regarding disabled neighbour

[tinyfishbigpond]

I have just moved into an area where parking is very scarce. I have a parking port in my house (think garage without a door for those who aren't familiar with one).

There are 2 parking spaces opposite my house. These are angled so that the cars run parallel with the front of my house. The council has only put in spaces because any more would stop me from being about to get into and out of my parking space.

The past 2 nights I have had a car parked on double yellow lines opposite my house in a 'third' space. This means I am really struggling to get my car in and out. I went out yesterday because I saw the car arrive and explained this to my neighbour.

The neighbour point blankly refused to move stating she has a disabled badge and can park wherever she likes. And apparently for as long as she wants. Her husband came out and was really aggressive, mocking me for renting the house when he owns his and telling me he was going to complain to my landlord.

Are they allowed to leave their car overnight on double yellow lines and cause an obstruction? I thought the max time was 3 hours. They also have no clock displayed next to the badge.

AIBU or are they? I was hoping to sort it between ourselves but they were very aggressive and told me to get the council involved.

I often support families to apply for BB for their children because:

Children under 2 NEVER get high rate mobility regardless of the severity of their disability.

Even if they are very heavy, very tall, have to be carried everywhere, cannot support themselves at all, have very high or low muscle tone, have tons of heavy equipment i.e suction, oxygen machines. They also tend to have many hospital appointments etc.

So we have to convince the powers that be that the family really do need to have a BB.

But its soooooo easy to get one of these BBs. They give them out for being overweight and having a cold you know

minty most people think that DLA is for people who do not work so they assume that its only for people who cannot work. We know this to be untrue it is actually a benefit to try and make up for the additional costs of being disabled. They will see someone going off to work and assume they are scamming.

This is because they are stupid and ignorant.

And jealous - which is fecking bizarre isnt it?

DS has a BB.

Look, the abuse of BBs isn't by claiming fake disability, it's REALLY REALLY hard to get one. It's really hard to get the higher rate DLA that entitles you to one automatically (have you not read the pages and pages of anguish fom parents on the SN board over this issue?), and it takes 3 months of getting evidence fom a range of healthcare professionals to get one if you are not on DLA.

Where there is abuse of a BB it is generally because other family members or friends are using it without the badge holder being present, or because it has been stolen. In S London stolen BBs change hands for £600 or more.

OP sorry your neighbours reacted badly - is there somewhere they can park v close to their house without blocking you in? It's true you can't park on a double yellow with a BB if you are causing an obstuction to traffic. But I can tell you that it can be a very miserable experience managing around access and disability, especially when, as this thread shows, everyone has a very strong, often misinformed and sometimes aggressive attitude around it. Maybe your request was the final straw after a long day of hassle. It wasn't nice to be snotty about renting.

sixlostmonkeys someone gave me a great response to the 'well you don't look disabled' thing. Say 'well you don't look ignorant, but goes to show appearances can be deceptive, hey?'

MrsDeVere that makes me so angry re your OH's medical. This is the way DLA is going more and more, spot checks by untrained 'medical practitioners' which take all the info they need from whether you can walk across the living room.'

GreenAmy, thankfully some DLA decision makers have some humanity left and allow for fluctuating conditions, so some like me who fit the criteria of 'can't walk at all' some days but others can walk my children to school (usually in pain) can still access DLA and the BB scheme. I fear that in the future this won't be the case, mostly because of attitudes like yours, never mind that I have an incurable progressive disease. Oh no, I'm just a scrounger inni.

Going to have to hide this thread because it is upsetting me, and I'm sure many others of us on here who do suffer from illness, or care for someone who does. Luckily though GA represents a tiny minority on MN, even if the ignorant majority who read the DM.

MrsDeVere - I will never ever understand disability envy. I would love to live a pain free life. I would love not to feel dizzy and sick constantly. I would love the freedom to go out and about as I did before.

I haven't applied for DLA as I doubt I will get it - I know someone who with Fibro who got awarded higher rate care but no mobility as she has 'no mobility needs'. She is a wheelchair user!

Going to try and get my elderly father AA, he has osteoarthritis among other conditions. He has a BB but it took 5 years to convince the council he needed one. He does struggle a lot though and the money would be a huge help to him. Even so one day when a family friend was driving him he refused to park in a disabled place for him as they're for 'people who are really disabled' - apparently being 70 and having a BB for a disability doesn't constitute as disabled!

Actually greenarmy on my dla form with my award on it it said i was give the high rate mobility, because of the speed and manner of my walking, and being virtually unable to walk without pain or severe discomfort!

But before i applied for DLA i had a blue badge, and was given it after attending a medical with my council. :)

Your neighbour is wrong to obstruct you. Serves them right about the parking ticket. I would ring the police if they ever block you in again. As an aside it is not your problem, or anyone elses, that your neighbour doesn't have a drive/private parking space.If someone had spoken to me in that manner, then I would be on the phone EVERY time they parked illegally. If they had been considerate then I would make an exception.

My Dad wouldn't fit that criteria either but he has a blue badge.

Sorry GA but trying to find evidence to support your rather weak argument despite the amount of evidence to the contrary here is a little...well, lets not be uncharitable

Thanks for the info re: badges and waiting times, I will pass the info on to my friend.

Muminthemiddle - the OP wasn't blocked in, she was able to get in and out but with a struggle. Inconvenient, and more difficult, yes, blocked in, no.

DS had a blue badge (actually I think I still have it, don't use it any more though as we are not entitled) because he was on oxygen. There are newish rules about being entitled to it if you have bulky medical equipment that must be transported everywhere. I used to be paranoid about people thinking I was cheating the system as I am perfectly healthy and DS was tiny and once the oxygen was loaded in the buggy it wasn't obvious from a distance away.

It was easy for us to apply and get it, just took a few weeks. It seems very unfair that others struggle to get it for teh same reason, I guess it depends on your council.

There's plenty of evidence to support GA's doubts, maybe not her blanket assertion of "half" of badge users being dodgy, but she's right to have doubts.

Abuse of blue badge system costs govt. 50 million year, 16,000+ badges still in use after their owners had died.

I heard on news today of a survey of 3000 blue Badge users, where 1/6 of the checks led to confiscation of the badge for misuse. That's a lot of misuse.

Hey, lets all have a go because of disability - what about the people who block your driveways, park over paths on school pick-ups, and generally don't care who they get in the way of - who are disability free. Anybody would think that because we or our children are disabled it's OK to have open season on singling us out. For all the people who misuse the BB scheme there are far more whose lives would be far harder without, and are bloody glad and grateful to have been issued one. But then, we're used to being the brunt of all the crap, we're disabled and should sit quietly in a corner, and not have a voice to speak up with.

I used to prosecute blue badge fraud for one of the local authorities on mentioned on this thread. The reason the badges change hands for so much money is because they can be used for free parking around people's homes and work places. Every single case I prosecuted involved a badge being used to avoid parking charges on the roadside. I did not come across one case of someone using it to frolic around in the disabled parking spaces at a supermarket, which seems to be the classic place for people like GreenArmy to hang around monitoring the mobility of blue badge users.

People don't steal/buy them to get a bit closer to the supermarket. They want them to avoid having to pay for residents' permits or work parking.

EXACTLY kungfu