Tonight is the fucking coldest night of the year so far. The temperature right now is -11, and the the low for tonight is -16. You, the fucking asshole decided that it’s okay to park in my (underground, heated, paid for) parking spot! Who the fuck do you think you are?? Now my car is stuck outside in the fucking arctic temperatures when I have every fucking right to have it parked in the fucking garage! Ugh, you asshole douchebag fuckface!!
I hope the garage door falls on your car when you leave tomorrow. Oh, and I hope you scrape your door on the concrete when you back out. Jackass.
UGH!!
It may well be. I’m not sure who has to do the calling though, you or the complex manager? Is there an after hours number you might be able to contact? They might oblige you, but I don’t know them I say be careful not to annoy.
Well, I put a note on the car telling them to move it or it will be towed. I’m too tired now to do anything about it. If it’s still there when I get up tomorrow, I will contact the manager. I know last night the car that was parked next to me didn’t belong there, and it had a note on it from the person that usually parks there. I probably will let the complex manager know either way, because it may need to be addressed.
I get disproportionately angry at car-park thieves. More than once I’ve found myself glaring at the car and thinking “I hope you DIE” and then thinking “Whoa. I’m pretty fucking crazy.” I have elaborate fantasies of breaking their windows and keying the car; what I actually do is leave pissy little notes telling them to move their car or they will be towed. The towing turns out to be an empty threat - my fiance called the tow company and they said it was a police matter, so he called the police who said they couldn’t do anything about it because it was private property. We’ll be bringing it up at the body corporate meeting this year.
Because I shouldn’t have to move the car every two hours on the street, and you shouldn’t have to scrape the ice off your windscreen in the morning, and neither of us should have our cars at increased risk of break-in or damage because some selfish fuckers decided they were entitled to a convenient parking spot at the expense of the owners of that spot.
What I (and a couple of others in the garage) have done is put signs on the parking spot that say “This is a private car park belonging to XXX. Any unauthorised vehicles in our spot will be towed without notice.” Even though we can’t actually tow anyone we figure parking lot thieves won’t know that. If you live in a small building the other thing you can do when you’re not tired is to knock on the doors of all the apartments, because it’s usually a visitor. Alternatively is your garage big enough that you can park them in without blocking anyone else?
See, that’s what I was wondering. When the police said “It’s private property” what they meant is the manager/owner of the whole place is the one who has to call to have the unauthorized car towed, not merely the person renting the parking space. Maybe there are places though, where the car can be towed if the person presents proof that the space is paid for by them? It would be nice, and even nicer if it were an idea that spread, eh?
What Zabali Clawbane said. I don’t know about Nipples and Sinpol, but in California, if there’s assigned parking in the complex (and if it’s posted as such), it by-god is perfectly legal to have an unauthorized car towed. That said, as Zabali points out, it has to be someone who represents the owner of the property who sends for the truck.
Call the manager NOW and leave a message. Tell them that a car is parked in your spot has been there since you got home X hours ago. Also leave in the message, your name and contact number, which spot it is, make/model/color of the car and the licence plate number. If you left a note on the car, I would suggest removing it if you call the manager. If the car is still there in the morning and it becomes a police issue, you really don’t want some jackass claiming you futzed with their car. Then if the car is still there in the morning, leave another message and hell, call the emergency number. If it’s late enough in the morning, you won’t be waking anyone up and they can probably call the police and have the car removed. But, again, I would call NOW, so when you call in the morning and they say "Oh, just give it a little while maybe the person just ran inside for a minute, you can tell them (and have proof) that the car has been their all night. Remind them that you paid for that spot, and you had to walk outside in the freezing cold to get back inside.
Well, if someone enters my rented house without authorization, i don’t need the owner’s permission to call the cops and have them removed. I wonder how property laws apply in cases like a car parking spot.
What you should do, to help prevent future instances, is ask the owners or management company of your building to contact a tow company and see if they are willing to have an exclusive contract to tow unauthorized cars from your lot.
A few private car parks around here have similar arrangements, and the tow company puts up a sign in the parking lot that says something like:
Private Property. No parking.
Unauthorized vehicles will be towed
at owner’s expense to:
Bob Smith Towing
123 Fake Street
213-555-1234
A friend of mine lived in one of these apartments, and rented one of the parking spaces. The apartment owners gave her a ticket to place in her car so the tow company would know that it was authorized to be there. The tow company would actually come by the lot from time to time, because they had been authorized by the owner to tow any car without a ticket.
This was an outdoor lot, though. If your underground, heated lot is also locked, then it would be hard for the tow company to keep an eye on it.
Oops I probably should have mentioned that I’m in Australia and the rules are very likely different here. We do own our spot (75% of it and counting …) but the police said it didn’t make any difference, and they couldn’t tow from a private carpark. AFAIK they did send a warning letter to the address the car was registered to, but fat lot of good that did us.
Here’s what I did when arseholes parked on my drive: I parked in front of them, blocking them in. The were likely visiting the brothel across the road. Sure enough within half an hour there’d be a tremendous tooting of the horn and I’d calmly walk out, can of cider in hand, and explain that they were on my land and that as I’d been drinking, no, I could not move my car.
My Wife is a triathlete. This means that we get to races very early and there are people that guide you, tell you where to park. This is often in an open field. We all comply.
I works like this. Pull in, they tell you to stop with enough room to get out in front of you. Then someone pulls in behind you with enough room to pull out behind you. Effectively making a series of rows like a regular parking lot.
Later in the day, people come to see the finish of the race. And park either in front of, or behind you. I’ve been blocked in three times now (once was a different occasion, our wedding).
WTF. I don’t have a hover car. I do have a 2 and a half ton 4x4 though. It’s just so, so tempting to push that little Audi out of the way……
Is there some sort of law against this? Denying me the use of my vehicle?
Go to a local print shop and have some large gummed labels, printed black on florescent orange, made up that say something along the lines of
Slap one of them on the windshield, right in the line of sight of the driver. Ditto for the window on the driver’s door, in the line of sight between the driver and the rear view mirror. It’s up to you if you want to put on on the rear window or anywhere else.
My friend suggested I park behind them and block them in, but the garage is too small, and I would have blocked a bunch of other people in. I’m pretty sure they would have frowned upon that. If there was a way to do it, I would have!
Anyway, the car was moved, so my car is snug and warm in #75. The management office is closed today, so I will go tomorrow and talk to them, and see what my options are if this happens in the future.
Normally I don’t get pissed off that easily, but you don’t mess with ma car!
The offiice should have the license numbers for all the vehicles owned by tenants. If you still remeber it or wrote it down, I would suggest giving it to the people at the office, filing a complaint with them and asking them to contact the offender with a warning.
I also would have keyed the shit out of the car and maybe slashed the tires, but I’m a very small person.
This is exactly what my building manager has done. No one has used our car parking space since.
It’s not that I cared that neighbours’ were parking in my space, it was the pissy notes we got on the wind shield when we had to park elsewhere that pissed me off.