You f-ing jerk! re: parking. I'm really mad.

The BBQ Pit
21

You don’t have to be apologetic for being bothered by the abridgement of your rights regarding you car. Especially when those rights have cost you money. Also, don’t listen to those who’ve advocated (even tongue-in-cheek) doing anything to the offender’s car. That’d be really inconvenient for you then.

What’s wrong with people and parking? Last night, I was parked in the last spot before the bus stop begins at exactly the line. (You can tell exactly because the bus stop is marked (in addition to the signs) by an inlaid strip of concrete (as opposed to macadam(?).)

Some foosball decides to park in the bus stop but, I guess in order to make it less obvious he’s in the bus stop, backs all the way up over my bumper and stops against my hood! I have a low-slung car and their rear was quite high.

The fuck!

22

Don’t get me started on the parking assholes of the world. I have a paid spot in an open lot. Unfortunately, we share the lot with several health professional businesses as well. Patients don’t think twice about parking in my reserved (clearly marked) spot.

I’ve been nice, I’ve yelled, I’ve screamed. It doesn’t matter, most of the time the response I get back is “Oh relax, I wasn’t here THAT long”. Fuck off asshole because I AM the type to key your fucking car.

I like the print shop idea and will look for one. I have googled these sticky signs and they cost quite a bit of $.

23

I love this! :cool:

When some jerk was parking in my parking space at my last apartment, I left notes on their car and got the complex management involved (I think if it had happened one more time, they were going to have the car towed). I also thought dark thoughts toward them, hoping something bad would happen to them or their car. A couple of months later, somebody slammed into that car as it was coming out of the garage.

24

I must confess that I did lose my temper once a few years ago when this happened to me, in a car park at our local railway station.

I’d been to my best friend’s mother’s funeral two hours away by train, and the ticket seller had helpfully offered to sell me a cheaper ticket when I asked for a ticket to my destination - the only thing he didn’t tell me was that the route he gave me didn’t actually go where I needed to go, so I ended up walking into a funeral 45 minutes late.

Then I got back just in time to go and pick up my kids from school and kindergarten about 10km from the station, with no more money in my wallet for a taxi, as I’d used it all up on a taxi from the wrong station I’d had to get out at thanks to the “helpful” discount ticket I’d been sold.

When I got to the car park, it was snowing, I had high heels and a black dress on, no heavy coat, no money, no cell phone to call the schools to beg a teacher to take the kids, no bank or ATM within walking distance, no time and no patience left. (And my husband was four hours away too…) I was at the end of my tether. I went into the station to ask for help but they told me that the land was not theirs and it was none of their business. The car blocking me in was a little light thing, and they had parked about a foot too tight in a row of three, where the rule is that that you only make rows of two.

I had a roll of sticky paper tape in my car and a marker. I was so angry that I did tape up his window and write “DO NOT BLOCK PEOPLE IN!!!” on it. Then there was nothing for it but to shove him out of the way, because as it was a railway station car park the jerk was probably gone till late that night. (I did wait about 45 minutes but then there simply was no time left.)

My car at the time was a 15 year old MPV, three months before it was going to be sold. The blocking-in car was one of those little plastic runabout things. It didn’t take much to nudge him out of the way but it did scratch his car all down the side. My car also had a smudge of his paint on it but I didn’t care one jot.

My dander was up for the rest of the night, but the next morning and for the next few days I was worried that someone might have seen me, and reported me, or that I’d have an irate owner on my doorstep (unlikely as we lived a good distance from the station and I could have come from anywhere in a large country district, but still…)

I do feel a bit bad about it now but I still don’t know what I could have done to get out of the situation any other way, and he had deliberately blocked me in. So tough.

25

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to put sticky signs on people’s car. Just print some signs on your home printer, and stick them on the windshield with glue.

When i was first in university, i lived for a year in a college. The college, in the Australian university system, is sort of a dorm arrangement, but partly independent of the university, with its own governance.

Anyway, our college had its own outdoor parking lot, and sometimes outsiders used to park there. The first time it happened, we would leave a polite note under the windscreen wipers, and record the license plate of the offender.

If that same car came back again, they got the note again. But this time, we pasted it to their windshield (and sometimes also to side or back windows) using glue. The type of glue we used would eventually come off with a lot of scrubbing, and without damaging the glass, but it was not something that a person could easily remove in a rush before leaving the carpark. And we always pasted the note right in the driver’s line of sight.

And if, after that, the same car appeared in the lot again, they got the glue treatment, and all four tires deflated. That only happened a few times, and no-one ever tried returning for a fourth time.

26

You could also include a notice from this handy website. There isn’t a specific one for stealing a private space so you’ll just have to go with the generic notice.

I love that picture so much.

27

Haha, that’s amazing. It would be handy to put on someone’s car, but I’m not sure I would be able to stop laughing while doing it.

28

I hate this. We just bought a condo, which has a deeded parking space. Several times, other cars have been parked there. There is free two-hour parking across the street, and paid parking a couple of blocks away (but your parking ticket for that place expires at midnight, so there’s no overnight parking). So when someone parks in our spot, we really are fucked. And it’s our space that we paid money for; we own that parking space. Assholes. I’m wondering, in light of this thread, if I can get the car towed, since (1) it’s a private lot, but (2) I own the parking space. I need to give the building manager a holler.

29

What the hell, I’ll tell my annoying parking story.
A few years ago while I was in college, I was living in Racine, WI. I lived on the outskirts of downtown. On my side of the street was houses (duplexes) with normal street parking. Across the street from me was businesses, with meters. So every day when I get home from school, naturally my side of the block was filled with cars (for people working across the street), and I had to park on the otherside and plug the meter every few hours until 6. I really really wish my side of the block was permit parking only. It always bugged me that I lived there, but I had to pay to park, while the people that worked and patronized the business across the street got free parking all day. But there was nothing I could do about that.

As for a sticker, or keying cars, here’s something I leared here, that’s much harder to get caught doing, doesn’t damage the car, and is just as satisfying. Spit on the car. Everytime I have someone parked so close I have to climb in from the other side. Or someone parked in two spots* in a busy lot, they get a big wad of spit right on the driver side window or on the windshield. Makes me feel better. Just don’t get caught doing it.

*I really don’t mind if someone takes two spots, but if they’re that worried about thier car being bumped, park in two spots way in the back of the lot where you won’t bother other people.

30

Hijacking slightly, as a pedestrian I always got annoyed at drivers who park in crosswalks. My usual response was to “adjust” the side mirrors. I figure if they can inconvenience me, I can return the favor.

31

I pay for a spot in a city owned garage across from where I work. I have had 2 people ticketed for parking in my spot. It’s only a $25 dollar fine though. I wish it was more. The second time it happened, I called the Parking Authority and before I could say anything, I was told “we can’t have them towed”. I just wanted it ticketed and didn’t think to ask why the city parking authority can’t have a car towed from a city owned garage. Probably fear of lawsuits.

32

I ran a hotel many years ago across the street from the VA Medical Center. Wednesday was trash dumpster pickup day. A lady in a “K” car would park directly in front of our dumpster every Wednesday despite the fact that the curb and street were clearly marked in yellow paint and signs were on BOTH sides of the dumpster. She couldn’t spend the 35 cents it took to park in the parking garage. The cops wouldn’t tow the car or even speak to the lady because she was a volunteer at the med center. :confused:

After a couple of weeks, the trash was piled up and stinking; the city refused to schedule an additional pick up. The next Wednesday, I waited in my truck for her to show up and park. As soon as she walked around the corner, I hooked a chain to her rear axle and pulled her car out into the street straddling the center line. I did NOT cause any damage to her car whatsoever. I left it there and within 2 hours the cops had to tow it; traffic on that street was blocked in both directions. She never came back.

I’ve often wondered how many 35 cent parking fees would she have to have paid to match the tow bill.

33

Just make sure there’s a sign that tells visitors what’s up. Some parking garages number all their spaces and some only number the “public” ones. (Reserved ones are marked “reserved.”)

34

Dangerous move, cedman. I never would have advised it.

Rather, I might have placed my own vehicle there (or myself), and explained the situation to her without allowing her to actually park her car there.

I mean, couldn’t she say that you broke the law by stealing her car and moving it a short distance? Plus endangering the people who attempted to drive past it? Not worth it, dude.

You were lucky. If the company can’t get it done, you have no right to do it yourself. None at all.

35

Oh hell, I love what he did. Every single person that I have confronted regarding my space KNOWS what they did is wrong. The lady in cedman’s story most likely knew it as well and deserves what she got.

Years ago, my ex husband had a spot in a single garage. The street directly in front stated “No Parking Active driveway”. It still didn’t stop one asshole from parking there 3 nights in a row. The first night, ex DH left a polite note. The second night, he left a nasty note. The third night, he gathered some friends and they moved the car to the middle of the street. Asshole never parked there again.

Unfortunately, cops and property owners seem to wimp out when it comes to this type of thing. I would love it if my landlord actually DID what the signs in our lot state and tow cars that park in reserved spots. But he won’t and it seems that the signs are all for show. I’m going to do the signs and glue thing and enjoy it.

36

If you do call and have that hated occupier towed–beware:

I once had somebody towed from my parking spot. Two days later, walking to my car for a drive to a cross-country event, I found my car was covered with food products. I was mad, but refused to clean my '76 Fiat 128 POS of the affliction.

I note that every car I passed resulted in looks of surprise and laughter as pieces of chicken breasts and tortillas flew off of the car for the next five miles.

37

Many years ago, I lived in a fairly large apartment complex. Each apartment had a designated parking space that was marked with the apartment number. If you had more than one car, there were visitor spaces and a few extra unmarked spaces, so there wasn’t usually much of a problem. Occasionally, you would come home to find someone parked in your space, but often there was an empty visitor space available.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t always a free space available, and sometimes you would find a car from a “visitor” parked in your space. Repeatedly. Even after leaving a friendly reminder that they shouldn’t be parking there.

A couple of friendly guys in one of the nearby apartments had an interesting remedy. One of them was a mechanic at a nearby car dealer and had a rolling floor jack that he modified with larger wheels so that it would easily roll with a load on it in the asphalt parking lot. If their light was on, all you had to do was go over, knock on the door, and a couple of guys would come out, roll the jack under the offending car, jack it up on the end with the driving wheels, roll and push the car over to a fairly open area of the parking lot (it was pretty wide, so you could almost park a car in the middle and still get around it), and set it back down. Alarms weren’t that common back then, so it was usuallya smooth, quiet operation.

A couple of really bad repeat offenders had their cars moved slightly downhill and left in the parking space reserved for the manager of the apartment complex, who wasn’t amused if he found the car there in the morning.

Not surprisingly, these guys were very popular and well liked by the apartment dwellers around them and were always invited over for BBQs and beers :smiley:

38

I couple drops of hunter’s skunk scent on the side wall of the tires, is good payback. They won’t know they didn’t hit a skunk. Make sure it’s on the sidewall so the scent doesn’t get on your cement when they leave.