AIBU to think people should park outside the house they are visiting?

Have you tried asking these people if they wouldn't mind parking in their friends' drive instead? They may just be being incredibly thoughtless, or they may have some reason for needing to park in the road, though goodness knows what it could be!

Even I don't get to park outside my own house a lot of the time, let alone visitors. I have a couple of times temporarily parked in front of the drive way opposite to unload heavy stuff, but then moved the car straight after.

It doesn't bother me, as I am quite capable of walking down the street. In fact, since they introduced residents parking permission, I feel less worried about parking in front of other houses - I have paid for the right to park on a wider range of nearby streets than I would previously have thought reasonable.

What I do think unreasonable is drivers who leave half car spaces between vehicles. I know it sometimes happens because the neighbours with work vans leave and are replaced by normal cars, though sometimes it is people just parking inconsiderately. But there have been days where you could probably get an extra three or four cars parked on not a very long street, if others just shuffled up a bit.

I really don't know why people care about this. It seems so silly. There's also no point getting worked up about it, because they aren't doing anything wrong.

For context, I don't have a driveway, and sometimes have to park a little bit further away from my house. It's a non-issue. And OP doesn't even have this issue as she just blocks in her own drive, so she's never even having to walk any further.

I park in the first empty spot I happen to see on any street, unless there’s a disabled bay marked out. I’ve never even thought to do anything else or that anyone would care. I don’t care who parks outside my house, sometimes I choose to park around the corner from my own home myself because it’s a quieter street for loading. I generally assume that if being able to park directly outside their front door is a priority for somebody, they choose a house with a driveway.

Truthfully, I think that means you could say something.

You could do the friendly self- deprecating approach to soften it: “Im not great at reversing.” You only need to say do you mind asking them not to park here ( or at least not always) if there are other spots available; obviously it’s fine if there aren’t.

But if you lean on your reversing skills I honestly think that’s not that unreasonable to approach them with. Genuinely awkward is enough of an excuse. If it were impossible you’d have to say something.

It’s not rude and you need to stop letting it annoy you.

Yes we all daydream. For me it’s more about incredibly honest things I would say to people - but never actually do it for fear of hurting their feelings.

For instance I have a friend who can never find anything to wear to something special and it’s because she spends loads on piles of cheap stuff she doesn’t really need for everyday so it all looks worn out and out of shape when it matters. She often complains and part of me thinks I should just say “you would be better not to buy so much cheap tat and save the money to a handful of quality items which would look decent when it came to something formal.” I know this is the problem and it would help her but I just can’t manage it. I’ve hinted, but can’t bring myself to use the wording above!

I know that you are right.

Tbh I am all talk...I would daydream about it and make vague suggestions to DH that I would do this...but would never actually do it in reality. I also suspect many people are the same as me in these scenarios.

@orangeleopard report to council and ask if you are allowed to install those parking posts. It’s a faff but at least you’ll get your space. Can you put up private parking sign? You should just go and park on the closest driveway as nothing they can do about it

Next time, park behind them and block them in. For days.

It's cheeky. It annoys me too. I hate folk parking outside my house when they can park somewhere else.

But even given her batshit logic, it's not occurred to her that a visitor you've invited is not the same as a generic stranger? Nowt so queer as folk.

My first thought from the title was YABU if it’s a public road, but after reading the post I can see where you’re coming from if there’s plenty of space by the houses they’re visiting.

We have issues with our neighbours over the road who think nobody should ever park outside their house and we’ve been yelled at over a car that actually had nothing to do with us just because we have had visitors park there before so they assumed it must be us. It was actually visitors of somebody further up the road but they didn’t believe us! In my mind it’s better to park their side of the road as there is space for three cars whereas outside us you could only fit one and there’s not space for cars both sides. They actually blocked in a car visiting us once by bringing their two cars out of the drive and parking either side as close as possible! So you’re not the only one that gets irritated by cars parking outside your house, but I assume you’re not taking it as far as our neighbours do!

While it’s irritating you, they likely don’t imagine it being a problem. Until I moved to my current house I wouldn’t have imagined people would have such an issue with a person parking legally on a public road…it wouldn’t have entered my head that it might annoy someone!

It would irritate me as well but that would make me unreadonable too.

That's actually mad. She would "hate" a visitor who she'd invited to come over parking outside her door?

Not quite. She hates it when people park outside her door. Generic 'people'. So she thinks she is being polite by not parking outside people's doors. The people she is visiting, that is.

But, yes, actually mad. Because what about the people outside whose door she is parking? "Oh, I don't know them. I can't do anything about that."

Agreed. Christmas is approaching so it will be good to have an idea of what you can do if they park in your space this year.

The problem with that approach is one of two things happens.

Either they don’t even notice you are making a point, in which case the effort is wasted; OR
They do notice, in which case you are outed anyway so it would have been much more grown up and less antagonistic to just say do you mind asking your guest not to always pick our house ( and by then you’ve been guilty of the same thing anyway). I get annoyed by the overuse of passive aggressive on here when used to criticise a low conflict aporoach rather than its proper meaning of trying to provoke in a way that isn’t upfront , but this is a pretty good example of the latter.

That's actually mad. She would "hate" a visitor who she'd invited to come over parking outside her door?