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!!!!

[StepAwayFromTheThesaurus]

I once moved into a house in a terraced steet in the middle of middle englandshire from central Edinburgh. The total weirdos next door knocked not to introduce themselves but to complain that is parked in 'their space'. They were nightmares and really annoying about it. I was exhausted and in no mood and just gave them a look and said something about it being a ridiculous fuss over having to park a couple of metres away from your house and that where I'd come from you were lucky to get parked in the same postcode as you lived. Of course the neighbours on either side had decided that 'their spaces' left too little space in between to squeeze in even a teeny tiny ford KA. I wouldn't have had an issue with parking at the end of the street and walking if it weren't for the neighbours being such insufferable arseholes about parking outside their house (and thereby ensuring that I couldn't park outside mine).

The neighbours in our last house were also freaks about parking. They had a drive but didn't use it because they hated people parking outside their house. They'd ensure they parked their car right where the fence between the houses ended and they'd rush out to move their car down a foot if someone had parked outside out house and overlapped theirs the second the car moved. We just found it hilarious as we had a drive. The people across the road I think delighted in getting their visitors to park there to annoy them though.

In both cases these were people with too much time on their hands.

[bertsdinner]

My old street was like this, most of the houses were older semis that didnt have drives and I lived in a row of 6 new builds that had a parking space each. My new next door neighbours had two vans, so parked one on their drive and one on the street. They couldnt park in front of the new builds as they would have overhung and blocked in their next doors.
When they parked on the street the semi owners got really, really pissy about it. I can understand really as space was limited and two huge vans caused a bit of an issue.

My current next door has a big drive but they have about 5 cars between them and one usually parks in front of my house. It does annoy me a bit but there's nothing you can do and its not worth getting bothered over. If anyone parks in front of their house though, they go crazy. They have ongoing parking wars with their other next door.

[DesolateWaist]

Q7 is shade over 5 metres (about 16 and half feet in old money) - long for a car, granted, but that's a narrow house.

My old terrace was 12ft wide. There are thousands of terraces like that up and down the country.

[mirime]

We had our neighbour on the right come and tell us that the space outside our house was free when it wasn't even his house we'd had to park outside.

He did try and organise the parking on the whole street though - on the plus side there was no vandalism or car theft, I think all the local people knew the road was being closely watched!

[Glastonbury]

We all try to park outside our own houses here. Those of us with two cars will park one round the corner. I will move my car as I like to keep an eye on it plus I don't like to annoy others.

What does annoy me is the people who park between houses so you can't get as many cars in. The worst culprit round here drives a KA that she seems to think is a bus.

Leaving your car outside someone else's house for four weeks is very unfair.

[Twodogsandahooch]

Don't get me started on the bloke who left his pickup outside our house for 6 weeks. Turned out he had bloody broken his leg, but still.

[ILoveOnionRings]

We had the neighbour thump on the door and demanded I move my car from outside his house. I looked at him, kept a neutral voice, paused and said no! He then ranted he had lived on this road for many years and it was his right to park outside his house and I was to move. I waited until he had finished, looked at him deadpanned and said 'I already have my pyjamas on and was not leaving the house again today (it was about 3pm on a Sunday).

This did not deter his rants and he continued, I then raised my voice and asked him if had purchased the piece of road outside of his house and if not then why didn't he as it was that precious to him. I then may have asked (shouted) if he was physic and knew what spaces were available when I arrived home and how dare he stipulate where I should park. I did continue in this vain for about a minute ie if there was parking restrictions surely it would be marked on the road, where are the signs stating it was for his own personal use, was this piece of road exempt from the normal laws of the road etc, etc, etc. He was rather surprised that I did actually challenge him and scuttled off.

I am not precious about parking and quite happy to park where there is a space, if I have to walk a few houses up the road, so be it. He is another one who as soon as a car moves from outside his house he is straight out moving his car back into 'his space'.

Side note: terraced road, most people have 2 cars, parking is a first come first served but usually within 4 doors of own house. House we live in was the family home and said neighbour has been harassing the previous occupants and visitors about parking for many years if they dared park in his space.

[Thatznotmyname]

Since I've been on maternity leave I've noticed s rythym to the parking! Neighbours over the road park in the space between my house and next door, she picks kids up from school so leaves about 2.45, nexr door then leaps out takes her car off the drive and parks in vacated space which she then moves about 5ish when husband gets in from work. She then moves, back onto drive and he occupies street space, then he leaves in the morning and over the road takes kids to school and parks there again on her return..... every single day!

[IAmNotAMindReader]

This is not a new phenomenon at all. In my youth I used to live in a terraced street and anyone counted themselves lucky if they could park within 100m of their house.
Without fail there was 1 man who would curtain twitch and hammer on the door of anyone who parked in his spot (outside his own house) and launch into a tirade of how he'd been out at work (just like everyone else in the street) and he can't park in front of his own house.
My DF from then on dubbed him "Can't park in front of me own house" (the method and tone used to deliver his rants was not unlike that of an agitated parrot, complete with matching body language).
This was over 30 years ago OP. He would without fail storm over to the offending cars owners property red-faced and full of righteous indignation.

[Masketti]

We had a system in my old road where you parked on the right up to a point then on the left. It was a simple system because the point you started parking on the left was after a branch road. We lived on the right but if there were too many cars on the left you couldn't park on the left past the branch road. One evening I parked on the left as there were too many cars on the right and woke up the next morning to see a newish neighbour's car on the right. There was enough space to squeeze a car through but of course it was bin day. The bin men had to do a door knock to get through and as I lived higher up the road than her I got the knock first. Of course it looked like I'd been the idiot parker when in fact it was her. I did protest to the bin men that I wasn't the knob but I think they thought I protested too much

So parking conventions can help with the flow of traffic but parking somewhere just because it's outside your house (and actually mine - flats) is inconsiderate.

It's inconsiderate when people block other's light with huge vehicles but a bog standard car outside a bog standard house shouldn't raise people's blood pressure this much!

[Notsure1234]

My street is exactly like this, it's exhausting.

One house on our road had actually put 2 signs up saying 'off street parking for number 32' or whatever. It's the bloody road! I've never had to park there but would happily if it was the only space

[Roussette]

I'd be removing the sign and chucking it in the bin! You can't stick a sign up claiming a space that is public highway! That sign is funny!

[user1470771898]

Good luck with this.

We had plenty of communal car parking - no individual ownership.

Parked my car, not outside anyone's house, but where it wouldn't get hit by flying footballs (lots of signs saying 'no ball games allowed') and returned to find my windscreen wipers ripped off and a hand scrawled (in green crayon) note telling me to F off and not park there again.

Wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't been at least six parking spaces left in that section.

[girlwithamoonandstaronherhead]

Ooh, we had a neighbour like that she was crazy about it to the point of tears. It was a quiet street with more spaces than needed and she did not have young children!

[TheLegendOfBeans]

Does this happen in other places or is it just a U.K. thing?

I'm honestly really interested seeing as we move abroad next year and I've had such shit from neighbours across the years re: parking when they've usually had

A) no right to complain
B) a disproportionately strong reaction
C) this sense of entitlement that makes newcomers to the neighbourhood feel really awful.

[ParForTheCourses]

My nan is territorial like this but in all fairness to her she is disabled and awaiting blue badge. Parking is so bad around her way that she gets anxious understandably at not getting a close space.

[Badbadbunny]

Does this happen in other places or is it just a U.K. thing?

Yep, we often rent holiday homes as noticed the Germans are ultra keen on parking right outside their own doorstep. We've seen the "parking shuffle" a few times when 2 or 3 of them have come out to play musical cars to get their car outside their own home after someone has driven off.

Mind you, that's a lot better than Russians in holiday resorts who just abandon their mercs and bmws where they like, often blocking a pavement or double parking blocking someone else in.

[awesomeness]

i used to get angry if there's no parking outside my house but only because it's bays and not enough bays for houses and there was this one guy with a stupidly loud big bore exhausts who likes to leave at 5am for work and wakes a multitude of people up and he actually lives at the bottom of the road, a good 15 houses away but his wife doesn't want him waking HER up, plus she has a car, he has huge box van he sometimes uses for work, her mum lives with them with a car too and he has a trailer and a caravan all in individual bays.......so they park trailer and caravan in the bays outside their house and leave the cars in the bays by me.



until i rang the police because he came home in his huge van on a friday night and parked behind me whilst i was in a bay and left me unable to get out until he went to work on the monday, point blank refused to move the van, several other neighbours tried and couldn't get my car out, so i called the police, turned out not one car or van was insured, taxed or MOTed and he didn't have council permit or summat for caravan to be on road

evil i know, but i couldn't get to my horses, a vets appointment for my dog, to do my food shop for anything and he was so nasty about moving it, plus he can only afford 1 car now he has to do it legit 😂

i can see why people get bad about it as you don't know what's happened in past, but i think you were being a BU not to move your car to i front of yours once the space was free instead of leaving it for 4 days, what about if they struggled with shopping etc they do sound a bit bonkers but it's fine parking in front of theirs but don't leave it there 4 days, their new neighbours and you don't know their struggles

[DanyellasDonkey]

The man who lives beside me has a disabled space for his own car and his daughter parks next to that, While she is out at work, he moves his car into "her space" and leaves it there all day till she gets home. His disabled space lies empty all day and he sits inside waiting for someone to park in it and then goes out and shouts at them to move it out of his space.

Very bizarre!!

[awesomeness]

there's a disabled bay by me and non of the houses near it have a disabled resident, but someone's visitor with a blue badge parked in it once........oh hell fire the shit hit the fan and it was hilarious, the man who's house it's outside ended up getting arrested after trying to smash the car window and dinting all the car climbing in the bonnet because apparently the disabled badge was a fake and they shouldn't be parking there as it's HIS bay!

1. he's not disabled (possibly a bit crazy tho)
   

1. he doesn't own a car

[BreakfastAtSquiffanys]

I'm so glad we moved away from our irritating neighbour who used to object where we parked our one and only car, when they had 6 cars in their household for 2 adults and 2 teenagers over 17

[awesomeness]

in my old house it was bays and road parking, there was one guy who parked over 3 bays......yes three, with a car and trailer attached, straight across 3 bays, no one should complain tho coz he was a bit of a hot head

so i rocked up in a discovery with a horse trailer whilst he was at work with said trailer and car, and parked the same, and then waited........he came a banging, queue the whole neighbour hood out on their door steps whilst i walk over to my car and ask him to point out how i'm
parking incorrectly, i stand there making 'hummm yes' noises as he rants about illegal parking and wanted to call police, and i say 'oh yes well i thought it was legal seems as you do it every day and oh yes, you can show the police the cctv stills from my camera so show them an example'

he then detached trailer and parked normally

[Mazzystarlett]

I used to have a neighbour who not only had to park right outside his house, he had to line his car door up with his front steps too, leaving a really annoying half a space gap behind him. The whole row cheered when he moved!

[awesomeness]

wow he sounds a right lazy git