The only times I ever had a problem with it is if it was parked in front of, or very close to, the mailbox (presumably, a mail delivery can be skipped if access to the box is blocked by a car; I don’t think parking in front of someone’s own mailbox is illegal) or they overlap the edge of the driveway slightly (I used to live on the side of a hill, and my downslope neighbor kept a hedge along the entire property line that made it very hard to see cars coming up the hill until the rear of the car was already in the street, especially if I had to pull out on the downslope side of the driveway because the other side had a car blocking it).
Well, as the starter of this thread those many years ago, I’d say no it’s not right to cheat on your spouse.
I will also go out on a limb and say that parking your car legally is not the same thing as cheating on your spouse. Please bear with me as I try to make my case: cheating on your spouse is a dishonest act that can cause emotional harm to another person, while parking your car legally is not that.
ETA: this is easily the longest thread (in replies and time) that I have ever started.
The most likely or reasonable reason, if they don’t have a driveway, is simply that you’re parking where they usually park. During one winter season, I would spend 15 minutes digging my car out before driving to work each day and would return after my work shift only to find one of my neighbor’s cars parked in the spot that I had cleared.
What I had envisioned in the original OP was a scenario where the homeowner has a driveway, but still gets upset when someone parked in front of his/her house. The homeowner doesn’t need the parking space, so why get upset?
That depends. Did you go thru a big ceremony where you invited your friends and family over and promised your neighbor that for richer, for poorer, in good times and bad, you would never park in front of their house? Because then, even if it’s legal, it’s bad because you’re breaking your word.
We went thru this whole problem last winter. My one neighbor and I have to share a driveway.
TL;DR version: He would put stickie notes on the windshield of my visitors’ cars if they would park in the driveway for more than 2 minutes. But his 4 daughters and their many children and visitors would park their cars in the shared driveway blocking our way for ages.
If I would go to his door and ask to have them move please, they would get p/a and take sooo looooonnnngggg to move the cars. Same thing for the parking spaces in front of the house: sometimes the workmen need to have direct access to the front of the house without walking and dragging their equipment from far down the block. Its just common courtesy to park in front of your own house and direct your visitors to park there too.
It depends on where you live. Some places have ordinances/laws/rules that you can’t part on the street over night, even though this isn’t enforced. The other thing is it’s just courtesy. In another neighborhood we had a guy who lived down the street who would park his car in front of our house all the time. He did this because he wanted to leave the space open in front of his house if someone came to visit him. It’s rude, what about our house we have visitors and why should they park further away. Why does he feel he is entitled to this special treatment, it’s annoying to see someone else’s car in front of your house for no good reason when they never park in front of their own house and they have a freaking driveway which they don’t park in. So he could be even more of a jerk, he would start his noise car at 5 AM every morning and let the engine idle for a long time and rev it before he would leave for work. If he was doing this in his own driveway down the street we wouldn’t have heard it and have it wake us up.
These problems always seem minor and silly to someone else unless they are experiencing them. They laugh at them and think it’s so funny, it’s not. We couldn’t wait to move out of that neighborhood.
Yes, I agree. When someone comes to visit I tell them where to park. We have a large driveway so I tell them to pull in and don’t park on the street because they may park in front of someone else’s house. Furthermore, the streets are narrow and people riding bikes and walking it gets in the way. During the winter months it’s best to keep the street clear cause you never know when they are coming to plow.
Now that I live along a rural road this would upset me as it would increase the likelihood that there would an accident in my front yard. The cars which travel along the road in front of my home always break the speed limit and eventually one would plow into a car parked in front of my house.
When I lived in the city the only two times that I can remember this bothering me ( as there was alternate side parking required for street cleaning anyway so I always parked on the opposite side of where it was going to be swept) were when:
[ol]
[li]I had just shoveled snow to make a space for my own car and some a-hole pulled his car into the spot. We had words and I strongly suggested that he didn’t leave his vehicle there. (He didn’t)[/li][li]When a guy my cousin knew wanted to hide his car in front of my house so that it wouldn’t get repoed. He then asked me to “keep an eye on it” and I flatly refused as I wasn’t going to get into his BS.[/li][/ol]
Other than that, it wouldn’t bother me.
Previous across-the-street neighbor in my nice, quiet suburban neighborhood had 3 people living in the house and 5 cars. Plus a gigantic RV and a boat and trailer. Only one car at a time was ever parked in their driveway. This meant all of the others (except for the RV and boat, which only showed up occasionally for re-provisioning) had to park in the street.
I didn’t usually have a problem, unless I needed to run the sprinkler, which meant water all over their car, and I hesitated to do that.
I did miss having any kind of view out my front windows. All I could see was a lineup of cars and trucks. I just got used to using the back yard and did very little with the front.
On snowy days, the snow plows had to swing out around their cars and swoop back into the curb, causing enormous pileups of snow at the end of my driveway.
The worst part was watching them scamper out of their house, jump in their car and drive away, while I shoveled myself out. For that, I hated them. I was happy when they lost their house to foreclosure and had to move away.
In principle it doesn’t bother me. In practice, I get annoyed because:
- More difficult to mow the lawn, or use the lawn in general
- If it’s near the basketball hoop, I couldn’t play
- I couldn’t park there myself
- Blocked mailbox
- Ugly car
- They get mad at me for whatever incidental damage occurs while they’re parked there.
This ^
Ask me if it’s OK to park in front of my house. Shoot, if you’re broken down I’ll do everything I can to help, including pushing your car off the road into my drive if necessary. In some cases I might be able to get you fixed and going again.
Out of curiosity, did you ever ask him?
I live 1/2 mile from a college. By 8am narly every street in the neighborhood is clogged with cars. I sometimes have to park 3 blocks away. It does get aggravating. The college has plenty of parking but the students don’t want to buy a permit.
Yeah I love how the neighbours know that its better to not park in front of their own house, because that kills the grass and lets the leaves/debris/snow collect…
A street I know has a parking which is
“No parking 5am to 6am Friday”.
I can only assume this was to allow cleaning (perhaps the weekly bin collection , or perhaps the weekly street sweeping ?).