Parking in front of your own house..... What's the deal with this????

[crazygoat]

Hello! We have just moved into a new house and there is no allocated parking. On our first day a neighbour popped into say hello an mentioned that each house likes to park in front of their own house, then quickly apologised for parking in front of ours! I did ask if it was allocated and she said no but it's what we like.

Fast forward a few days and we had got back from doing the weekly shop and the only place to park was in front of a neighbours house, seeing as we had to unload the car with shopping, toddler, buggy and everything else that a small human needs we parked in that space as it was free. We then didn't use the car for about 4 days but didn't think there would be a problem leaving it there as there were always other spaces free within about 15 steps of everyone's front door, anyway my partner has to use the car and in less than a minute after he has gone both my neighbours move their cars, one from in front of my house to in front of his and the other out if the space in front of the other neighbours house to in front of his. So all in all both cars have been moved about 5 meters!! I then heard then say to each other 'so glad we have got our spots back, think we should get some cones'

Why do people do this?? Me and my partner will park in the closest spot to our front door, whether that be in front of it or 30 meters down the road. we really don't care!!!! If there is a spot opposite my neighbours house I'm not going to park in another spot just to keep if free for them!!

AIBU??? If you are one of these people that likes to always park in front of your house can you please let me know why?? I can understand if you have a disability, you are entitled to have a space close to your house, I can even see that it would be nice if you have a car full of kids you want to keep safe but that doesn't entitle you to the space.

I wish my life was so simple that I could spend my days looking out my window to see if my parking space is free!!!!

YANBU. Ignore anyone telling you that you have a "moral" obligation not to park outside someone else's house, or that it's "rude." These people are idiots.

I would hate hate hate this pettiness. It is like red rag to a bull to me. Unless there was a very good reason why someone had to park outside their house (elderly can't walk far etc) I would be parking willy nilly anywhere just to shake it all up because it is so territorial and silly.

In our first house, I never got to park outside our house, ever! It's a public highway, you can't earmark a piece of public highway for yourself!

Well surely you didn't park Infront of your house because someone else was so sod em !

I like to get as near to my house as possible but sometimes I can't . People have more than one car , visitors etc etc

We live on a road with similar behaviour. We have a drive (without a dropped kerb - not allowed one) that fits my car then my husband blocks me in in his van. It's annoying but we do that as our neighbours all love to moan about a car or particularly the van in front of their houses. We've had to do that occasionally when someone has parked in front of our none dropped kerb drive. I wouldn't mind but he two people who moan do NOT own a car and no do they have a drive. They don't have an amazing view without any cars there so they're just being fussy. How anyone has the time to worry then come round to ask us to move a vehicle that isn't in their way is just beyond me.

Someone blocked me in the other day! That's a whole different thread though.

Our road each has a drive with 2 spaces per house and our neighbour still parks his bloody van outside our house instead of on his driveway or outside his house. I know I can't do anything about it, but it does mean when reversing off of my drive I struggle to see round it which makes life hard. Only annoys me as he's the only one that parks on the whole road and not on his drive and it's almost as if he doesn't want his rusty van outside his house so sticks it in front of mine instead even tho there's at least 10 free spaces on the road to use including directly outside of his house!!!

You must have moved in next door to my fil.

Rattusn We have room for 2 cars comfortably side by side on our drive, but DH often parks outside on the road in "his" space as he gets wound up if someone else parks there.

This was fine when our DD lived at home so we had 3 cars (one of us had to park on the road) But now she has moved out, he still likes to park in 'his' space. I told him he was bonkers & should not do it.

Just lately there has been a spate of car & van break ins& this has prompted to start parking on our drive-at last. People are bonkers about parking!

Just tell them to contact the police if they believe a parking infringement has been made. That usually shuts them up.

We have a dropped kerb as our front 'garden' is a hideous, concrete, weed-invested drive for us to park on. Sometimes we can't get onto it due to people parking over our drive both sides and the road is narrow so you can't swing round enough to go straight in. In these cases, our neighbours sometimes have the nerve to say WE CAN PARK ON THEIR DRIVE OR ACROSS THEIR DRIVE UNTIL OURS IS ACCESSIBLE!

I was driving a Mini, not a 30-ton lorry

our neighbour parks three vehicles in front of our and his gardens, one of which is a massive ugly mobile home.

Does that change things?

I'm going against the grain here but it would annoy me if a neighbour parked outside our house for four days when they could have moved it.

The difference between 15 steps and 3 steps to your front door feels a lot bigger when you are hauling shopping in or loading babies in the car.

You are not bring unreasonable but just a bit inconsiderate. I doubt your car would have been damaged in the long run if you had moved it the next day.

My mum lives in a detached house so has space for 2 cars infront of her house easily. She has a big car for work & step dad has a big van for work. As soon as me my brother & sister got our own cars at 17. We without question just parked at the end of the road where there was just fencing. No ones house entrance. This worked well. I'm sure neighbours would have moaned if we took up 5/6 spaces worth of cars all by our house. So when me & my DP moved into our current house, one of us parked at the end of the road & one outside the front of the house. Just so we didn't upset any neighbours.

I never moan about parking. But it's a bonus when I can get outside my house because I have 5 kids to get in the car every morning & 2 are still in baby carriers. & 1 is 18mths. The other two are old enough to walk sensibly but it is a bit of a nightmare. I always have to do at least two trips getting them safely in the car. But I don't own the road. Hopefully one day I get my own driveway but until then I just suck it up. No ones doing anything wrong.

Our old neighbours were like this, if you parked in front of their house the would park on their drive leaving the car over the pavement so as to block you in (narrow street meant cars would park up the curb). Another neighbour once knocked on my door to say they had parked outside our house but wouldn't be long, and was that OK. When I said it's a public highway, park where you like they gave a nervous laugh and side eyed the house next door.

Where we live now I look like one of those bonkers people. We have enough space for 2 cars on the drive but as the cars would have to go behind one another it would make mornings difficult. Across the road there are 4 numbered bays which belong to the first 4 houses (including ours). Unfortunately there is a sign behind them which says for visitors & residents of our street, even though we own the space. I don't know how this happened as the street is about 25 years old. Added to this there is a women's shelter across the road which has a gated carpark that no visitors ever use as they just park in the 4 spaces on our street. So, whilst I'd never bother approaching anyone to move, of I've parked on the drive & my space becomes free I do move my car

Where I lived before, we all had an unspoken rule that we would not park outside of each others houses, so if my space was blocked and my neighbour's was free, then I would park up the road and they would all do the same. It was just a little courtesy that we all showed each other and helped for neighbourly relations (4 houses in a terrace).

We had problems when a couple of people moved into the street behind and wouldn't park outside of their own house in case their cars got damaged, so started to park outside our houses meaning that we had nowhere to park at all. When I was pregnant and suffering from SPD, my neighbour did leave a note on their windscreens politely asking them to park in their own street , which they did from then on.

You are quite right that you can park wherever you like, but it depends on whether you want to get on with your neighbours or not. If you are intending on staying there for a while, it might be best to just go along with it in order to not cause bad feelings against yourselves.

If I am parking in some random street for an appointment , I don't think twice about parking outside of somebody's house, so totally see it from both points of view

For some reason, I'm thinking someone should develop a game of neighbour parking swaps. The aim would be for everyone to park in front of their own houses. The challenge would be visitors, then all the neighbours would run to their vehicles and swap spaces to park as close as possible to their home. You'd have to beat them to park in front of your own house.
A bit like musical chairs, but with parking.

I have this.. we all have our own "spot" on our terraced close, and some are very funny about it. I personally just park wherever is free but a neighbour of mine won't park in another neighbours space and has mini battles with the poor bloke left out of one! In the past he has even asked dp to move our car to reserve it for him! And if it gets out of order and then a car is left there so it can't be rectified, people get very stressed.

my car needs a good drive before i can turn the engine off so no i wouldnt be moving it for anyone unles they want to jump start my car everytime

they dont own the public road no matter what they think

and as for people saying its n ot neighbourly someone parked in front of ops house so theyve broken thyre own rule

Putting out cones (or recycling boxes man who wears shorts in December at no 19 I'm looking at you ) is illegal, blocking the public highway and that.

Bloody hell drspouse I thought you were one of my neighbours, describing Mr Cone neighbour until I saw the house number .

Lweji - a neighbourhood version of Parking Dash, perhaps?

OP, I don't understand the obsession with parking spaces, but I do think you were being a bit, well, goady, leaving your car somewhere for four days when you know the custom and convention in your new street is different.

A bit like musical chairs, but with parking.

My neighbours did a version of this when I learned to drive and got a car. The score was 3 to their household and 1 to ours, but for some reason they used to deliberately arrange their cars so that as a nervous novice I was scared of bumping them and used to park far away.

I never said anything but when my dad found out he was furious. We spent an hour or so one Sunday morning - me sweating at the wheel and him casually waving me in: 'left hand down a bit, keep going, oops, a bump. Don't worry, that's what bumpers are for, straighten up, oops a nudge, never mind' while they were twitching the curtains but didn't dare emerge.

My dad was an excellent man and I am an excellent parker

On my street everyone parks in front of their own house. If you have more than one car or visitors, the extra car is parked further up the street where there are no houses. Everyone who has moved here has done this and it seems to work.

We had this crazy in one street we lived in. We decided it was more of a problem in quieter areas, we had just moved from a busy London street and we were happy to be able to park in the same street we lived in. We wondered if it was also a bit of a generational thing?

We have this madness on our little close. A house in the corner has room for 4 cars on their driveway. But they always leave a car parked in a bay a bit further from their house. Every time they leave the bay they put another of their cars in it so no one can nick the space. Fucking ridiculous.

This would infuriate me. We had something similar to this a couple of months ago. We live in a cul-de-sac and there's an agreement between us all that we leave the wheelie bins at the entrance to it on bin day because it's a lot easier for the bin men to collect them all at once and they don't have to reverse down quite a narrow street.

All fine until we got a new neighbour who didn't like this policy and wanted his bin collecting from his doorstep, meaning that cars and anything else in the way was getting damaged. Plus the incredible noise of the lorry and the fact that some of our neighbours are retired. It's not a problem for the neighbour in question though as he leaves for work at 6 every morning so doesn't hear the lorry coming.

I got into the habit of getting up at 5am to lean his bin against his door so that when he opened it all his rubbish would fall inside. Then again, I'm an incredibly passive aggressive person.