I am asking this because I don't really know what to do. I spoke to CAB and they said to get in touch with the police. What do you think dear mumsnetters, I feel it seems an extreme solution but I really don't want it to happen again.
I have lived in my house for a very long time - several decades - but it is in a street of houses where there is a high turnover. One of my neighbours who moved in five years ago and lives opposite me had a surprising and major outburst with me yesterday.
But first a bit of background. I have a small driveway,just enough for one car not enough for two (unless it was a G-wizz or a smart car). I have had this for decades, as does my next door neighbour and several other people on the street have hardstandings outside their houses. Recently two more hardstandings were added and then the local authority changed the rules and stopped any more hardstandings being put in.
I am a teacher and am usually at work, my husband has a company car and works all round the country - he gets back at all sorts of times and so we leave the driveway space for him as parking can often be difficult in the evening.
When we first had the drive we did try to put one car in the drive and the other outside over the driveway, but unfortunately because parking is so tight people were constantly parking a wheel or so over the driveway space (just trying to fit in - I guess people get desperate.) and so both the driveway and the space outside were becoming unusable on many occasions. We then started to manage the parking. We also have a garden at the front and so in the evenings, after the day parkers had gone, I would park on the road in front of the garden, so that my husband could still park when he came home.
For decades no-one ever complained about it, some people even said that it was nice that there was always somewhere you could draw into and unpack your children and your shopping before looking for a parking space. We are the first road without residents parking so we have a lot of extra cars overspilling from nearby roads.
Then S moved in. Two years ago on the first day of the school holidays and 5 days after my father had died I was woken at 8.00 a.m. by furious knocking on the front door. S said that she had friends coming round and where were they supposed to park. I should put my car in the driveway and not be so selfish. I was quite tearful at the time and explained why, she said that it wasn't anything to do with her that my father had died. Just to make it clear, at the time there were loads of places in the street - there always are during school holidays.
S's mother then arrived later in her Jaguar, she parked over my driveway (where my car was) although there were lots of other spaces in the street. I was weeding in the front garden at the time and I was a bit shocked so initially I didn't say anything just talked to her, eventually I asked her if it would be possible for her to park in one of the other free spaces instead of blocking me in, she said she wouldn't be long and breezed off into S's house - she was there for hours.
Nothing else much happened for a year and then one day S's husband leaned out of the window as I passed and asked me why I was taking up spaces in the street when parking was at a premium (again this was on a day when there was loads of space). I have a cleaner who was using the driveway space that day - I explained this to him. Later when I went out (on foot) he went over and harangued my cleaner, who reports that she gave him rather short shrift.
Then yesterday I arrived back to find S waiting in the street. She was just about to go on holiday and she laid into me about my discourteous behaviour with regard to the parking. She told me that she understood 'by law' that if you had a driveway then you should only use that space yet we were taking up space in the street. She shouted out at the top of her voice that she didn't believe that my father had died two years ago that it was just a story that I had made up to make her feel sorry for me. She said that she had spoken to other neighbours and that they had told her that I had said that my mother was ill but they had seen her walking up the street two days later (this is impossible as my mother lives at the other end of the country) - bizarre or what. These things proved that I was a liar and discourteous.
All the time my two sons, who have lived here all their lives, were watching this. They were both upset and said that they felt invaded. She was shouting and shouting. So I shouted back (yes I am shocked at myself) that there was no law against parking outside your own house but there were laws against harassment and she was harassing me. I also said that if other neighbours were talking about me then I believed she was starting the conversations. At this point my husband arrived and supported me in a very reasonable way - explaining the same things to her. I went over later and tried to smooth things over which seemed to go well but this is the third incident and I feel so embarrassed at the horrible scene in the street - I can't take it again.
The CAB say it is harassment and I should contact the police. I confess I do feel a little afraid of her.
What would you do?