Parking outside my house....

[ManneryTowers]

I know I am BU about some of it, but I'm pregnant and grouchy.
We have a driveway that just fits both our cars but due to the front brick wall there is only a narrow entrance. To reverse our cars on we need space in the road to manoeuvre. Not much, just enough so we can pull across the road then back in. Made slightly tricky by a massive old tree in front of the brick wall. With me? Good.
What is really, utterly boiling my beef is the guy next door insists on parking his work van three inches over our dropped kerb. Every single day. Not enough to really moan about but bloody annoying. Especially when he could back up and just block off his own drive a bit. (He also has space for two vehicles on his).
What's really started to get on my nerves is that the neighbour on the other side has now also taken to parking vehicles on the road outside our house. Either work men's vans, their son's car or their visitors car. The space on that side of the road means two vehicles can be parked there, but they always choose to park outside our house and not their own.
I've come home tonight, after a sincerely crappy day, with a grizzly toddler in the back and found a van on both sides of our dropped kerb, the usual one just over it and the other right up to the edge. I could barely swing in forwards without scraping one of the vans or my car. Plus now tomorrow morning it will be a nightmare to see what's coming down the road when I have to back off the drive.
I know it's petty and there really are bigger problems, but it's annoying me every single time I come home and it's making me not like living here. The guy with the van won't move it as he's had issues about parking his van there before with the previous owners of our house (which we didn't know when we bought).
Sorry for such an essay but any ideas please? Is there anything I can actually do or am I just U?

[Cabawill]

*extend the drop kerb to the whole width of the house

[Monty27]

Sorry I'm tired and have flicked through the thread. I just wanted to ask if you've asked them politely not to do it? I have and it worked a treat, Just appear to be reasonable about it.

[lalalalyra]

We're having our drive/dropped kerb extended full width for the exact same reason.

We're on a corner and if someone (guy opposite...) parks their vanon the right you simply can't see out. To park legally in terms of the corner/road lines you have to have a small Car or overhang our drive by quite a way and the dropped kerb by a few inches.

It hasn't been an issue the whole time we live here, but now the new guy opposite parks there and his son has narrowly missing hitting me or DH too many times for comfort now sparking WWIII over who was in the wrong - us for coming out when the road wasn't clear, him for driving at around double the speed limit (therefore giving us no chance to see him - and that's not hearsay, he was caught doing 48 on the 20 on the next street) or his father for blocking the view.

It would be slightly less annoying if they removed the basketball hoop they installed on their drive (could easily get several cars on there) and parked a couple of their four cars on their drive. Our cul-de-sac isn't really meant for parking on, it wasn't built with that in mind and with only the no-drive houses parking on street it would be much safer.

[Monty27]

I'm right on a bendy hill end of 'terrace'. Lal and the same has happened here, vans parked outside my window on the bend and such. My db parked his car out there once while visiting and got a parking ticket. Weird, and never normally see 'parkies' and never have since.

[lalalalyra]

Probably the van driver reported him... One of the neighbours had a bereavement and had lots of visitors over the last few days and for the funeral and twatty parker guy phoned the council and asked them to send a parking warden round as people were parked "two and three abreast all over the place". Which was true, but they were blocking each other in and no-one else (which is more than he manages!) - they just happened to be using spaces that he "likes to use".

[Monty27]

Yes lala I had my suspicions. It was several years ago too, and many people have parked there (not vans as I reasoned with the van people) and not a ticket has been had to my knowledge. Weird.

Anyway, just speak to them, it worked for me.

[lalalalyra]

Sparkling coincidence that!!

Speaking to them doesn't always work with folks like that sadly. Hopefully it will with the OP. Before I spoke to them, nicely and politely, they parked there two or three times a week - since I spoke to them there hasn't been a single day where they haven't parked there. And they'll now move a car from that spot to park a van instead to make it worse (I've no idea how they've the energy for the faffing about. Parking turns some people into utter arses.

[seeThereWeAreThen]

Cabawill you could report them and they will probably get a ticket for parking opposite a junction.

I double checked and it does look like it.

www.drivingtesttips.biz/nearest-you-can-park-to-a-junction.html

You could save yourself £££s if you didn't need to drop the curb to stop them.

[PigletJohn]

"The space on that side of the road means two vehicles can be parked there, but they always choose to park outside our house and not their own."

That's the easy bit. Just park outside theirs.
If you're really lucky, they'll grumble at you, giving you the chance to say "yes, I know how you feel, I feel just the same when you do it to me".

Don't tell them you might accidentally bump their car. My clumsy neighbours used to reverse out without looking. They had to pay for a replacement light cluster, a rear respray and a front respray on my old car.

[Cabawill]

Thanks for the link, See. I might just have that in mind for next time.