We live on a fairly busy a-road. I have a drive as does the semi next door. The other side is a large house which has no drive, but parking through an alleyway in the road behind. In the big house there's a woman who has a toddler and a baby and gets cabs everywhere. She gets two cabs a day at least and always gets them to pull over half on the pavement while she unloads. I used to say hi to her but she blanks me and the other neighbour and is generally unfriendly, normally eye-balling out the window if we dare to sit in the garden after 7pm when her kids sleep etc.
Someone else mentioned she's taken to using my drive for her cabs. Last night I came home earlier than normal and she was on my drive unloading her million and one flashy items she can't leave the house without stuff. It's dark, a busy a-road and I can't get onto my drive with traffic piling up because she's on it, getting beeped at etc with my own huge bump and toddler in the car as people come up fast behind us. I lost my rag a bit, she didn't even speed up a bit when she saw me arrive. I told her to get off my property and told her she had a right cheek (didn't shout or swear, kids present but angry tone and ranty until she'd moved as told).
Her husband this morning just came out to tell me I was 'unneighbourly' as I put out the bins. He argued she has small children and it's difficult unloading them outside their house, said I should appreciate the difficultly as I'm a mum too. I pointed out:
- She could drive around the corner and walk back. Walking a short distance wouldn't kill her, she'd just have to unfold the buggy rather than carry it. Pulling over on the next road or in her alleyway is safer (though it's still difficult to turn a car round there)
- If she'd had the manners to ASK me about using the drive I'd probably say yes, and tell her the hours we work that it would be ok to use it
- They had the children when they bought the house. It's a huge house in a lovely area and they chose the big front garden over a driveway.
He just replied it was 'unchristian' of me, and he saw me going to church on Sundays. Also pointed out me and other neighbour always use each other's drives/ front gardens for access/ visitors freely. (Other neighbourly are great, the type who always say hi and pop out to help you if they see you doing heavy gardening etc or mow our side of the shared lawn. plus they have the common sense not to actually block access to the drive but park on the shared lawn in between us)
I'm fuming a bit now at them. They think they can access other's property as a bloody right without having to give anything back in terms of basic manners. They'd been there nearly a year and this is the first conversation I'm had with either of them.
