Parking drama on the street Whatsapp Group

[NailyDale]

Mrs Groupchat set up a Whatsapp Group for the cul-de-sac, mostly because everyone wanted to bitch about the students in Party House. Apart from the bitching, most messages are "has anyone else lost power?" and "#14 - your rabbits are out again" and also a lot of messages from Mr Construction at #9 apologising for his builders digging through the cables again.

Until a few days ago when Mrs Hedge House BLEW UP the chat with a furious "WELL THANK YOU VERY MUCH WHOEVER HAS REPORTED MY CAR TO THE COUNCIL NOW I'VE GOT A $200 FINE AND ISN'T IT NICE TO KNOW MY NEIGHBOURS ARE SPYING ON ME AND AS IF I'VE GOT $200 SPARE IN THIS FINANCIAL CLIMATE" and so on. Lots of shocked emojis and everyone sympathised, and quickly started blaming Mr Construction's tenants because they're foreign, innit. Mr Construction was there on the chat saying that his tenants are lovely and barely speak English and definitely wouldn't know how to go about reporting cars to the council, and also that he had got a fine too. As an aside, it is Mr Construction turning his house into 5 flats that has caused the parking drama. So everyone started blaming the new people at #13. The reporting happened before they moved in, so it wasn't a watertight case, but they are new to the street so we might as well blame them. And then someone wondered if it might be the blonde lady who lives up the long drive who never talks to anyone. I actually do know the blonde lady, but she once got drunk and sang country and western songs on her balcony until 3am, and her balcony is about 4m from my bedroom, so I don't mind if people want to blame her. Then Mrs Hedge House had a grumble about Mr Construction's trucks squashing the grass verge on the roundabout, and Mr Construction pointed out that the rubbish trucks do that too, but said he would put some more grass seed out over the weekend.

So, yesterday I was at a sport thing with the kids and I bumped into a family from the bottom of the cul-de-sac. They're not on the group chat. I was telling them about the drama, and Mr Sport Family said, oh yeah, I've had a couple of fines too, it's Nice Old Man who reports everyone. Well, either him or his care visitor. I hear them complaining about the parking every day when she comes over.

OMG! Nice Old Man who has a fat corgie and stands at the end of his drive in the sunshine saying hello to people!? Shocked emoji. So now I KNOW who (probably) reported everyone, but obviously it would be knobbish to say so in the group chat so I just have to SECRETLY know.

The first rule of a street WhatsApp group: go to settings, mute the chat, never look at it again.

Well that's what I did anyway 😆

We only have names for 2 of our neighbours. SnootyH looks down her nose at everyone and her sense of entitlement is epic. And Manchild is just that - never grew up, has money to burn and burns it well. He's just bought a Porsche and then decided he needed a Tesla as a runaround.

In a sea of absolutely outstanding nominations and posts outwards opening door family is my favourite. But have actually laughed at so many of the posts.

Loving this thread!!

Our last drama was the police dogs van arriving. Followed by more police. And more. And then some kind of riot/tactical team. Then more police dogs
My neighbour sent a text to me wondering if the entire police force were on our street (I didn't know we had that many..)

No work got done by anyone that day as we were all busy sitting by the windows
Except me as my office is at the back so I got to see the police at the back of the house and missed the whole action at the front

Haha I’m loving this thread! It reminds a me of the song from the 90s by the band Space called “Neighbourhood” if you don’t know it OP get on YouTube or see if it’s on your music streaming service! It sounds familiar 😆

We have this - so far we have Dodgy Dave (he grows ‘things’ but is a nice chap), Sniper’s Nightmare (older chap who walks with a very pronounced wobble), The Pricks at 32 (because they’re pricks) and The Garage (drive and road outside full of old bangers they do up and sell on).

They all hate each other from what I can tell, but we seem to get along with them fine.

If you're not a comedy writer, you should be.

This sounds like my old street group chat. I've avoided the for our new tiny village. While we're technically not the only gays in the village, we're not far off. I do miss the drama a little bit though

This reminds me of the wonderful podcast The Fitzroy Diaries, which is one of the most delightful things I've ever listened to. OP give it a listen!

He's the local vicar and a serial killer....

That’s the one! The Sadam Hussain one makes me chuckle 🫣

I was not disappointed by this post (sighs happily)

Same, same.

I think you might have a book in you OP, I really enjoyed that 🤣

I'm disappointed by my neighbours now, nothing as exciting as this.

We have Windmill Wanker who attached the biggest bastard wind turbine thing to his roof that made an awful bloody banging noise constantly. He was made to take that down so is now Windchime Wanker, as I can hear his shitty windchill through my closed windows.

The BFG.

Eminem - teenager who we can hear rapping badly to gangster rap, but is actually a white middle class kid.

Air hostess. (She's cabin crew)

The farmer. (He's a farmer, drives his tractor up and down)

There is actually a woman whose husband disappeared a few years ago, turned out he went to prison for a really quite horrific crime - but no one talks about it ever. It's like we're all aware, but no one dare say anything to eachother about it.

There was The Waddler - held me up every morning on the school run for years, walking along at snail's pace, blocking the pavement. But she's moved.