Friendly neighbourhood dispute

[Frizbe]

So I get home tonight, to find a chap from a house on our close standing on the doorstep, having just rung our bell. He says 'can you move your van, its causing people to drive over our cobbles' I say in shock 'oh yes, of course, its only there, because woman over the roads daughter will block the road with her mamouth 4x4 if we park further back, and I shout back to dh who'se unloading dd2 to shift his van' bloke says ok and leaves. We get into house, dh goes and moves the van back half a cars/vans length. We then ponder our actions......

Our garden is being dug up and turned into somewhere to park, so yes I can understand if people are upset with dh's van on the road for about 3 mths now, but they can see work is in progress, aided and abetted by rain etc. The van is parked legally on the road, and is 2 large car lengths away from this blokes front, its not even the bloomin house directly in front of where dh is parking??? the people infront manage to get their own car and van on quite happily as do the people in the corner who also share a garage with the lady whose house we park infront of......I can't see any of them needing to swing onto this blokes driveway, as there is literally loads of room?????

Was quite tempted to knock on my way home from the gym and point out he's parked on his cobbles, which might be upsetting them?

So am I being unreasonable???? Will also have to go and see old lady over road tomorrow, as I know she's going to ask me to move van further back, so her daughter has somewhere to park, so no doubt he'll be round asking her or her daughter to move their vehicle instead

[poppy34]

yanbu -sounds like this bloke has a bit of fetish going on. There are no accounting for neighbours.. I'm just glad ours have stopped going on with their obsession that if we switched our hall light on it "woke them all up"

[Frizbe]

Hall light woke them up, jeez, this guy is tame in comparison

[meridian]

frizbe-- I'll make you some cookies tommrow... make it all better... I'll even burn some so you can throw them at your neighbor!

[laundrylover]

Friz, this thread made me giggle. Have you calmed down now? YA def NBU but it's not worth getting het up about eh? You'll always have a mad neighbour methinks, although, ours both seem pretty sane....so far.

[dingdong05]

At least it will all be over once you get the building work finished. I don't think you are BU, but it may not be worth kicking up a pong if it's going to be resolved soon anyway. Bad feeling will live on in some people...
Your description reminds me of those kids picture slider games...

[MummyPenguin]

Our neighbours across the road have three cars, the family car, his work van and their DD's car. They only have room in front of their house (on a small drive area) to park one of their vehicles which is usually the work van. They seem to go out of their way to park all three vehicles as close to their front door as possible. I think laziness plays a part here, they can't be arsed to walk a little way up the road if their vehicles were more spread out. Anyway, a little while ago, I was looking out my front window and I saw the woman across the road come out of her house, knock on their next door neighbour but one's door and ask him to move his car so that they could park their family car in his space so that it was nearer to their house. Ye Gods he did it!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing, she had the nerve to ask her neighbour to move his own car so that they could park one of theirs in his space. Even more staggeringly he did! He went and moved his car further up the road freeing up his space for the other family's car! Once he'd parked it, he got out, went back to his house, she was trying to make conversation with him but he went in and slammed his front door without speaking to her. But why move for them? I would have told them where to go. All the while, Mr three cars was hovering in the middle of the road in the family car, blocking the road, waiting for his wife to get the neighbour out of his house to tell him to move his car out of the space in front of his house so that they could park there. Madness.

[Nymphadora]

My next door neighbour asked my bf to move his car from outside her house as it was too heavy , now it is a dark colour and a 4X4 (yes he does use it off road ) BUT it is only parked there at night (7-6 ish) as when he comes in the day it is always full and he parks across the road by the pub!

[chrissnow]

We have similar problems in our street. More cars than space so its always a race to park (I always lose seeing as I work nights so everybody has parked by the time I get back from work - cue me walking back from the top of the street at stupid O'Clock in the morning) One family on our street has 2 vans 2 cars (and 1 extra if son comes to stay for a while) Strangely have no problem with them really as a) They're really really nice people and b) they are all good drivers who manouver their fleet so as to take up as little room as poss. Who really gets our goat is the one guy who cannot park and always takes up about 3 spaces and if he hasn't been able to get his favourite spot he actually stands in his kitchen and watches for someone to move and then flies out the house and moves his car (saddo!!) Its just an accepted fact in our street by everyone else. There's not enough space so its a lottery and good luck to all. Everyone is always happy to move if we need to unload babies/bags/clean car etc. and we then just swap back to how we are. I think we are lucky though.

[LadyVictorianSqualor]

Oh Gosh please dont get me started on parking. In our old house we had a small car park behind the houses and sme lad whose GF lived in a one bedroom flat near our two bed house tried telling us we didnt have a parking space but they ahd two........hmmm....yes I'm sure that's how it works.
We got so fed up we downloaded the land registry for each house in our street.
Also one guy who lived in an adjacent house and had a parking space in front of his house used to use one of the spaces out the back that actually belonged to three houses in the cul-de-sac.

[captainmummy]

Hi VictorianSqualor - you're a Lady now???

[LadyVictorianSqualor]

Ha, not really, I doubt I'll ever be a lady

[cornsilk]

I'm strangely enjoying reading about other people's loony neighbours!

[Nymphadora]

Stupid thing here is there is loads of room as loads of my neighbours hae no car and we live opposite a pub with loads of space round it for parking & its own car park (but everyone walks there anyway) so there shouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't have minded if my neighbour had said it was because she was going out and couldn't walk too far to car etc but she said specifically it was his car she objected too

[Fimbo]

I dislike people parking outside my front door. . I have put plant pots there now to stop it.

My neighbour has room for 2 cars on his carport/driveway thing and had 7 extra cars round at his one day, which took up the whole street. My other neighbour cannot park in his driveway (again like a carport affair) as he is frightened he is going to knock his car and so is his wife. So they park outside their front door and come and go at all hours of the day and night banging car doors (they are both doctors).

I am the Victor Meldrew of my street

[Frizbe]

at your stories girls, making me feel better already! I've chilled out a bit, although I can't for the life of me, in broad daylight see how me moving the van is going to stop anyone driving over his cobbles? they're up his friggin driveway!madness Oh and yes, cookies would be lovely Meridian

[sb6699]

If a car has road tax and is legally parked, it irks me that people are annoyed at them being parked outside their houses. If it is a public road, people can park where they like.

Outside my house, inbetween driveway entrances there is enough room for 2 cars parked back to back. One night there was 2 already parked outside my house, so parked at the next available space and came out the next morning to a note saying "Do not park here again".

I was out shopping when I went into labour and came home, parked in the same space but hadn't left enough room for another car. Grabbed hospital bag and came out with dh less than 15 minutes later to a note from the same person saying "You are selfish and irresponsible not leaving enough room for another car, we had to park 15 yards down the road".

These people live 2 doors away from me so I assume they realised I was heavily pregnant. Of course they didn't realise the exact circumstances but who do they think they are namecalling one of their neighbours for something so trivial. Won't divulge what was in the note I put on their car .

[VictorianSqualor]

That's partly what annoyed me when it was happening to us thoguh, it wasnt the road, it wasnt a public car park it was allocated parking spaces that peopel actually owned, our landlord owned the land our parking space was on

[frisbyrat]

Ooh, frizbe.
Have never come across you before, but you are clearly an oldtimer compared to me, and I know that mn etiquette requires me to enquire: would you like me to change my name? Or is it far enough removed not to be a problem?

[bitofadramaqueen]

Oh, can I join in with parking complaints. There is loads of parking on our street. One side of the street (which we live on) has houses with driveways. Other side has flats with room for several cars to park off the road (and it is never never full).

Someone has taken to parking outside the flats on the road directly opposite our driveway which makes it nearly impossible to get in the driveway.

My neighbour at the end of the street has a garage and a driveway but still parks one of their cars outside their house right on the corner (no highway code in their house). Its a small estate with narrow roads and tight corners so when cars park on the corner it causes no end of problems.

The neighbour and the chap from the flat could both use vacant car parking spaces but choose to block the road (and other driveways instead) grrrrr.

Ooh, had a rubbish morning so it felt quite good to get that rant out

[sb6699]

Oooh, and another one.

When my dh worked away from home he rented a room in a house where there was 2 spaces directly outside. He came home from nightshift and parked in one of them.

Got up that evening to go to work, went outside and the neighbour had deliberately blocked in his car despite there being several other spaces in the street.

My dh politely knocked on his door and asked if he could move his car so he could get to work. The guy started ranting and raving about how he had parked there for 10 years and my dh had no right to be there. My dh calmly explained it was a public road with no allocated parking but he would bear in mind the fact that the chap preferred this space in future and if possible would park somewhere else. Chap still totally refused to come out and move his car.

In the end my dh had to threaten to get the police to tow his car away if he didn't let him out.

[bitofadramaqueen]

My p's have loads of parking issues. My mum goes to work at the crack of dawn and got the police out a couple of times to someone who was blocking her in at 4.30am. He's not done it for a while...

[Frizbe]

frisbyrat you're fine to keep your name

[Fimbo]

My new neighbour is a paramedic and has just turned up in her ambulance with the guy she is working with and gone to her house.

Should I report her

[VictorianSqualor]

Fimbo, the person that kept parking in our space was a copper, and turned up every so often with a riot van which he would also park alongside the houses so no-one could get out of the car park, he wasn't a very reasonable man actually!

[bitofadramaqueen]

Lets hope no-one needs an ambulance round your way Fimbo.