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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to be fed up of people using my drive as a car park for the shop opposite?

179 replies

SweetTeaVodka · 14/10/2015 18:07

I live in a terrace directly opposite the a local convenience store of a larger national supermarket. The shop has a large car park directly behind it and a bus stop directly out front. We have people park on our often empty drive to pop across to the shop on occasion (happens once or twice a month), and more often to pull up along the dropped curb.

The parking along the dropped curb doesn't really bother me, but the driving right up onto our driveway does. Especially in the evening/dark rainy days when my whole lounge is lit up by their bloody lights. Poor DD gets excited because she thinks one of her grandparents or aunts has come to visit, and my anxiety disorder means I get a bit on edge in case it's guests I'm not expecting.

Today it has been pissing it down all evening. Three times this afternoon we have had people stop on our drive and go across to Tesco, the third lot was a carful of very noisy young people (typing that makes me feel old) who looked quite taken aback when I opened my front door and informed them that they seemed to have mistaken my drive for the shop car park (I was very wound up by this point and did swear a bit).

I don't think it actually saves much time or saves them from getting that wet when you account for the amount of time you generally have to spent waiting to be able to safely cross the road to the shop, compared to walking round from the car park at the back to the front.

AIBU to a) think it's actually quite rude to park on someone's driveway if you are not a resident or visitor of the property;

b) complain at the people who do this;

and c) considering blocking my drive with plastic cones and a passive aggressive sign and/or complaining to the shop manager about their customers

I accept that I may be U to get so riled by this and it is probably due to my anxiety issues, but I am home alone with toddler DD until DH gets home from work this evening and I needed to vent.

OP posts:
PuppyMonkey · 14/10/2015 19:40

Thanks OP very helpful.

Definitely Yarburgh Grin

BondJayneBond · 14/10/2015 19:41

YANBU.

You definitely need some sort of obstruction on your drive. If gates / chains are impossible, then something like a pop up bollard / planter / cones.

BabyGanoush · 14/10/2015 19:45

yarburgh here too

I'd go for option c

ChocolateJam · 14/10/2015 19:45

Can you put a sign up: " Warning. If you park here your windscreen will be covered with syrup." Then if someone parks there anyway, cover their windscreen with syrup. It won't do the car any harm and the person won't come back!

bettyberry · 14/10/2015 19:45

I personally would stick up a sign saying 'fuck off, this isn't a tesco carpark'

I'd also complain to tesco. Maybe they need to make it clearer they have parking at the back?

TalkinPeece · 14/10/2015 19:46

Wheelbarrow.

Simple.
Have it at the back of the drive, by the house
with pretty flowers in it
when he goes out, wheel it to the front of your drive
just before he's due home, wheel it back out of the way

a pretty way to tell Tesco customers to eff off

InternalMonologue · 14/10/2015 19:49

Or you could get some sort of garden ornament. Bit easier to move than a planter, but tall enough that if someone tried to drive into your drive it would take their front bumper off.

CaptainHammer · 14/10/2015 19:50

YANBU!

Unfortunately it's not just you either, a friend of mine lives opposite a shop the same as you. People block or park on her drive all the time, she came back early from work one day to find the shop owner parked on her drive too! Parking is awkward there but I'd never dream of parking on a strangers drive and spending half an hour in a shop!

KatharineClifton · 14/10/2015 19:53

People actually pull into your drive? That's incredible!

Andrewofgg · 14/10/2015 19:56

Nothing NIMBY about it Needle.

If you come home to find your drive parked on. do not hesitate to block the intruder in and leave a note inside your windscreen explaining to reg. number whatever that You have blocked my drive so I have parked here - back at x o'clock where x is several hours from when you leave the note. And ignore the doorbell.

Kym134 · 14/10/2015 19:58

Any chance you are on a road with two small roundabouts next to the tesco? Looks shockingly similar!

LumelaMme · 14/10/2015 19:59

Yarburgh: I'd be livid.

Don't bother asking your lovely local supermarket to pay for it though. My experience of them is that they really couldn't care less: it's why I don't shop there, ever. (Well, okay, once in ten years).

herderofcats · 14/10/2015 20:00

Yarburgh!

Dionysuss · 14/10/2015 20:01

I just snorted tea up my nose with laughter. How has someone recognised the shop from the diagramGrin

Mundelfall · 14/10/2015 20:01

I would go ballistic if someone did that to me. I get the rage if people park half on the street and half on the pavement outside my house. It feels intrusive.
Reading your thread OP gave me visions of keying their cars or slashing their tyres... not helpful, although they are on YOUR property and shouldn't be.

I like the wheelbarrow idea because it would be easier to move than an ornament or similar.

DancingWithWillard · 14/10/2015 20:02

Open the window, tip out cup of tea/coffee/can of emulsion or similar.

Any one who complains gets "terribly sorry, there was a fly in my tea/coffee/emulsion, I didn't see your car parked there.... on my drive"

Falsely bright smile and shut the door in their face.

RandomMess · 14/10/2015 20:03

Just Shock that people think that's ok Shock

Dionysuss · 14/10/2015 20:03

Op put up a sign in your window. By parking there they have agreed to pay a £70 parking fee. Money to be deposited through letter box.

DancingWithWillard · 14/10/2015 20:05

Arf at "Fuck off, this isn't a tesco carpark". You should print off loads of them and then stick them on the windscreen with vaseline.

SweetTeaVodka · 14/10/2015 20:05

Betty, I don't think they can make the sign much more obvious.

DH just called on his break - his favourite suggestion so far is the stinger!

AIBU to be fed up of people using my drive as a car park for the shop opposite?
OP posts:
RueDeWakening · 14/10/2015 20:06

Penguin bollards, that's what you need

Grin

goes off to RTFT now

SweetTeaVodka · 14/10/2015 20:08

Kym, no roundabouts. I hope the residents opposite your Tesco aren't plagued by as many rude parkers as I am.

OP posts:
TendonQueen · 14/10/2015 20:11

People who do this are lazy, rude bastards and it would give me the rage too. Can you buy those very sticky big stickers that parking firms slap on your windscreen? They do come off but you have the inconvenience of scraping at them for ages (I got one when I parked in my work car park one day without realising I'd forgotten my permit) so they're irritating but don't damage the car.

ENtertainmentAppreciated · 14/10/2015 20:14

I asked myself would I ever park on the driveway of a private house so that I could go to the shops? or indeed any driveway for any reason except visiting the householder.

The answer I came up with was NO, no more than I'd take a picnic to a random stranger's garden and make use of their table and chairs.

There you go OP, that's a measure of how reasonable it is to be v v annoyed.