Cones have appeared outside my house

[Beamsss]

More accurately 4 cones and a no parking sign, spead across the frontage of my house and one neighbour.

We're opposite a school and parking can be a problem, although I have no issues unless they park across my drive. The cones are set up to prevent any parking in front of the two houses. We have wide frontages, so it's 3/4 spaces blocked. There are another 5 houses that have simular issues at school times but no cones.

It looks like I'm trying to prevent any parking and I'm not. I haven't even complained (recently) about parking across the drive.

I don't know where the cones came from.

I know it seems a stupid thing to worry over, but unless you've experienced it you wouldn't believe how agressively nasty parents can be about parking outside school, and they know where I live!

Neighour is an elderly widower with dementia and live in carers, but there's no one in atm. I'm reluctant to move them in case there's a big reason they're needed.

As someone who spent the best part of20 years living opposite a school and having to deal with the twice daily hell of school run, I’d be grabbing a cuppa and plonking my butt by the window and watching the goings on! Why do you care what the school runners think?

Exactly. If someone wants to park there, they will just move the cones.

If you think people will throw bricks and graffiti your cars if you put out cones, you need a street view cam. And bricks can , um, bounce back.

Yeah, I'd be sitting there enjoying the free street theatre. So would the cat.

I would leave things as they are but keep an eye on the cones and see what happens to them. If they are still there in the dark then you might decide to move them to a convenient place like the nearest bin. so they don't get damaged.

Don't worry because I doubt anyone who's cheeky enough to block someone's drive is going to give a hoot about cones. I've seen people just kick them away.

They have their cones. You have a load of time where the cones can't be protected or watched. Unless they are prepared to camp out next to the cones.

I would wait to see who put them there first. It may be a neighbour expecting a delivery.

I would also buy some popcorn. For when CF parent A turns up and removes cones placed there by CF parent B.

It does affect me because the parents really can be nasty about parking. I don't want a brick through my window or graffitti on my cars or even my plants damaged or any confrontation.

Theyre that nasty? 😳
Makes conventional nastiness on other MN parking threads seem very tame by comparison.

Is it just today? Could someone have a delivery/visitors on the way and wants to be able to gain access?

Will we find out what happened, or is OP never to return.

Imo a driver of a huge car will pull up shortly, remove the cones to park there..

Are the cones still there op?

Report it to Highways. It's illegal to obstruct the carriageway. If there are no parking restrictions in place to stop people parking there, there is a right way to ask for them - and this isn't it!

If the resident is elderly and unwell, might he, his family or his carers be anxious about there being nowhere for an ambulance to pull up if/when needed?

Not that it actually matters, because an ambulance will just stop as close as possible and block the middle of the road if need be - and no reasonable person would object to that.

Have they only just been put up? Is it a parking suspension for a house move? If it's an official council parking suspension there'll be signs on the lampposts.

If they're outside your house and you don't want them there, just move them.

My ndn is completely obsessed about school parking and has 2 large (stolen) cones which he puts out daily in the narrow,suburban road next to his drive. He has no business doing so but hey... Hardly ever moves them so we end up doing it to access our drive easily (ironically).Causes extra problems as they're an obstruction to get round - and you can't kick them away as someone suggests. They are very heavy.

I imagine OP'S neighbour is similarly fixated.

I live in a road of terraces with free on road parking in an area where local events mean there can sometime be a bit of a scrum of cars with lots of visitors, ubers parking all over the place etc. This is very annoying. However, it's just the way it is, so I was very irritated last year when a guy down the road started putting out a cone during the day to reserve the spot outside his house for when he came home from work. It blocked a space all day that others could use and meant even less space for residents. After a couple of weeks of realising this wasn't a temporary thing for builders or a delivery, I removed the cone and disposed of it in a nearby bin for recycling. (I was pretty sure he hadn't bought it specially as it was a battered old one.)

A few weeks later, he started doing it again with a different cone, so within a day or two I removed the cone again. I felt this time he must be sure it was an objecting neighbour and not just random, and would get the message. It seemed to work, but a few months later another appeared so I removed it again. Almost a year went by, then the same happened recently. I happened to go out as he was placing the cone, so when I came home a few minutes later I removed it once more. He was back an hour or so later, cursing mightily. It makes me a bit anxious as I have to keep removing them in broad daylight and I fear reprisals, although he is in the wrong in the first place. But it enrages me so much, the entitlement!

Unfortunately there are unreasonable people who do have a go!

You could put a note through his door, or stuck on the cone, explaining that he has no right to block off a parking space all day. I think you're right to move them but would be worried he might get a ring doorbell and identify you?

Help the Coneheads and tell us what the cones were about and did parents have tantrums. Please.