their car in front of my house and he mows his lawn at odd hours. One time he was mowing at eight o’clock at night. Again the noise law is 9pm but it was friggin’ dark already. It was not a riding mower either that might have head lights so I can’t even imagine that he could even see what he was mowing.
Around these parts that truck would get a ticket for parking on the wrong side of the street. There is also no overnight parking, no parking even in legal spots if the snow is over two inches and don’t think of having a friend stay over and there is just not enough room in your driveway and thier bumper is 2 inches passed the driveway and over the sidewalk.
There was a case in the paper last year about a guy who was fighting a ticket he got for parking on his own grass. I guess he had washed his car and then pulled the car in the grass to detail it. A cop came by and wrote him a ticket for it.
I think half our cities revenue comes from parking tickets.
