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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to have told her she doesn't own the road

53 replies

popmusic84 · 07/11/2013 13:20

So I was visiting a friend. I was about to park outside a neighbours house. No where near dropped kerbs etc.
The neighbour came out of the house and asked me to move as she needed the space.
I agreed to move but pointed out that as its a public road I am actually within my rights to park there.
Wibu?

OP posts:
lottiegarbanzo · 08/11/2013 10:34

Aha ha! I have a neighbour, who doesn't own a car, who will pursue you down the street, shouting, for this. Then shove cones and bits of wood under your car. Then pound on the door (or many doors if he doesnt know whose car) demanding it be moved.

I once 'discussed' the matter with his wife, pointing out that it is a public road and thy do not own the space. 'But we pay the council tax!' said she. Jolly good.

FrankelInFoal · 08/11/2013 10:42

Just to be pedantic, there is no such thing as "Road Tax" and it certainly doesn't entitle you to drive on the roads/park where you like. What we pay is a Car Tax which is based on emissions, not road use. Hence why the "cyclists don't pay road tax" argument never holds up.

pianodoodle · 08/11/2013 10:50

I wouldn't have moved. I travel to quite a few students who don't have space on driveways etc... so need to park somewhere outside for half an hour or so.

I'm careful to park legally but I still had a woman burst out her front door one day asking me to move because it makes it hard for her to get out of her garden gate.

Ironically the same gate she waltzed out of to tell me that :D

Some people get a bee in their bonnet and just don't "like" a car parked outside their house for whatever reason. Tough titty really. I've encountered it more in very small villages that I go to rather than towns.

LongTailedTit · 08/11/2013 11:25

I guess it depends entirely on how nicely she asked! YANBU tho.

The guest she was expecting might've been someone who struggles with parking, hence why she was keeping an 'easy' spot clear for them, so she WBU but for good reason.

Or she might be one of those parking obsessives that really need to get a grip.

Sadly my DH is one of those, he v strongly believes that neighbours should park outside their own homes. He's not so fussed about visitors etc, but gets really pissed off if the neighbours use 'our' spot when the spaces outside their own houses are empty. It's a public road but the layout means people prefer to park in front of ours.
He gets so cross I just laugh at him! Ridiculous.

Caitlin17 · 08/11/2013 11:34

I'm going to get flamed for saying this but having lived my entire adult life in a Scottish city, in flats, where you pay a small fortune for a resident's parking permit which in no way guarantees you will get a space in the zone let alone outside your own door and never once having fretted about parking all this " don't park on my part of the pubic road" comes across as middle England curtain twitching at its worst.

You should have stayed where you were.

Caitlin17 · 08/11/2013 11:39

Oh I'm sure we have parking obsessives in Scotland too. I've just never met one.

PukingCat · 08/11/2013 11:42

Caitlin. I'm not sure it's a Scotland/England issue Confused

PukingCat · 08/11/2013 11:43

lottiegarbanzo Aha ha! I have a neighbour, who doesn't own a car, who will pursue you down the street, shouting, for this. Then shove cones and bits of wood under your car. Then pound on the door (or many doors if he doesnt know whose car) demanding it be moved.I once 'discussed' the matter with his wife, pointing out that it is a public road and thy do not own the space. 'But we pay the council tax!' said she. Jolly good.

What a loon! Did you point out that paying Council tax has nothing to do with anything?

WilsonFrickett · 08/11/2013 11:48

Caitlin we have suburbs in Scotland too. And believe me, this happens there.

OP I would probably have moved because I didn't know the history with friend and neighbour and wouldn't want to cause my friend hassle. I would then spend at least 5 days coming up with witty retorts and reasons why I shouldn't have done it so you have my sympathy Cake

Tanith · 08/11/2013 11:51

Lottie, my MIL has a neighbour like that.
She actually superglued a notice to someone's windscreen once - caused no end of a rumpus! And she has never driven a car in her life.

BasilBabyEater · 08/11/2013 11:56

Wow Tanith, did she get prosecuted for criminal damage?

Because I'd be on to the police asking them to prosecute in that sort of situation. Or at least get her an ASBO. Grin

fairylightsintheautumn · 08/11/2013 12:12

we got a mouthful off a bloke yesterday. We'd parked on the road outside his house (completely legally) and were gone for about ten mins. When we came back he was ranting that he had missed a delivery. The van couldn't park and had driven off. I understand he was annoyed to have missed it but its a public road. If he'd come out and asked when we got there, we'd have moved no problem. Some people seem to create drama entirely unnecessarily.

WeAreEternal · 08/11/2013 12:26

I'm a landlord and have no end of drama due to one if my tenants who is obsessed with a space he doesn't even use.

Basically the houses are on a private lane, it is not a public highway and is privately owned, all of the residents in the five houses have legal access via the lane but the owner also allows them to park in front of their properties on the lane. The nearest on street parking is a good walk up the lane and down a road so it is really convenient.

My tenant does not own a car, so the area outside his house is always empty, as far as I know all but one of the other residents have cars.
Often if someone has a visitor they will just park in an empty space, my tenant apparently goes mad if someone parks in 'his space' and puts notes on people's cars saying 'do not park here' he also put up a no parking sign.
Every time he makes a fuss I usually her about it as his next door neighbours is a so a tenant of mine and a friend.

Recently he has taken to keeping his wheely bins in 'his space' out on the lane as a way of protecting it.
A couple of weeks ago someone moved the bins to park there and he went mad and tried to block their car in... Using the bins, obviously it wasn't particularly successful.

You could maybe understand it if they were parking on his driveway, or if he actually had a car and wanted to use the space, but he doesn't and it's just crazy.

People are very weird.

BasilBabyEater · 08/11/2013 12:30

LOL I must admit I would suggest counselling for that tenant WeAreEternal, but that's outside your remit as a landlord isn't it? Grin

WeAreEternal · 08/11/2013 13:17

I have spoken to him several times about it and once even told him if he continued to bother the neighbours I may have to reconsider his tenancy.
But the neighbour (my other tenant) says nobody is really that bothered, they find it more hilarious and irritating than anything, and otherwise he is a good tenant and neighbours.

lottiegarbanzo · 08/11/2013 13:30

...yes (re council tax). There's no getting through, they believe it's their space, that it's essential for any visitors to park right outside their house (have never said why - if there was a reason i might be sympathetic) and frequently mark it with cones (often a day in advance of any visit, likewise with the chasing and shouting). Actually it's easier when they do, as at least i know they want it, than when they don't, then shout or knock.

So, she asked me to move closer to our house. I pointed out that I was as close as I could get (I was). She asked me to move the car as soon as a closer space became available. I said I wasn't playing that game as I had better things to do (some neighbours do, to move outside their own houses). She expressed outrage that once, our car had been outside their house for two days!! I said she was being unreasonable (yes, I actually did), she said 'no! it's you!'.

It's tricky actually because they are neighbours, oldish and I'd rather get on nicely. I just wish they'd asked nicely, just once. We do have a reciprocal 'no parking' arrangement with the NDNs because though DP in particular thinks its all nonsense, they asked, they're our neighbours and it clearly matters to them. Unfortunately the 'unreasonable' couple's only communication with me has been demanding, impatient and critical. There's underlying pleasantness and manners which sometimes show through but usually, by the time he arrives on the doorstep he's in a state of outrage, so starts by being accusatory and demanding.

I'd like to be nice but do think it's all nonsense (and have a belligerent streak). DP pointed out that an assumption that the neighbour might be responsive to rational discussion was not a safe one. I sometimes don't think of that. I suppose someone who shoves bits of railway sleeper under cars might not be...

JackNoneReacher · 08/11/2013 13:37

We used to park on the street if we were expecting a visitor so they could use our drive. That's what you have to do if you only have orp for one car. Not insist people move for your convenience.

YABU to move your car.

She's a cheeky bitch.

jacks365 · 08/11/2013 13:44

Reading some of these has reminded me of the time I got trapped in my house. A van pulled up onto the pavement to park to keep the road clear unfortunately he was right outside my house, terraced houses opening straight onto a narrow pavement. I couldn't get the pram out of the house. Thankfully it wasn't there long but it was bad timing for me. What was worse was it was a police van.

lottiegarbanzo · 08/11/2013 13:50

I think these parking-obsessives offer very good illustration of the fact that very unreasonable people usually get away with it, forever, because they are so very and persistently unreasonable, so impossible to reason with! That and wearing everyone down...

It's a lesson to us rational types. We're just too easy to disagree with and to accept disagreement, offering up our case on a plate for dissection, listening to people... We need to practice being more obscure, obtuse and unpredictable. That'll confuse them.

One night I'd like to get drunk and nick all the neighbours' traffic cones. (It would be hilarious!).

popmusic84 · 08/11/2013 13:52

Thinking about it, yes she could have just asked me to move back abit. Her visitor, if they existed, would have room if they blocked her drive.
O well. People are weird.
O and yes it wasn't a private road.

OP posts:
lottiegarbanzo · 08/11/2013 14:01

Last winter we couldn't get our boiler repaired one day because the British Gas man couldn't find a parking space near enough to our house to carry his tools in. We had to re-book.

That's because we're near a sports ground, so occasionally, the whole area is rammed. That's a day when I should have deployed the cone, (oh yes, our house came with one!) with an explanatory note attached. I see cones as a request, so an explanation is helpful. The only other time I've used the cone was when we were expecting a removal van with a piano on board.

Many neighbours on the other hand, use theirs daily.

Mim78 · 08/11/2013 16:38

This always worries me as i've known of it devsloping into a serious criminal case more than oonce!

Tanith · 09/11/2013 17:09

Basil, no she didn't, although the car owner was raging. She was an elderly woman and none of the neighbours dared to tell the car owner who'd done it.

holidaysarenice · 09/11/2013 18:18

Aghgggh it would drive me mad.

Though it annoys me when my ndn parks outside my house, just leave her house without a car outside.

I drive up, look outside my house park there is its empty if not I park in the next space. I never understand why she drives up looks at her empty drive and no car outside and then parks by my house??

I don't ask her becuase I'm not playing her daft game. I would certainly never not to park at mine as its not my road.

However I do laugh when she comes home and gets irate about people outside her house....

Some people have little going on in their lives....

TidyDancer · 09/11/2013 19:00

The neighbour was being ridiculous. Not least because the visitor clearly didn't arrive before you left anyway!

Also can't believe the Scottish/English comment. There are twats in Scotland, you know?