Neighbors refuse to park their vehicles at their own house, anything I can do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Live in California and there’s a house across the street from me that’s occupants absolutely refuse to park in their driveway nor their garage. From what I can gather they converted their garage into a room and now treat their driveway as a garage with various tools and chairs under a tarp that’s over the driveway. In addition they don’t park their cars in front of their house at all for whatever reason and instead park in front of everyone else’s houses. They own six cars and thus the neighbors to their sides, my house, and both my neighbors houses all have a car a piece always in front of our houses. If you park or have a visitor park in front of your own house, they will then proceed to park in front of your mailbox.

Is there anything I can do? I tried talking to the homeowner but he’s some older guy who doesn’t see what’s wrong with parking in “public property” but the fact they block our mailboxes when someone parks in “their” space seems vengeful.

2

A friend of mine had a similar issue with his neighbor. He just turned a sprinkler to face the car and after a few dousings the neighbor got the message and now parks in front of his own home. You can also just park your car in front of your house whenever you can.

The other thing you can do (less passive-aggressive) is to inquire with the city you live if a bunch of tools and junk under a tarp in the front driveway is permitted. Check with your code enforcement officer.

3

Second the sprinkler “attack”. They even make units that switch on automatically if they detect motion. Designed to keep animals out of your garden, but hey.

https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-62100-Activated-Sprinkler-Detection/dp/B009F1R0GC

4

Check how the building code handles garage conversions. I’m gonna bet it requires approval.

5

If their house is across the street from you, and they aren’t parking in front of it, why don’t you park in that spot?

6

It’s not “your” parking space(s), it’s a public street.:rolleyes:

7

Why the rolleyes? You are correct that it is public property, but there is such a thing as courtesy when using street parking.

How many people live in that house such that they have six cars? Are they all regularly driven? I know most places have laws against storing cars on the street. You can only park for a limited time.

8

Not only that, but storing stuff in your driveway, and not parking in front of your own house when space is available is a discourtesy to the neighbors. At least if they tried to park in their own driveway, and close to their house, it would be hard to criticize them. But as the OP describes, they are spread-out and imposing themselves on everyone else because they cannot/will not make space for their vehicles on their own property.

9

My next door neighbor has a garage, a driveway, and room for two vehicles on the street in front of his house. Yet he parks in the street in front of my house.

I park in my garage, so I don’t need the two spots in front of my house. Therefore it doesn’t bother me, but I can’t help but wonder what possible reason he has for doing this.

I’ll never know, because I’d feel dopey even asking.
mmm

10

[Moderating]

Moved from GQ to IMHO.

11

Throw tacks and glass in the road in front of your house.

12

How often do they move the six cars? Some places have regulations on how long a car can park without being moved.

13

Not really, there isn’t. We only have on street parking and you just have to catch as catch can. If there’s a snow emergency and parking is only allowed on one side of the street then you get home early or you park a long way from home.

In the suburbs where I grew up everyone had a driveway but no one really carried where you parked. What courtesy do you think people owe each other on the street?

14

We had a similar situation in Toronto. In our area the neighbourhoods are old and we only have street parking. In summer people are relaxed about parking spots, but in the winter, you tend to shovel the spot in front of your house and there’s an expectation you’ll park there.

A few years ago, we had a major snowstorm and my neighbour & I cleared our spots, Immediately after, my neighbour drove out to get diapers etc for his newborn. Within 2 minutes of him leaving, another neighbour from down the street pulled into the newly shovelled spot. The guy never shovelled the spot in front of his house and worse, he took the subway to work, meaning he left his car there for days at a time.

Similar to your neighbours, his attitude way “Fuck you, this is all public space, I can park anywhere I want.”

After two days (and another big snow dump) we got pissed off, so we boxed in his car with 3ft of snow on all sides and then we poured water all over the snow and turned it to solid ice.

We were very pleased with the job we did. Two other neighbours even came out and clapped as we did it.

That ended when he called the police the next day. My neighbour and I happened to be out shovelling again and the cop asked us if we knew what happened to the guys car. We told him the story, except we said we had no idea who’d done it. We said no one liked this guy, he was a dick who never shovelled and did this to everybody on the street (all true). Like an Agatha Christie novel - everyone is a suspect.

When the cop found out the guy never shovelled his own spot plus left his car sitting for days, all he said was “What an asshole.” He then told us that we should spread the word that if this sort of thing happened again, “whoever” did it had to make sure the snow or ice they shovelled did not physically touch any part of the guy’s car. Otherwise they could be charged if caught.

He then went back to the guy and chatted with him. Word got back to us that the cop told him he didn’t know who did it, but that he thought the guy was in the wrong and he could expect it to happen again and again unless he started to shovel his own spot He also said that if the ice wasn’t physically touching his car, not to waste the police time by calling them. It took him about 3 hours to literally pick-axe his car out but now he always shovels his own spot.

It sounds like you’re in southern California, so unfortunately this may not be a viable solution for you, but I thought I’d share it anyway. Sometimes there are happy endings.

15

I’m in SoCal. Sprinklers, especially if they’re nice cars.

Yes it’s a public street, but if you want your neighbors to treat you well, show some common courtesy. That doesn’t apply in highly congested areas where lots of people have to park on the street–catch as catch can.

16

It’s a matter of no small debate (and lots of back-and-forth tactics like you describe) here in Chicago, as well, with the concept of “dibs” (i.e., “I shoveled out that spot, it’s mine”) being an informal, but generally respected, rule. People here are well-known for staking out their “dibs” by placing articles of furniture in their cleared spots.

17

Sure there is. Let’s say that you and your wife each have a car and there are two spots in front of your house. Same for me. There is a tacit agreement that we each park in front of our house.

If I have guests over one night, it is pretty dickish of me to wait until you leave to run out for a loaf of bread and park in “your” spot. I get extra asshole points if when you return and politely ask to park there and I give the “Fuck you, it’s public property” trope.

18

In my neighborhood in San Jose they see nothing wrong parking partway across your driveway. I put cement blocks in the street next to the curb just after our driveway. Every now and then someone will move the block. But mostly we can now get in and out of our driveway no problem.

19

That is grounds for keying a car.

20

Because just from the general attitude of speaking to the homeowner they’d probably mess with my car to force me to not park there.

As for the six car arrangement, apparently there homeowner has multiple grown children still living at the house. There’s always two cars that seem to always be constantly parked but they’ll “rotate” between the houses for whatever reason. The other four cars will leave semi-regularly and come back but at nights and mornings is when you have all six cars parked. The cars are more often parked then away though which is the problem, I don’t think his kids have jobs since the cars are never gone for longer than a four hour stretch.