... I know I totally am, on so many levels, but I just want to RANT

[PerUnaBomber]

parking thread alert

We live on a street of terraced houses - on our side, nobody has a dropped kerb, on the other, 90% do. The woman opposite has space for 2 cars in her drive as sometimes her daughter stays over and they fit both their small hatchbacks on. Same woman is visited daily in the late afternoon until the evening by her brother and sister, both in their own cars, one of which is an equally small hatchback and the other is a fucking massive 4x4.

Now I know that the visits are purely social, so it's not like they are her carers or anything , but I feel like they should be mindful of the fact that they are parking in a street where almost all the residents on our side have cars and double up in the driveway or park across her dropped kerb. Lots of us on this side have under 5s, so when it's pissing rain as it was the other day, it would be preferable to be able to park in our street rather than 2 streets away and carry babies/wrangle toddlers and shopping as my next door neighbour and I were at 5pm on Tuesday.

Secondly, which winds me and my next door neighbours up too, is that the brother and sister frequently park in stupid fashion, taking up the equivalent of 2 spaces. There are also lots of disabled bays on our side - for some reason, the visitors often park 3/4 of a car's length away from one of these bays, making it impossible for anything other than a smart car or motorbike to fit behind them.

I know that I don't have a right to a space outside my house, I know that they and anyone else can park wherever they like and I know that I Am Being Very Unreasonable to want them to park 'sensibly' (IMO), but christ, it's good to get that off my chest.

I think of this stuff when buying a house and this do not buy a house without a drive/ ample parking to avoid these very situations

YANBU to want to have a moan about it, I would! Unfortunately there's nothing you can do as its not private parking spaces.

I used to live in a terrace house where the front door was on the street (no front garden) Bloke next door had a big van and his missus had a car, guess who's window he parked his van in front of! Prick!

Lobby your local council for residents' only parking.

Well as you say...YABU

But then again, I don't drive and I don't understand why people find it so annoying to have to walk a couple of streets in the rain....kids or no kids.

YABU to assume the visits are purely social. They could have things going on in their family that you dont know about

Shit on the bonnet of the 4x4 - or something equally "pleasant" to clean off - chocolate mousse, or shaving foam or silly string. Do it every.single.time they park inconsiderately, and if they say anything say "oh I slipped, I was carrying everything from my car which I had to park right down there/round the corner. It flew out of my hand/went off by accident" and smile sweetly.
A neighbour of mine when I lived in a terraced street used to park his car outside his own house and his works flatbed lorry outside mine. I let his tires down every night for a month before he got the message...

If only I had understood this, Kayano. I lived in flats with own parking space until we moved here, so I didn't realise the importance of a driveway!

Thing is, the houses on the other side of the street with the drives 'face the wrong way' (i.e. no sun in kitchen or back garden post 11am), so I wouldn't have bought one for that reason! Given that I'm on the sunny south coast, that's important for sunbathing wellbeing reasons and now I come to think of it, probably outweighs the parking inconvenience!

You're not bu to have a moan. It drives me mad. We were put off so many houses that didn't have parking because I knew that other people park like idiots.

It pees me off that you have to pay so much more for a house with a drive when there should be enough space on the street if everyone just parked sensibly.

We live in a school and can park in the school car park (miles away, with 2 under three yr olds and shopping, and have to walk through a boarding house which means entering codes on a keypad and putting baby + shopping on the floor). There is parking outside our house (which we pay a small fortune for a permit for) but we can rarely park there because we live next door to a doctors surgery where pensioners park their cars exactly a cars length from each other, so that there is no way to manoeuvre into the space, even though it's temptingly close.

Ah! Maybe we are being unreasonable, but that did feel better to get off my chest

pom did you really do that? You are my hero...

I know how you feel. We were in that situation for 13 years and it got worse every year as kids got older and bought their own cars. It was a nightmare. I used to seeth at bad parking and selfishness. BUT sadly there is bugger all you can do about it. But you know that!

We now have our own drive so I only have to rant about the selfish buggers who dare to park on the street opposite my house and make it hard for me to get out

I would be tempted to pop a note to neighbour an just ask that her visitors are more thoughtful with their parking please. Nothing wrong with asking but clearly aren't considerate of others. Your not saying they can park there but more that they think of others too.

Pom Brilliant errr not that I condone that sort of thing

Pom - wow, I don't have the cojones you do, clearly! The most I could muster today was squeezing myself into the gap between a disabled space and the sister's car to the extent that there is about a hair's breadth between her and my bumper, though plenty of room for my lovely neighbour with MS in front of his space when he gets home. I am going for my Pass-Agg brownie badge, clearly.

I can sympathise with you, I seem to live on the cul-de-sac of bad and inconsiderate parking!
A neighbour of mine has managed to park across 3 parking spaces in her Yaris (which is almost impressive with it being such a small car!) and left it like that all day and night

i feel your frustration.

what really narks me off in my street is the disabled parking spot, the women who is disabled never uses it as she hates cars and will often scream blue murder when getting into a car

i dont drive so i cant really empathise, however accross the road from me has visitors a lot who decide the best place to park is on the foot path which means i have to lug toddler and trike and baby in buggy or now other toddler and trike into the road as they have taken up entire path. he has been in the car while i tried to get past and he wound down his window and said, "sorry! i wont be long!" to which i said "oh thats fine! we will wait here till you are ready to move your CAR off the FOOT path!" with beaming smile.
i have when its just been me and buggy deliberately scraped past car, in the hopw we will leave a massive scratch, alas, so far no.
but it makes me so mad, you have a whole road in a cul de sac, to use!!!
i might fit robot wars esk spikes to the buggy. serve the fucker right. tit.

ooh! didnt realise that adding a () made it bold*

I usually try to park in a space that starts at the end of the street and goes along to a white line that stops people parking across a drive. It is long enough for three cars to fit in comfortably, if the two on the ends pull up to the lines. Every so often some dickhead decides to just stop (as opposed to park) anywhere along the space, thus causing incovenience to other people and blocking off a lot of space. I get so tempted to leave a note asking them to be more considerate / spray 'wanker' in squirty cream on their bonnets or whatever. Haven't done it so far...

Er, so. YANBU - inconsiderate parking pisses me off too.

Is the disabled space a proper enforceable one or a curtesy one? Also might be worth bearing in mind is that some people park a way away from disabled spaces because it might be used by someone who has rear access to their vehicle.

YANBU to rant about it (I have similar issues where I live and it pisses me off no end) but, as you know, it was your choice to live there so there's not really much you can actually do about it (apart from get together a petition to take to your local council to get residents' parking?). However, just because you live in a road where there aren't any parking restrictions doesn't mean that people shouldn't park considerately so I don't think it would be at all unreasonable for you to have a quick word with your neighbour - in all likelihood her visitors are totally oblivious to the parking problems you're having so a friendly,neighbourly chat might help a bit.

No, it's not an enforceable disabled space, but I'm not going to start parking in it as our neighbour is a v lovely man and I am far more able to walk round several blocks to get home than he is! Point taken re leaving room, but these idiots park the same distance from other cars as well - they're not elderly, nor do either of them have a blue badge i just think they are parking tools which is par for the course in this town.

contact your council, see if you can get residents only parking on the street.