Neighbors who simply MUST park in front of my house

The BBQ Pit
21

Just after I got out of college, I rented a house with some friends.

It ended up being a four-car household. Rather more than average. We didn’t have a garage: there was a rickety carport and a short driveway that could hold at best two small cars before someone was sagging out into the street. We were also on a corner, so while there was plenty of street around our house there wasn’t much we could park on. The walk up to the front door was seriously long (a good forty feet or so) and so we mostly used the back door. We had next-door neighbors, but they had one car and it lived in their driveway. They also had a garage.

Between the edge of our carport’s driveway and the fence that separated our two properties, there was about eight feet of space. I parked my teensy hatchback in this space, and assuming I parked so that my housemates could get out of the driveway, perhaps a foot of bumper and front end of my car would peek across the property line.

In the first month we lived there, the neighbor* – a fellow in his forties or fifties – came over. He was utterly irate, screaming up a storm and demanding we get the car off his property. He was so unhinged that I didn’t actually feel safe talking to him. We explained as politely as we could that it really was the only place the car could safely go, that his property did not include the street, that we weren’t blocking his driveway, and that the amount of his theoretical space we were taking up was miniscule. He was having none of it and left, threatening to call the cops.

A few days later, his mother came over. Really. His mother. She explained a bit more gently that his father had always parked in that spot in front of the house, that her son – mentally disabled and unstable as he was – was used to seeing the old blue pickup out there despite his father having been gone for some years. We explained that we really didn’t have a lot of choice: we were still on our property, we still weren’t blocking their driveway, and as sad as his grief may be, it wasn’t actually our problem.

A week or so later, we came home to find that there were two bright orange traffic cones around where I usually parked. There was no evident construction. It was Crazy Neighbor again: he’d decided to mark exactly where I couldn’t park. We got out, moved the cones to the curb, and parked.

The next evening? BANG BANG BANG BANG on the door. “YOU STOLE MY CONES!”

"Dude, we didn’t take your – "

“YOU STOLE MY CONES! I’M CALLING THE COPS!”

“Yeah. You do that.”

The police duly came and chatted with the neighbor. They told him that no, he didn’t get to say who parked there. They looked at the car and yes, it was on our property. They asked him where he got the cones. He explained he’d picked them up at a nearby construction site.

The police explained that this was in fact illegal as the cones didn’t so much belong to him.

We did find out that one cone had been stolen by some neighborhood kids. Still no idea what happened to the other one.

Blocking your driveway or your trash or our mailbox in is one thing. Just parking on the street outside your house? Meh.

  • I should mention. When two of the friends who ended up living with us came to take a tour of the house before we rented, this neighbor came out to welcome them. You’re moving in? Yes, we’re thinking about it. Well that’s great, he said. Nice to see a good *white *couple moving in around here. Admittedly, Lee looked like a skinhead and his fiancee looked quite conventional, but he was a bisexual Taoist punk and she wasn’t much more “normal” than that.
22

Well, if they are like neighbors I used to have, they probably have a very reasonable and valid reason;

“Because fuck you, that’s why!”

I don’t live there anymore.

23

I went to visit a friend. Since his own car was parked in front of his house, I parked as close as possible nearby. He came out and told me I had to move, because I was in “his neighbor’s spot.” I doubted that very much, it being a public street with no indications of assigned parking. But he told me his neighbor was a total asshole about it, and that I had to move.

Sigh… I ground my teeth, but I moved. He’s the one who has to try to get along with the asshole neighbor, not me.

(Emphasis: I am not generalizing this to the case in the OP. I actually agree with the OP: if there’s space in front of your house, you should park there first. After that, though, it’s anybody’s right. On Super Bowl Sunday, it’s sometimes damned hard to find a space on some suburban streets. Tough beans…)

24

I’ve posted about this before, but can someone explain exactly why you are bothered by this? I just don’t get it.

25

Me neither. Never could anytime I had to explain it to people complaining in person either.

26

There are a lot of things that are 100% legal which are nonetheless impolite. The polite thing to do is to park in front of your own house first if space is available there.

27

What part don’t you get? I think most people have included explanations for their complaints. In my case, there’s only parking on one side of the street and I swear some people must cary high precision instruments to make sure their car door is lined up precisely with the door of the house they’re visiting. There might be four spaces available but god forfend they walk three feet further than neccessary.

28

Who said what about FLAT TIRES???

29

As I said, I am not bothered by it at all but it’s pretty easy to see why others are.

30

Not to me. I grew up in the suburbs and my folks were irate when the neighbors parked in front of our house, I didn’t get it then. Give me the city and all its problems over that petty bs any day.

31

I would be annoyed if a particular neighbor consistently passed up a space in front of his own house to park in front of mine, but it’s really just a courtesy thing. It’s more convenient for me to park in front of my house, all else equal, and besides that, what possible reason might you have? Trying to leave space in front of your house as a convenience for your guests? Ok, their convenience is important but mine isn’t… now it’s clear why someone might be bothered by it.

The thing that bugs me is when my neighbor parks in front of my house, on a curb that can fit two cars easily, but parks smack in the middle so only one car fits.

32

We had a corner lot; the house faced one street, but the driveway came off the other street. The house across from our driveway was apparently a women’s shelter, and people visiting there were constantly parking square across the foot of our drive. Even when both of our cars were in the drive…

33

What exactly is it that happens to your house when someone parks in front of it? I mean, I can understand if it’s some toxic hazard, or a smoking wreck about ready to blow, but a typical car? Why bother worrying about it?

34

I think this is one of those Unwritten and Mostly Unagreed-upon Laws of Public Behavior.

My mom has a lot of these, and drives herself crazy. You should see her as she scopes out any restaurant she enters, to see if there are any males over the age of ten with hats on, or if any diner has placed a fork directly on the table instead of the placemat. Or if anyone has parked in front of someone else’s house.

If it’s getting to you, you might want to learn to accept it, because there’s no actual written law, and no universal agreement that it’s “impolite”. And learn to get along with that guy in the Cubs cap at Chili’s.

35

My parent’s neighbor does this. It doesn’t bug anyone except for the fact that the area in front of their (my parent’s) house is plenty big for two cars and she parks smack dab in the middle with her little tiny Yaris. Which means if anyone comes over, they have to park down a house or two.
It would be nice if she parked at one end or the other, but I don’t think she realized it. OTOH, I do think she’s actively parking in front of our house because her dad is some kind of anal narcissistic nut and I’m guessing he doesn’t like seeing a car parked in front of his house.

But FTR, my parents don’t car that she parks there, but when I’m at my parent’s house and parked on the street, it would be nice if we could share that spot. But it’s not something I get all worked up about.

36

What things do you need access to in front of your house that you need to have no other cars parked there? I’m definitely in the camp that public streets are public streets but I can imagine exceptions to the rule. You haven’t presented the details of the reason you need access in front of your house so I reserve judgement on whether I can support this pitting.

37

There may not be a “universal agreement” but there does seem to be a fair amount of agreement amongst people in this thread. Not sure what the magic number is that will make it a commonly held belief in your book. The story about your mom is funny but not relevant. People with bad taste in fashion are laughable but don’t affect anyone else’s experience. Not that any time a random neighbor parks in front of someone’s house is a major crisis; it’s just some of us wondering why ( and harrumphing when warranted).

38

I almost support the Pitting. When I lived at my previous house, the neighbors always wanted to park in front of my house. Yes, it’s a public street and I understand that they have the right to do so, but it was annoying nonetheless. I liked to look out from my window and not see an old jalopy there. I didn’t mind seeing my nice little pickup, though, but it was nice. Since it wasn’t a daily driver (it look nice, but it really was an inferior vehicle) I eventually just left it there full time.

I’m having an issue in my current assignment neighborhood, though. I bought a parking space behind my house, and the neighbors constantly park there. It’s marked, and everyone knows the rules. I stole a license plate from one such vehicle a few days ago and took it to the gatehouse. I really want to take out a valve stem core, but I hate people yelling at me in a language I can’t understand.

39

Its no parking on our side of the street, so our friends need to park in front of the neighbors house.

(One guest we put in the driveway, more than one guest, we start using street parking.)

The neighbor they park in front of is sort of an ass - which is why we don’t let them park in front of our house - because he’d call to have them ticketed.

40

From what I get from these threads, some people have neighbors who park so that they block other people from being able to use their driveways. Other people have neighbors who freak out because someone is using their street.

I will share my story, though. One morning, I woke up to find a big pick-up truck parked in front of my house. I thought it was odd because most people parked in their driveways and garages, but it wasn’t my street, and it wasn’t in my way, so I ignored it.

The truck stayed there for 4 more days, and one of my neighbors started getting upset over it. Tony is a neighborhood fixture…interesting to say the least, but I consider him to be a very good friend. Tony is also known to the local sheriff’s because of his anger management problems.

So…Tony got upset over the truck in front of my home. I had had a scheduled stressful day that included me coming home at 3 and relaxing. Tony saw me pull in and came right up to get on me about the truck. I didn’t want to listen to him, so I went out and knocked on all my next door neighbors’ doors. Nobody knew who owned the truck. Probably because most of them were working.

That wasn’t good enough for my neighbor, so I called the non-emergancy line and invoked Tony’s name, asked that when someone in a sheriff car had some free time, could he or she look at the truck in an official manner, and if Tony came down to talk to the unfortunate LE person that person could explain that the truck was legally parked.

OK, I did my duty, so went in to drink a beer and get some kitteh therapy. 20 minutes later (which was very fast response time for a stupid call), a deputy was looking at the truck, asking me questions and looking very official. He ran the tags and loudly announced that the truck wasn’t stolen. OK, thank you Officer Friendly, Tony has watched this whole thing, peace will happen and I can go back inside and decompress.

Later that night, the truck was gone. The next day, the truck owners came over to apologize for upsetting Tony. They told me that they had left it there because they knew it was out of the way, but when they got the note on their door that their truck was upsetting Tony, they rented a tow truck to get it home. We left friends.

So, that is my story about why I care who was parking in front of my house.