To be sad at the lack of parking thread lately

[stillnotTheDoctor]

Just that really. Parking threads are why I com to mumsnet and there's been a dirth lately. Can someone at least make one up please?

The other evening I had a CF parking so their bumper overhung the dropped kerb a little and made reversing in a multi-point manoeuvre. She must have seen me because she came out and moved the car further down the road while I was still getting out.

I didn't get a chance to post a thread about it as all was fine, sorry!

How very unreasonable of these people to be reasonable.

I have one that annoyed the shit out of me for three weeks, but I was incensed that I couldn’t do a thing about it because nobody was being unreasonable. I will happily over dramatise it for you.

Setting the scene- I live in a little block of privately owned flats, 8 total. Lovely and spacious, but with not so great parking- behind the building is a row of 8 spaces, parked between a line of trees and our row of garages. The gap between the space and the garage is very tight, meaning that I would struggle to get out if anyone parked either side of me, and couldn’t get in at all. Luckily, the 4 flats on my side of the parking don’t use their spaces. This gives me bags of room to park up. This has suited me wonderfully, and has been the situation since we bought the place 18 months ago. I feel extra cushdy about this since the other four spaces are always taken (god knows how they get in. They must be better at parking than me!)

Anyway. One day last month I go outside to find a shitty, super old, broken down ford with four flat tires parked in the space next to me. I deduce this is owned by the son in law of the elderly woman who lives downstairs. I am instantly livid. The son in law doesn’t live here! What right does he have to park there! The woman from downstairs doesn’t have a car, and this has suited me very nicely!! I go from swinging into my space to having to do a three point manouver to squish in next to this ugly car. It also has a nasty blue tarpaulin covering it to ‘protect’ it which fills me with a blinding rage every time I see it’s incessent blueness.

A week passes. A particularly strong breeze blows the tarpaulin into MY SPACE. I am furious. My territory has been encroached. I grumble as I move it aside. I google the number plate to find the car is SORN. I make lots of grumbling noises to my OH about how the car is a ‘nasty bit of off road junk I have to put up with.’ He is bemused and points out that at least the space on the other side of me is still empty and I can still easily get in, unlike the poor souls on the other side. I am aware of this but I don’t want it pointing out. I make myself a cup of tea but don’t offer him one for this infraction.

Another week passes. During this time, the woman downstairs also leaves an armchair in the hallway for a week. I am LIVID. First the car, now the chair! It’s anarchy! I overhear the son in law arguing with the daughter when they come to pick it up a few days later to take it to the tip. I listen in as I sip my tea (I made OH one this time as he agreed the chair was annoying). I think cross thoughts about how the SIL can pick up the chair but not his ugly car. I decide that the fact they are rowing is a sign of how unreasonable they are in general. I do not go and ask about the car but grumble that at least the chair is gone. I think again how annoying it is that she is well within her right to use the space.

A few days later, I have a British Gas engineer over in the morning. I leave him to it, with OH wfh, and set off to get in my car. British Gas engineer has parked in the space on the other side of me! I now have a car on each side! This has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. I am aghast. I am enraged that one of the cars is there because I have called him out. I blame the old ford for this whole situation. I manage to get out of the space after a couple of back and forths. I then ring OH from the car and fill him in on the sorry affair. ‘At least you know you can get out of that space now if it happens again’ he says. But I wouldn’t have HAD to learn that if the woman downstairs didn’t let her stupid SIL Park his ugly ford in her space, I think. OH precariously close to getting refused another cup of tea.

Another few days pass by. The car vanishes, just like that. I dance around in the empty space in joy. OH does the same in solidarity and earns himself a packet of yorkie bars in the weekly shop. I nod to myself that everything is right and just with the world again. I glance across at the other four cars parked in a row and realise how lucky I am. I think about how cross the car has made me and realise I have so few problems that a strong wind could well blow me over, and I need to toughen up. I get over this at my joy of being able to drive through the now empty space to leave instead of AROUND it. All is well.

Obligatory diagram attached. My car is blue, the evil ford is red. The poor souls in the other four flats are the black cars.

Thank you @JustTheLemons. Just what I needed. I particularly enjoyed OHs involvements and rewards or deprivation thereof. Top points for the diagram too!

Agreed, generally excellent, but couldn’t you have drip fed a bit?

The only thing I miss more than a good parking thread is a blue badge parking badge!!

Apologies, rookie error.

Ok, how’s this- when we went to our first ‘flat owners’ meeting not long after buying, OH had to leave early due to a football game he was playing in. When he apologetically explained this the woman commented ‘I thought you had an athletes physique’.

When OH was unperturbed by the arrival of the car, I reminded him of this incident and deduced that he was letting her off easy due to her being his ‘bit on the side’.

I don’t like to park right next to other cars (I like a nice 2 space gap) so I don’t have to worry about farting around manoeuvreing a big car when I park. So I tend to park miles away from everyone else at the arse end of the car park.
Can you imagine my rage when I came back to my car in Asda car park to find 2 buggers had parked right next to me on either side in an otherwise empty part of the car park (at least 50 free spaces)!
I took a picture to text my DH with this outrageous example of herding mentality. He didn’t respond, so I then proceeded to squeeze in through my door and moan loudly to my teenage DS at what poor form it was to park like that, and how they were obviously crappy drivers if they had to line their cars up against mine to park.
My DS then pointed out my sunroof was open and a lady was listening to me in the next car. She gave me a little sideways glance / dirty look as she drove off. I wasn’t sorry in the slightest.
I may have been slightly unreasonable.

There has been a car parked badly in my cul de sac for the last 3 months. My neighbour is having lessons and has bought it for when he passes his test. It wouldn't be so bad except it's parked over the white lines of a space effectively taking up two spaces. It makes me full of rage every day when I pull up and see it. I should really just knock the door and ask if I can move it slightly but I fume internally instead.

YANBU we need a good parking thread.

@Redpriestandmozart - no you really want a thread about how there should be more parent and child spaces in supermarkets.

no you really want a thread about how there should be more parent and child spaces in supermarkets.
It's all those entitled blue badge holders I blame.
I miss the comments about how anyone having more than one DC should stop being so selfish and think of global warming.

I've got a parking story for you.... (with diagram obviously)

I was having a built in oven and hob removed and new ones fitted, lorry is large and needed to park close because appliances are heavy (pink lorry) The lorry slightly overlapped C's second drive part (they were both out so no cars there) C1 came home , delivery men asked her if she wanted them to move she said no its fine and she parked behind my car. There was still space to park one car outside her house. Men just finishing off putting the hob in. I was in my lounge and they were in the kitchen and we hear LOUDLY "FOR FUCK SAKE I CANT EVEN PARK ON MY OWN FUCKING DRIVE" then grumbling as she went into her house, C2 had arrived home and parked in some weird angle (blue car) , even though there was still space for her to park properly- the men fitting my oven were just like "wow "

C2 appears to be bad tempered generally - previous occasion, an RSPCA charity young girl was knocking at doors, she knocked on theirs C2 opened the door slightly shouted "FUCK OFF" and slammed the door in her face....

No diagram, sorry!
My father was driving me back to his home after another of my specialist appointments, Mum was babysitting my son. He and Mum have lived at their current address for nearly 5 years.
We were almost back when suddenly Dad had to stop and then reverse a little to turn up the correct street (no other cars about, thankfully).
He spent the next several hours complaining that the very badly parked van that he has complained about for nearly 5 years had been moved, so he missed his turn off!

:o :o

There's lots of fence boundary ones instead. Not quite as juicy but entertaining nonetheless

Lemons. OMG LTB.

Our neighbours just extended their drive to accommodate a second car. A couple weeks later and there's a skip parked on the extended bit and building materials piled on the original as they're self building an extension. Now both cars and works van are parked on the road causing a bit of awkwardness however this particular parking situation is resolving a slightly more irritating one as the couple opposite are very elderly and poorly and have care assistants and nurses visit around 8 times a day and they were repeatly parking badly on the street including directly across my drive, but a good few inches from the curb significantly narrowing the road preventing me from getting on it when other cars on the street were there. Even though elderly couple have a drive big enough for 3 cars and they don't own a car so the nurses/care assistants could park on there! This has been winding me up but not elderly couples fault so can't complain.

NDN building extension parks to prevent them from blocking me without blocking me themselves. They just make all vehicles slow as coming down the street to pass which I'm sure others find irritating.

Nurses/care assistants have suddenly started parking on drive as obviously don't have time to walk from other end of street if they park there.

I have a couple.

We live in a close with about 10 houses. Everyone has a driveway for multiple cars. There are four(ish) sensible parking spaces and about 4 other stupid places you can park. Sounds lovely, right?

Except 2 of 4 spaces are taken by a neighbour from the next street.who owns 6 cars and abandons them all over the place. They've been parked there now for 4 years !!! without moving once. Plants are growing round them. But they're taxed and insured so there's nothing can be done.

One of the other spaces right outside my house is permanently occupied by a neighbour with a car and a van who "reserves" it by moving one off his driveway into the space immediately. The one time I arrived home at the perfect time to park outside my own house he spent the rest of the day casually hanging out in his garden waiting for me to move it before nabbing the space again.

Both of these neighbours are assholes. I'm supremely pissed off at them both but they're literally doing nothing illegal.

We have our garages and parking on a separate plot from our houses. It's private land and we all own it. Came home last week to find a cheeky sod had parked a transporter van with a car on top in my space. No MOT on either, but both have a SORN. As the window on the van is busy, my neighbour got in and found a receipt for the person who bought both vehicles from the scrap yard. Cheeky sod lives about 5 miles away. They will be getting a strongly worded letter from me this weekend.

Sorry - window on the van is 'broken' not busy

I'll enlighten you with the selfish arses in our Close. They own 3 cars,3 lorries,a motorbike and another vehicle. Every day they play musical chairs shuffling to fit them in on the road,even ringing each other ahead to say they're on their way home,in order to get every single bit of parking space. Think they're terrified somebody might nip out and snag a space if they leave one free for 5 mins. We all snigger,it's so sad and incredibly selfish. They even park on pavements and make access for any poss emergency vehicle very tight alongside parking 1 car across 2 spaces in order to keep both if they're a vehicle down.Lovely people.

When I was growing up we lived on a council estate where all the houses faced onto a green and behind there was allocated parking and garages. We had a dog who constantly escaped from the garden no matter what we did (eventually found out that she could get onto the shed roof and down the other side because she thought she was a fucking mountain goat or a cat).

She didn't go far, just to our neighbors parking space, where she liked to sunbathe. So every day we had to check our little mountain goat / dog hadn't done her great escape routine before the pissed of neighbours turned up with her in tow. It got to the stage they kept a packet of digestive biscuits in the car to tempt her away and get her in.

There are people around here who are outraged that the houses they bought knowing they have a garage and a parking space, arent able to cater for a family with four cars.

I actually think it should be made harder/ more expensive to own more than 1 vehicle per driving adult. Our neighbors only have 2 drivers and 8 vehicles!! If you want a car park,buy one.

The lack of driveways, car sized garages and on street parking options for new build estates is the government's doing by trying to get us all to use public transport. It makes me fizzing angry whenever I see new build estates like this as it's not fit for purpose and the government's blinkered view towards car ownership is creating a future of parking wars and poor neighbour relationships. I know I shouldn't let it bother me but it seems such a pointless exercise as I have never come across a insistence of lack of parking being a detterent to car ownership, people will simply find somewhere to park, the only exception being in areas with a comprehensive public transport network e.g. London or Edinburgh.