A shared driveway one - who was BU?

[iknowimcoming]

We live in one of 3 houses which share a single lane driveway (not long btw, in a housing estate). Last night DH came home to find he couldn't get down the drive as next door was having supermarket delivery. The driver had reversed into their drive but was sticking out on the drive so as DH couldn't get past. DH waited for 6-8 mins and then realised that the driver hadn't even knocked on the door so was clearly going to be some time.

So he left his car at the top of the driveway (blocking it) and unloaded the car of our food shopping and brought it in the house, not wanting our frozen stuff to defrost. He assumed that at the point the delivery truck was ready to leave, driver would come and knock on the door.

Anyway fifteen minutes pass and I'm upstairs, DH downstairs, when I hear my mobile ring, I shout to DH to see who it is, but it goes to voicemail before he gets to it, but sees missed call is from ndn (she and I are friends) and assumes they need him to move car so goes to do so.

Whilst walking up driveway ndn shouts out to him, how dare he block the driveway!! DH explains frozen food etc, she says he should have waited, he says he did wait initially, but it was too long, she says it couldn't possibly have been more than a minute. DH says how would you know you were inside and the driver hadn't even knocked your door yet!

She stomps off indoors before DH had finished his sentence, slams door. I come downstairs, listen to voicemail message, from which it is clear that she is very angry and that DH is totally in the wrong!!

DH comes in fuming and we are both baffled as to how it's apparently ok for her driver to block the drive but NOT OK for DH to do the same.

Had it been me I would have knocked on the door and said sorry you couldn't get down the drive, the driver has finished now could you please move your car. No biggie! However, I suspect this will be a friendship ending event, she has form for a very quick temper, sadly. So oh wise ones who WBU?

Why was you ndn irate? What's it got to do with her? I can't see how it should have affected her tbh

Me neither widow! I would have told the driver he lives there, go and ask him to move!

I'd ask your husband to go round to the neighbours with a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine and apologise. Yes she over reacted and got angry, but let's face it, from the two of them, him and her, he behaved badly first and kicked it off.

So the driver didn't acknowledge him and it pissed your husband off, so he behaved badly and the whole thing escalated from there. He clearly walked straight past the driver without speaking to him and blocked him in on purpose and then waited in the house knowing the issues it would cause. I am unsure why you professed you were both baffled. It was passive aggressive and antagonistic, and well, childish and petty. It also shouldn't be something that ruins a friendship when you know you're husband was in the wrong for not simply asking the driver.

I'd ask him to go round and say sorry, here's a small gift, bad day. We all need good relationships with our neighbours. Yes both in the wrong, but my view is since your husband instigated it, he should be a big enough person to apologise first and not let this ruin good relations. Hopefully she will then say sorry too and normal relations can resume.

If also ask that as the driver didn't want to knock on uour door and ask your husband to move and got the neighbour to communicate if there is something to this story that your husband isn't telling you and is what upset the neighbour.

The legalities don't really matter.

Dh couldn't get to his drive, left his car at the end of the shared drive, Tesco (or other supermarket) driver would have seen, could have just knocked on the door.

Husband would have moved it.

Neighbour completely OTT. It should be her bringing you wine or chocs or something from her recent delivery!!

If you live in a shared drive way you have to learn to be civil as someone already said. Your dh was out of order blocking the way and disappearing into the house and obviously keeping no eye out. He should have parked elsewhere for the time needed. Everyone needs to be extra accommodating in that situation. So it's your dh who was wrong in my book.

I guessing that fact that neither you or your dh could work out by yourselves that your dh WBU is maybe also the reason your ndn gets exasperated by you on odd occasions.

Bluntness - neighbour has form for irrational behaviour, DH does not have form for lying, or indeed any reason to, for all he knew I could have seen it all from a window, as it happens I didn't was probably vair busy Mumsnet ting

Of course the truck driver was also blocking me and my next door neighbours in the driveway thus preventing our access to the highway as of course was dh! The daft thing really is had he refused back two more feet he wouldn't have blocked the driveway.

But you weren't going out were you? And if you were you would simply have asked the driver to move his truck, as most reasonable people would and as your DH should. He'd had a bad day? Did doing what he did resulting in lost tempers all round make it any better a day? I agree your ndn was OTT but I suspect it's not one-off behaviour for your DH either. Like I said, this is only going to get worse in future with a whole round of silly 'you blocked me so now I'm gonna block you' games unless you agree to a compromise.

Neighbour was being totally ridiculous whether she wu or not. As others said, just knock the door tell him to move it. What a load of drama over nothing.

so driver spent 6-8 mins taking shopping from the van to door and still hadn't even knocked on the door, that must have been a lot of shopping dumped on the door step.

Why would delivery driver acknowledge some random stranger parked in a car?

DH was sat in his car and driver was coming back and forth to the truck each time looking at DH but not acknowledging him, which was what pissed DH off.

Because a normal person would expect someone being blocked out to come and say, "Could you move your van, please?" not sit in the car like a lemon for 6-8 minutes.

He probably thought your husband was waiting for someone and didn't intend to park on the driveway.

The way these minor things can escalate out of all proportion for want of a bit of common sense is unreal.

We have a shared driveway. It is on our deeds that we cannot block our next door neighbours access to the drive and they in turn cannot block our access. It might be worth getting a copy of your title from the land registry, it is only about £3, you can get one for any property, not just your own. If she has a duty to ensure that you have access , then she should either move her own vehicle to ensure you are not ininconvenienced, which is what we do if we are expecting a delivery, or tell the delivery van not to park on the drive.

JamieXeed74
so driver spent 6-8 mins taking shopping from the van to door and still hadn't even knocked on the door, that must have been a lot of shopping dumped on the door step.

I didn't get that either. In the OP it seemed like the driver was just sitting in the van doing nothing for 6-8 minutes, but if he was busy unloading the shopping then it wouldn't have been that much longer. These delivery drivers are often under huge pressure to make a lot of deliveries within a very short period of time, so I imagine the driver was really upset with the neighbour about being blocked in, which is probably why the neighbour was upset.

It does sound like your DH came home in a bad mood, was pissed off about being blocked out and not acknowledged, so decided to block in the van driver to teach him a lesson. When I have shopping delivered they are in and out really quickly. I find it hard to believe the driver was leisurely taking the shopping in.

I don't understand why your DH did not speak to the driver. Does no-one communicate by speech anymore?

You've got two choices regardless of who was right and who was wrong.

Apologise and get things back on track.

Don't apologise and things get worse for the time you're living there.

Morally there's no right or wrong really ( DH should have talked to the driver) but for the sake of keeping the leave just sort if out amicably.

Peace even 🙄

Bluntness - neighbour has form for irrational behaviour, DH does not have form for lying, or indeed any reason to,

Does your OH have form for irrational behaviour? Because not speaking to the driver basically amounts to that.

your husband was a prat for not speaking directly to the delivery driver.

and what is more, there should have been a diagram...........

" Does no-one communicate by speech anymore?"

It would seem not.

If only they could have texted

Your DH was BU. He could have spoken to the delivery driver instead of blocking him in on purpose

I get it, we have our own drive, leading on to a shared drive, shared by four houses. Usually it's ok and everyone's considerate. However, our neighbour has their Tesco delivery and they always park in the middle and this blocks everyone. There is a lot of room for parking about 10 metres away but it's clearly too much for the delivery drivers.

It does irk me to no end but I haven't mentioned it as sometimes I get deliveries and sometimes they park right in the middle too. But if I was having a weekly Tesco delivery, I would ask them to make a note not to park in the middle of the shared driveway. All the drivers can see this in the customer notes.

If I was you, I certainly wouldn't go to your neighbours door with chocolates and wine. Her reaction seems really OTT, don't be a walk over, she has no right to rant at you like that.