To wonder why people are so precious about parking outside their house!

[Snowflakes1122]

I was driving along a street today, phone rang so I parked up (safely and legally) to answer it.

Next thing I know a woman is outside my car window staring at me, gesturing me aggressively to move my car forward. I look behind and her husband (I assume) was pulling his car off their drive and wanted to park exactly where I was. Despite a half empty street full of parling spots and their double drive.

Why are people so precious about parking outside their house?! Especially when they have a double drive

Because they're idiots!

People who get territorial about parking (on public roads) are just insane

It's bonkers. (I dream of a double drive and no need to find a space)

Because they are fuckwits?

A neighbour (think middle-class, middle-aged woman who goes to church) was arrested a while ago for keying a car that was parked in front of her house. Cars park down our road when the pub car is full and there had been a spate of pub customers' cars being keyed (big news in our small village).

On this occasion she failed to notice that there was actually someone sitting in the car. She has styled out the ignominy quite well and still manages to seem like Hyacinth Bucket despite her criminal record.

I can't help it.

I hate it when someone parks outside my house. It's just such a pain having to drag the kids and the shopping and the pushchair and all the other crap we seem to be incapable of leaving the house without halfway up the street because someone else is parked in front of my house.

If I do manage to nab the space in front of my house, it makes be very reluctant to go out again - which I realise is insane! The other day I was on my way out and I noticed someone hovering waiting to drive into "my" spot. I wanted to go out, I needed to go out - yet it took all my reserves of sanity not to turn off the engine and refuse to budge till they gave up.

I may need help...

My neighbour has carers a few times a day.
Our street is nice and quiet, a lot of drives and places on the street itself. I was coming out of my front door last week as a carer was parking next to my drive and she got out of the car to ask me if I minded her parking there.
You could squeeze three cars up our drive (it's quite long), there were no other cars parked at our end of the street and I had loads of room to get out. Why would she think I care about her parking near my house for max fifteen minutes? Then I remembered threads like this one and suppose she must get hassled elsewhere.

My husband goes crazy when someone parks in the spot we sometimes use near our house. I don't understand as it's not technically ours, anyone is free to park there but it really winds him up. He can't even explain why

It gets worse, there's a whole thread about people not wanting uou to reverse on an off their drive way.

I think it's understandable if uou you have no parking and rely on that spot for easy access, although I guess it comes with the territory if you buy with no where for your car so not fair to take it out on those who are legally in the right to park there.

Some people believe the bit of road outside their house is 'theirs' legally. Like it comes with the house.

Across the road have proper barnies about parking. They both have driveways of their own and yet have managed to get into full blown altercations requiring the police. They block each other in, if 1 house has guests the other house moves their car to block them in...they park nose to tail, physically touching each other's cars to wind each other up. If there's nothing on the telly I just go to my window and watch that.

Well I agree with you in general and often wonder that BUT having said that we live on a busy road and have a drive and dropped kerb and white H bar across it. We often do what that man was trying to do , at quiet times in advance of going out in one of our cars. Reason being it is almost impossible to pull out across the pavement and then into the queue of traffic what with pedestrians, parked cars obscuring view and drivers who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire just will not let you out. So to give ourselves a fighting chance we pull out to the parking space in front of our house when it's a bit easier. So I can imagine doing this and getting a gap in the traffic and pulling out to then reverse back into the space when someone comes along just at that moment and blocks you from doing so by heading into the space. Having said all that we do not ever guide each other out (ridiculous) or have one of us guard the space in any way (again pathetic) as it is not considered 'our' space by any means and we certainly wouldn't dream of remonstrating with anyone . We tend to come in the house and rant about the bastard driver who just had to pull over at that moment . Don't even start me off about trying to get out of your car when there's a constant stream of traffic going past who seem to think you should sit in your car until later that day when there's a gap in the traffic and should not open your car door , even if they have plenty of time to see you doing so.

At our old house the man next door thought no one should park in a bay outside his house. He had a rear drive but still didn't want anyone to park in 'his' bay. The council confirmed that the space he so closely guarded was for anyone and did not belong to him.
He would ask anyone who left their car their to move it and would hunt them down by knocking on all the doors.When he knocked on our door we told him our visitors car was staying put.
People make up their own rules. I would ignore them.

My DH gets upset on my behalf if I have to park across the road - god knows why, I don't care

If there's nothing on the telly I just go to my window and watch that,

Better than most soaps

We live on a corner plot so have two "roads" in front of the house - almost 60m in length.

If we worried about people parking there, we'd go mad.

HOWEVER what gives me the rage is when people park on the pavement outside ours, and immediately block wheelchair and power scooter access - which affects MrsLH.

My cunt of a neighbour actually hammered on my door one night in a fit of range as i had parked my car slightly over so he couldn't park his van outside my house. Despite the fact he had already parked his car outside his.

One space clearly isn't enough!!

It makes some sense if they don't have a drive but the people who are most nightmarish about this often do have a drive. That's what makes it so ridiculous.

In our previous house the NDNs clearly had too much time on their hands. The street wasn't busy and everyone had a drive (we had a double drive). But the NDNs seemed to be obsessed with the stretch if street outside their house.

They would park there instead of using their drive because that meant no one else could. If someone had parked there, they would wait and watch and move their car as soon as the people left.

Sometimes they'd need park over their drive a bit (because someone's visitors were parked outside ours and overhung 'their' bit of road. The NDNs would move their car 20cm down as soon as they could so that the edge of their bonnet was aligned with the boundary between our houses. They only had one car so it wasn't that they needed to ensure access. They were just odd.

DH gets a bit weird about the parking bay sort of outside our house (we have a double drive at the back). I just laugh at him because it makes no different if someone uses it for its intended purpose.

I get a bit annoyed when our current NDNs' personal trainer parks her car on the shared access to our drives right behind our drive (making it hard to get out). She could just pull forward 6 feet and she'd be behind their cars instead. Or she could park on the public road and not invent herself a parking space that inconveniences me. I don't say anything about it to anyone as I feel I'd just come across as an irrational fool (I am technically totally correct though). I just choose to think of her as that bloody personal trainer. I might do a diagram just to demonstrate the correctness of my stance on her parking.

I think they are bonkers, but it's a completely different thing to park on a public highway than it is to manoeuvre your vehicle onto someone elses private property as per the reversing thread Bluntness

It never used to bother me and wasn't a problem. I have an old (almost Classic) car which is parked on the drive and there is a space on the street for one car to park in front of our wall. The drive curves a bit.

Needless to say people won't park within the space, they overlap the end of the drive so that anyone trying to get out has a struggle. Add that to the people who sit there with the engine running or music blasting out and I often wish there wasn't a council owned tree there and that we could extend the driveway and dropped curb and stop anyone parking there.

I have no issue with considerate neighbours who park carefully and don't SHOUT when they are leaving between midnight and 3 a.m. but have been known to glare at car sitters when I have been gardening out there and enjoying the peace.

I don't get it. We have allocated parking at our gated community and ours is about a 50m walk away from our front door. Someone else has the two spaces directly outside our front door (ie less than 5m away).

The only time it gets annoying is when one guy comes home in the middle of the night and leaves his lights on full beam shining right into our bedroom at 3am while he gets every single thing out of his car. Then I get a bit precious.

It is nuts. The road is for everyone.

That said, I get annoyed with the people living in the flats on the next road who have their own spaces in a secure underground car park, yet still take up all the spaces on our road because they are too fucking lazy to walk an extra 15 metres around the corner.

I don't think they shouldn't be allowed to park there, but I do think they are selfish cunts for doing it.

Before someone comments on age of car, I will add (which I forgot to say) it doesn't move a lot but does leave the drive.

I live in an old house with no off road parking and also very close to the road. I know I don't own the road outside my house. It is still irritating when people who live in the immediate vicinity and do have drives take up spaces in the road instead of parking on their property, it is even more irritating when they park like twats and take up more room than they need, and because they are local they fully understand the knock on effects on their neighbours. Because the houses are close to the road it's also awful when people sit outside with the engine running, or on the phone, or the lights on and when they park and get in and out of the car loads of times slamming the door and boot over and over again, it makes my old sash windows rattle like crazy (bloody walkers, I mean you, the car park round the corner is only £1 for the whole day!)

I can't believe how laid back you all are about this. Am I seriously the only one who gets annoyed by this??!