Why do some people think that they own the road outside their homes?

I've got a neighbour like this, he knocks on everyone's doors to find the person who has parked perfectly legally outside his home.

However, last night I came home after a 12 hour day to find huge vans parked either side of my drop kerb and right up to the drop and directly across the street, the street is quite narrow meaning it was hard to park on my drive. To say I was furious is an understatement. They did move eventually and I was able to park. Whilst I quietly seethed, I didn't say anything due to not wanting to look a complete twat. 😂

This is purely an emotive response because YES you’re ‘entitled’ to park there and no I don’t own it but…

It’s really fucking annoying!!!!!!!!

We have on street parking because we can’t afford a house around here that has a driveway or garage (they’re either semi detached or detached and cost a fortune). And with a toddler, having to park 3 roads away in the rain because somebody has decided to park on our very cramped road to avoid paying for the car park is insanely irritating.

They also park really inconsiderately, right in the middle of space for 2 cars.

Our cul de sac is made up of (like many new build estate) private roads, you can tell ours when it changes from tarmac to block paving, leads to 4 houses. I wouldn't mind people turning their cars around quickly (so long as carefully as kids usually around) but people walk onto our property and literally wonder down the side of our house to either short cut across the nature reservation opposite our house, or to get a close up look, that annoys me! I'm not sure if anyone has successfully managed to park because I think our neighbour's husband literally stands in the window keeping guard 😂

I have a neighbour like this. He goes out and keys people’s cars. If I ever actually get video footage of him doing it I will report him to the police. I had a young girl crying on the street “some one” had badly keyed her car. She had only had it a few days and she was parked perfectly legally and not blocking anyone

I moved from a road like this.

It was a road, not a cul-de-sac, but some of the people had been there since the houses were built and they were the ones who did it. No one else cared but my NDN (who wasn't quite as bad but had also bought the house at that time and so was included in the conversations) said that some of them felt they were the custodians of the road or that it was 'their' road because of this.

There had apparently been a 'conversation' when one of the families bought a caravan and kept it on their driveways for holidays over the summer in case it lowered the house prices (it didn't). There was a similar conversation when a Muslim family moved in to the road (that didn't lower the house prices as feared either). No one else cared about either, obviously.

Most of the houses had driveways for 2 cars so residents rarely parked on the road but mine only had room for one. It was a wide enough road to not cause problems but I had comments from the neighbours about visitors who parked on the road outside my house. They didn't like cars they didn't recognise stopping on the road.

Eg after we split up, my exh changed his car and had a passing neighbour approach the car telling him he couldn't park on the road outside my house (when he came to pick up/drop off the children) because he didn't recognise the car. When he changed the car again a few years later, I was asked who was parking frequently outside my house because it was a car they didn't recognise - "We've noticed a different blue car has started parking outside your house a couple of times a week..."

I was also asked once about who was visiting my house because they had seen two different men visit in a week and they didn't want "that sort of thing" going on in their road (one was my boyfriend and one was my friend's husband).

Eventually, I came to realise that these people also had an issue with a single parent living on their road and that they were making my whole life their business. I'm pretty sure my life wasn't half as interesting or salacious as they imagined!

But yes, there really are people who behave like this.

My DH is a bit of a curtain twitcher about parking, but he doesn't actually go out and say anything (I would never let him live it down !). There's a lot of it on our road as parking is a nightmare. I've had several people give me grief. I just laugh usually

It also always makes me smile when I see those 'NO TURNING' signs on cul de sacs. What are you going to do, call the police?

There’s a woman near a school who has not paid to drop her curb, yet she mounts the curb and drives over the pavement to park next to her house. If anyone parks outside her house, and traps her car in, she plays merry hell. When the police have been called they tell people not to block her car in, so not to park there, even though they are parking legally.

I've had this and just told them I was legally parked and they can jog on.

This is a different issue though if they're blocking you in which is inconsiderate at best. OP is talking about parking just outside a house on the pavement not blocking anyone. And you, OP you're right it's weird and annoying people get so weird about it

The fact is though you don't have any right to that turning space. Residential driveways aren't really suited to parking big trades vans on the drive and you can't assume a certain amount of space will always be guaranteed outside your property to be able to maneuver a big vehicle, it's just something you have to accept. People can park there legally.

People are by nature extremely territorial and protective of space. It's in our DNA.

I do have a bit of sympathy for people thinking of they own a house they have an unwritten right to park outside their house if for nothing else to increase security of their car.

the real problems where I live is narrow terraced housing with multiple car owners causing a horrendous parking situation with the council reluctant to bring in residents parking schemes.

many people trying to get parking bays through being disabled to an extent but again council are reluctant to do this.

Yes. My ex neighbours a couple of doors down were like this. They were a nightmare, not just about parking, and hardly left the close we lived let alone took holidays etc, spending their days curtain twitching looking for their next victims. Just feel for these peoples' neighbours. We stuck it for a couple of years but are now thankfully free.

We haven't had this where we live now as parking is fortunately usually easy, but I did once live in a road where some neighbours were very particular about parking exactly outside their house (no driveways). I once parked outside a house a few doors down as someone else was outside mine. The woman who lived there knocked on my door and asked me to move my car. Her reasoning? She was taking her dogs for a walk (presumably to a nearby open space) and needed to get them in the car (so they can walk but not along a pavement to get to a car?) I thought it was the most ridiculous justification, which is why I've never forgotten it. Can't remember if I did move my car - probably did as I was young and more easily intimidated in those days.

i stopped along a b road to make a call
a man drove by and said i shouldnt park there,
he could get by no problem so i dont know why he thought he should say this, except he lived on the road, prick

Then there was the time we moved to a new rented property and parked in front of our house.

On the first day living there we got a knock at the door. It was our next door neighbour. Thought it was a friendly "welcome to the neighbourhood" but she proceeded to tell me "my 21 yo daughter uses that spot outside your house for her car, so you'll have to share it with her".
They have a double garage with space on the drive to fit two more cars.
I did (and do) share it with her but only because I hate frosty neighborly relations. And I'm a pushover apparently

People are just entitled a lot of the time and their rude behaviour has made someone move before so they're continuing to do it

I pulled over to take a call on a suburban street one day and a young lady pulled up in front of me and started reversing really closely in front of me. She was gesticulating quite angrily, shooing me away backwards with her hand. I just did a hand movement like "huh?" And kept going with my call. She carried on, honked at me, her mum came out and started yelling at me from across the street. So I ignored them and stayed on my call. Then it finished and I pretended to be on for longer.

The mum then called ME a Karen! I wasn't doing anything wrong! I was pulled over safely taking a call, and her little miss wanted my park. It wasn't even out the front of their house. It was a bizarre interaction all round

i had a lady annoyed at me for walking past her house with my dog, i live on the high street, imagine if i did that to people walking past my house!

Yes, same here. Our neighbour has 9 cameras around her house so she can monitor everyone’s movement 24 hours a day. For example, if both my husband and I are out, she’ll then pop out her house to have a snoop around our property. Within seconds of people parking in front of her house, she’s there shaking her head. You’re guaranteed a note under your windscreen wiper.

Sometimes she takes videos of ‘illegal’ parking, making sure to highlight the car reg, and puts it on the internet.

We don't get precious over parking, but I can see why others on our cul-de-sac do. People park like dicks. Forgive the God awful sketch but this is what our street is like:
Pink = Houses (the one with the scribble is mine)
Black lines = house & drive separation
Green scribbles = parkable curb
Red = household car
Brown = guest car

The cul-de-sac is a curved street that goes uphill. People with more than 2 cars will park over their own dropped kerb. Then visitors will park on the tiny bits of un dropped kerb, which basically edge over residents drives making it hard to see, or reverse out. This picture is on a good day. It's regularly a struggle to get out without hitting someone's car. Especially on an evening when everyone is home. There's utility works at the moment and because we're on the only bit of the cul-de-sac without a curve, on a morning when it's quiet, work men will park their van and trailer across our drive blocking DH in, and then act like he's unreasonable asking them to move so he can drive to work. The annoying thing is, if they just knocked and asked, he would pull the car out, and let them park over our drive while they work because the drive is empty all day and they've gone before he gets back.

Further up the cul-de-sac is even worse. There's regular arguments between a family with 4/5 cars and their neighbour because they're forever blocking the neighbours in or parking in the turning circle forcing everyone else to reverse down the hill. One of the reasons we're moving is to escape the parking dramas.

Both our neighbours are like this. The neighbour to our left told us off for parking in the street outside our house when we had a skip in the driveway for renovation works. Once the skip went and we had builders in, he started parking outside our house to stop the builders parking there.

Our neighbour to the right once berated and quite upset our cleaner who parked in front of their house. She was coming for two hours every two weeks. Now they park on the street instead of their driveway every Thursday morning until she parks elsewhere then move their car back in. Our street is a bit of a cut through and hardly anyone parks on the street so it's not like, in either case, the parking prevents them getting close to their home and it's never near their driveway entrance, it's simply on the street in front of their house. Unless a car was abandoned for weeks I couldn't tell you who was outside my house.

We gave up our car last year but the driveway is used for my family who visit regularly, tradesmen, workmen, my hairdresser. It’s so annoying for my daughters and other members of the family two of them coming long distances and they can’t get into the driveway. Then have to park up the road when visitors to my neighbours and others think it is okay to park right across the driveway when there are spaces elsewhere.Recently a visitor to my neighbours parked across my driveway and then broke down. My neighbours came to apologise but they couldn’t move it. It was there until the next day when my disabled daughter was visiting from a 200 mile journey.

It's annoying when you can't get in outside your house and have to park a good walk away though. And then walk back to the car in the morning. (I don't have a drive, it's on street parking.) We had a neighbour who was a bit of a self appointed parking warden for the street but he's moved now. The rest of us don't really have time to harass people for parking.