Man in a car parked outside my house all afternoon

I’ve got to be honest I’d have gone and asked what he was up to. It’s not normal behaviour to sit in a car for that length of time especially turning the engine on and off.

he could get out on the pretext of talking to her grab her push her in it happens don’t be so naive

I genuinely don’t know how some MNers get through the day.

This is literally a non-event.
It would barely even register with me, let alone ‘freak me out’.

I just assume that these women have nothing going on in their lives and so someone parked on their street is a massive event in their lives.

I guess they’re hoping that it’s something untoward so that they get a little excitement in their lives.

Myself and others posters have parked in residential streets before and so have thousands of other people.
It is such a normal thing to do,

This is about as ridiculous as a recent thread discussing whether to report a man for walking past a school.

What do you suppose would happen if you did?

Ref, reg I mean, dratted autocorrect!

If you’ve not done it now take the ref down. Hopefully he won’t return.

To be fair this would freak me out. Once years ago I saw a man in a car outside the family home where I lived at the time, couldn’t make out who it was as too far away but my dad had recently got divorced from his third wife and was living nearby and had recently been ringing my mum saying he was still in love with her (yeah I know). I wasn’t really in touch with him but knew where he lived. Luckily it was a one off parking incident outside the family home (I was 20) could’ve been him maybe not but I didn’t want to check. So yes, I’d be a bit freaked out by a strange man in a car for a while.

There’s no way I would approach a strange man in a car !

Now he’s gone park in your usual spot so if he does
return he’s not outside your house.
If he comes back I’d feign ditzy. Knock on the window and say ‘oh hi are you John?’ He’ll probably say no. Serve him some strung out nonsense about waiting for John the gas man or a delivery or something and start asking questions. ‘Oh have you seen a gas man about, have you been here long, I hope I haven’t missed him, are you Doreen’s son? Are you waiting for someone? Oh were you here yesterday as well? Yes my husband saw you and thought you might be Doreen’s son because we all know each other blah blah blah’
You might find out the answer, you might not but at least he knows you all know he’s there!

It's the kind of thing I do regularly - but without the engine running.

I work in the community and often have gaps between appointments so I pull over somewhere quiet and write my notes/reports before going to my next visit.

I've had my phone turn off when doing back to back meetings in the summer before because it overheated so running the engine might just be a way to have the Aircon on some of the time.

I never thought I'd freak someone out by working from my car though

It’s called an undercover police operation 😀😀😀

The police told a 'random neighbour' - your DH- they were doing a raid round the corner?

Have those knocking the OP for raising this considered whether this man is a stalker? There is a potential safety issue here.

Sitting in a car on a public road is not unlawful (aside from the idling issue mentioned up thread) but it is odd and his reasons for doing so may be illegal.

A man is sat in a car and this is a problem? how? next he will be going to the supermaket then where will it lead

You’re sitting outside someone’s house with your engine running for 3.5 hrs and if they find that objectionable they’re the twat?

Starbucks? That's weirdly specific. Any café would do.

You’d hate me. One of my (adult) kids does a sport where this is usually VERY limited parking at some of the fields, and fields can be a 3hr round trip from home. This would mean they would need to park roughly 15/20mins drive away for some fields and catch transport to/from field. Add on the 3.5hrs they are at the field and it’s easier for one of us to drive them, drop at field, drive 15/20mins and find a ‘nice’ spot on a street to plant ourselves for 3.5hrs. Needless to say, anyone doing this does not take in liquid for several hours prior as obviously no toilet access😑. That means a shady spot in summer and a warm, but not too sunny spot in winter. We would do this roughly twice a month in that sporting season.

To add injury, where I am (not in UK), it’s not illegal to idle while parked, and probably for about 8/9 months of year you need to do so as you need to run the air con while sitting in the car or there would be ambulances called left, right and centre for dead people in cars. It’s only in direct winter if you get a semi-sunny spot you don’t need to idle for air con use.

Needless to say there has been the odd ‘outraged resident’ who believes they either own or can self-sheriff the goings on in the road. I won’t tolerate that and, as not doing anything illegal, i work on the basis it’s a ‘you problem’ for anyone with an issue. As if we WANT to sit, dehydrated, in a car, chewing through fuel with associated cost, wasting our time for nearly half a day, to converse with some twit.

Why would it freak you out??

I genuinely don’t understand this.

I’ve waited for hours in my car on a regular basis before.

And idling is not a crime if there is good reason for it.

He could have easily broken down and trying to restart it.

Idling is not good for charging the battery and would not do it much good.
He’d be better off going around the block.

He’s obviously idling for a different reason.

I think a lot of the nastiness is because @PyongyangKipperbang is a well-known and regular poster, so they're having a pop just because.

How is it illegal or infuriating?

Sounds like you have a very boring life.

I've sat in my car for 2-3 hours on the odd occasion. Sometimes on the street if the car park for the place I was waiting for was full. Either the location was too distant for me to bother going home then coming back again (taking someone else to an appointment or something), so I just work or read in the car. I never idle the engine though. All day is a long time but maybe they are just killing time while waiting for someone else, and they live ages away?

Wow there’s a lot of nasty comments on here, I hope it makes you all feel good about yourselves.

OP that would freak me out too. And idling is a criminal offence. So it’s not a great situation really.

Bit different but I once reported a man hanging around on the street outside a neighbours house to 101. He was there for hours which seemed strange, when they had a car free they drove past and had a word. So far so boring. But we ended up with a police stakeout in the spare bedroom as it turned out the neighbours were 'of interest' (drug dealing I think).

That is so funny I'm gonna have to steal it. 🤣