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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Row over no dropped kerb

163 replies

pingu2209 · 07/05/2011 14:45

My friend lives in a very busy and narrow street full of Victorian terraced houses with terrible parking issues. Many of the houses have had their front garden walls removed and paved over their garden so that they can park their car.

Some of these houses have paid the council to drop the kerb outside so they can park, but many of the houses have not. You can legally park across someone's house (and therefore car parking space) where the kerb is not dropped.

There are constant rows between my friend and her neighbours when she parks infront of 2 or 3 houses where the kerb is not dropped. When she does it, it is because she has no choice as there is no where else to park on the street.

The owners of these houses have become really nasty about it and she is worried her car/house will be damaged during the night. Her view is they should apply for a dropped kerb and pay for it to be done. Of course, they may well have already applied and the council have turned them down as there are so many dropped kerbs already? Who knows.

Is she being unreasonable?

OP posts:

Original poster

pingu2209 · 07/05/2011 15:16

I can see how it reads that she 'chose' to keep her garden but that is not what I meant. She did however really like the front garden, it has those little red and black diamond tiles on the path etc. so in a way, she did chose to live there.

Where she is there are 'parking wars' in practically every street. If you select not to live where there are parking issues, you may as well move totally out of area. Although I agree with you squeaky, we once didn't buy a house because we were concerned over parking.

She is not deliberately parking across the front of their house.

Can you imagine the situation? After a long day at work, you drive home and just want to park up and get in your house. You drive up and down your street but there is no where to park. You drive up and down a few streets near you and are really struggling to find somewhere.

By now, over 10 mins has gone by, if you had parked where you legally can infront of the houses with no dropped kerb, you could be at home and be running a bath for a soak!

You eventually find somewhere but have a walk in the dark (in winter) along narrow streets which aren't that well lit.

I don't think she is being unreasonable at all.

OP posts:

Yama · 07/05/2011 15:18

If they continue to be arsey with her she should report them to the council. If they threaten her she should report them to the police.

GandTiceandaslice · 07/05/2011 15:19

She's just being mean.
What a cow.
Why can't peopl park further away & walk. I'm sure some people have forgotten what legs are for.
Having to park further away is a minor inconvenience, not the end of the world.

thumbwitch · 07/05/2011 15:19

evilgdil - tbh, either is just as irritating - whether you are blocked in on your drive or blocked from getting onto your drive, just as bloody annoying.

The way things are going with car ownership etc. though, this problem is just going to get worse and worse. There must be lots of these little roads, which are narrow and with many terraced houses (so no space for garages etc.) - something will have to happen eventually!

evilgdil · 07/05/2011 15:22

but its not their drive. they have no dropped curb.
other people have said she should just park further away, but shouldnt the neighbours too?
first home gets parking space? if they have a real drive they use it. if there is no drive they all have to park on the road.
if she comes in from work and parks on the road, infront of a house with no dropped curb and no car on the 'drive' then surley they cant get arsey? if they want a gauranteed spot then they have to pay to have their curb lowered?

Oakmaiden · 07/05/2011 15:22

Did you know that actually your insurance premiums are likely to be HIGHER if you park on a driveway than if you park in the road? Today's totally random factoid....

and on the op - the neighbours do not have a right of way across the pavement onto their own property if there is no dropped kerb. However, I would suggest that neighbourliness and human consideration would suggest that you don't block someone's unofficial access to their unofficial driveway if there is any way to avoid it. (So I would think it would be OK if you just blocked it whilst unloading shopping from your car, but think it would be unreasonable to then leave your car blocking it.)

And getting a kerb lowered is extremely expensive.

SoupDragon · 07/05/2011 15:23

"Can you imagine the situation? After a long day at work, you drive home and just want to park up and get in your house. You drive up and down your street but there is no where to park. You drive up and down a few streets near you and are really struggling to find somewhere.

By now, over 10 mins has gone by, if you had parked where you legally can infront of the houses with no dropped kerb, you could be at home and be running a bath for a soak!"

And here does she plan to park when she has forced all her neighbours to put dropped kerbs in?

SoupDragon · 07/05/2011 15:23

'Where', not here

squeakytoy · 07/05/2011 15:26

Did you know that actually your insurance premiums are likely to be HIGHER if you park on a driveway than if you park in the road? Today's totally random factoid....

Interesting. I would have thought a drive reduced the cost as there was less chance of damage to the car.

Oakmaiden · 07/05/2011 15:30

squeaky - my husband works for a car insurance firm, and he was told it at an information thingy when he started there.

Apparently there is a higher chance of you lurching your car into the house, bumping a gatepost or reversing into another car whilst trying to get out of your drive,etc than of being hit by another car driving past on the road.

RevoltingPeasant · 07/05/2011 15:31

.... But if the council have blocked dropped kerbs, then what are the neighbours supposed to do?

She does sound like a total arse. If I were her, I'd do what a PP suggested and leave a note with her mobile number so they can text her to move her car, even just temporarily, to let them in/ out if she is blocking them.

Also, this is why I paid more to rent a house with a driveway.... Seriously, she chose to live there knowing this was an issue, presumably. She needs to suck it up and get used to walking.

thumbwitch · 07/05/2011 15:31

Do you want to know something even more random and annoying? While my car was parked on its driveway in front of my house, a flatbed lorry parked (completely illegally) alongside it to off load some building materials, and dropped a pallet of breeze blocks. Thankfully they only grazed my car but did sufficient surface damage to get it written off.

The insurance company refused to try and reclaim my excess from the 3rd party (Jewson's Building supplies) because I wasn't driving my car at the time. So, if it had been in motion, or I had been in it, I could have got my excess back - but because it was sitting on the driveway, in front of my own house, and I had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the accident - I lost my excess.

That was bloody annoying too.

psiloveyou · 07/05/2011 15:33

I think if there is no car in the garden then she should park there and let the owner find somewhere else to park. Blocking someone in would BU.
I can understand your friends anger though, at the end of the day she's not the one breaking the law.

SoupDragon · 07/05/2011 15:38

"Did you know that actually your insurance premiums are likely to be HIGHER if you park on a driveway than if you park in the road? Today's totally random factoid"

Not according to comparethemarket.com

Oakmaiden · 07/05/2011 15:38

thumbwitch - that is mad! I would be fuming....

carben · 07/05/2011 15:46

I really feel for her. Why is she not able to park on the street outside her own house ? Is there someone else always parked there ? I live in a victorian terrace on quite a busy road that has no off street parking (single yellow line on the road). There is a cul de sac a few yards away that has 4 houses on one side and the large side of a garage on the other. There is space for about 12-14 cars to park along the garage side as the garage itself has it's own separate parking. All 4 houses in the cul de sac have garages and a couple have drives as well. I always try and park on the side along the garage wall as it is off the main road and not in front of anyone else's house. However the people in the cul de sac think that this is also their own private parking spaces and to try and prevent others parking there they deliberately park their cars diagonally to take up 3 spaces instead of one. It is just so childish that I can't even be bothered to get angry any more. I just laugh at the parking. So your friend is NBU. It's horrible to dread getting home and trying to find somewhere to park because if you can't park outside your own house 9 times out of 10 you've got no choice but to park outside someone elses. The people with the dropped kerbs may as well have stayed on the road because you still can't park there even though the cars are no longer on the road.They've just turned the pavement into a driveway.

Mumwithadragontattoo · 07/05/2011 16:01

I personally thing your sister is not being unreasonable. Those who use their drives without getting the kerb dropped are. I think it would be a bit tight to actually block a car in that was on the (illegal) drive but I think it's fair game to park on the street when there is not a dropped curb or other parking restriction.

southmum · 07/05/2011 16:04

she is BU and selfish, nasty, unneighbourly and will probably get her car keyed soon.

"She is not deliberately parking across the front of their house. " Erm...yes she is

Lets hope the person she blocks in doesnt have to get out for a hospital appointment or get to a family member who needs their help, as long as you your mate gets their soak in their bath eh?

screamingskull · 07/05/2011 16:09

why should your friend not park there? really though just because they have turned their garden into a drive doesn't mean they should hold the trump card does it.

really can't understand why everyone is saying your friend should park streets away and do the walking, while those who have turned the garden into a drive are lording it up?

psiloveyou · 07/05/2011 17:36

I'm surprised the council don't have a problem with it.
When we moved into our house the previous owners had paved the garden and used it for parking but had no dropped kerb.
We didn't use it for parking but about a year after moving in we got a letter from the council demanding we pay £1100 for a dropped kerb. They said we were damaging the pavement by driving over the kerb.
They wouldn't believe we didn't use it for parking and things were getting quite nasty.
Then the council carried out some maintenance work on our street. For ten consecutive days I took photos of two of their very heavy lorries parked on the kerb outside my house. I then sent them to the council with a letter asking how much they would be contributing to the allegedly damaged kerb.

We heard no more from them

emptyshell · 07/05/2011 17:37

She's being unecessarily nasty - if you live somewhere with shit parking (I do) it's only by cooperating WITH the neighbours that things become bearable... we've got an informal street arrangement to try to keep people's front of house spaces free whereever possible and park 2nd,3rd cars in spare places or at the end of the street along the side of the houses on the street meeting ours at a T. If people are having parties etc - then those who've opted out of the front gardens and gone to block paving DO pull their cars onto their paved areas so others can park blocking them in and create more space on the street.

Amazing what working with the rest of the street achieves (apart from the inconsiderate arses in number X but everyone in the street's pissed off at them). Yeah we've got people with too many cars - but rather than mutter and strop we work things out - like I know hubby's out until about 4 and neighbour's wife is in and out during the day, so I don't chuck a stink up if she's in front of our house - we just worked it out between us, and they leave me a teensy bit more space cos I'm crap at parking.

Compromise - a lost art.

We actually bought on our street because of how fantastic the neighbours are - you'd think a cul-de-sac with not even a turning circle at the end (you sharpish come up to speed on your reversing or three point turns living here) would be a recipe for hell and arguments - instead you have people constantly borrowing things from other people and people socialising together.

PlanetEarth · 07/05/2011 17:47

I don't agree with what your friend is doing, dropped kerb or not.

However, the people who are parking on their front gardens are not solving parking issues, they are making them worse. Unless they have a wide frontage, the driveway needs as much room as a parking space, with the disadvantage that no-one else can park there, say when they're out at work or away on hols for 2 weeks. Turning a small front garden into parking just bags a space for yourself, it creates less parking not more (unless as I said you have a wide house).

GwendolineMaryLacey · 07/05/2011 17:53

thumbwitch that is really interesting. A couple of months ago, DH's car was parked in the car park at work, a car park which is shared with a couple of other companies. He happened to look out of the window just in time to see someone (drunk) from one of the other places hit his car at speed and at an angle, crushing the back of the car.

Even though the car was parked with the engine switched off and its driver (DH) was in an office drinking tea, DH had to pay £250 excess. He thinks he's getting it back from them, poor fool.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 07/05/2011 17:56

PlanetEarth is right, our neighbour dropped her kerb and it's taken a bit off either side of her house as well so that, on our stretch, where we could comfortably park three cars (not us specifically), now you can really only park two. She leaves a snotty note on the car if so much as a windscreen wiper is over the sloping kerb and she honest to God, only drives her car about 3 times a year.

manicmummyoftwo · 07/05/2011 18:03

Not being unreasonable at all. The neighbours should get pay to get the kerb dropped; if not they are clearly trying to have their cake and eat it. Also if she doesn't park there then someone else is likely to so what's the problem?

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