To think it’s weird to knock a neighbours door and tell them to move their car

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A family that lives a few doors down Have started knocking peoples doors asking them to move their car from outside their house.

He likes to park right outside his house. Ideally I do too but understand that I don’t have a drive, I am not entitled to park outside my house. We all pay road tax therefore the street parking should operate on a first come first come basis. I try to be considerate but can’t all the time. My other neighbour has also asked if we could come to an arrangement about parking. I found this laughable. I told him I would try to be considerate but of course if someone is parked outside my house where should I park?!
Anyway, back to the original neighbour, I think it’s unreasonable of him to knock every door on the street asking if they know who the car belongs to as the owner needs to move it.
I find this behaviour aggressive and unreasonable. Am I overreacting?!

@Myimaginarycathasfleas that’s exactly my point though - with on street parking you don’t get any right whatsoever to park outside (or, frankly, anywhere near) your house. You are allowed to park in a zone and that’s it. In your earlier post you said, “There would be enough space for everyone if people had cars that didn’t extend beyond the width of their house frontage” and the point I’m making is that there are situations where that isn’t practical or possible. There is enough space for houses to have more that one car (on average), it just requires a bit of flexibility.

Rather than restrict ever house to one car, when there’s space for more, it’s far easier for the terminally hard of thinking to just accept that the piece of road outside their house is not their personal parking space.

Oh and as for the “the council don’t care how many permits they issue, they just want the revenue”, none of the zones are full (the council have clearly calculated how many cars can park there). The issue is people taking up two car’s worth of space so they can park bang outside their house etc or taking up far more space than they need because they’ve got the spacial awareness of a brick. THAT’S the problem.

Oh I have one of these but mine leaves notes on the offending car. I have told him under no circumstances am I to find a note on my car and so far he hasn't done it to me. Every so often I do park in his space though just to wind him up. He actually has a drive long enough for 3 cars but it's a whole 3 terraced houses down and this remains empty all day and all night.

We had a neighbour across the road who was the same but she actually used to drive at people who parked outside her house. She actually drove into my friend one day. She also had a drive for 3 cars 1 terraced house away which remained empty. She's since moved now.

I kind of wish I'd done a thread of my own when the collision happened 😂

I’ve asked our neighbors to move a couple of times. They’ve got 4 cars (double driveway, two on street). We have two cars, one on the (single) driveway and one on the street.

Two cars can fit outside our house so often they have one outside mine. Totally fine usually! I have asked them though to shift up into a space outside their own house when we have our boat on it’s trailer as we need the double space. They are always fine (I’m very nice about it, and wouldn’t ask if there wasn’t a space in front of their house available)

Rubbish picture but hope this explains. He usually knocks all the houses until he discovers the owner. It’s soooo pathetic. A few other neighbours have also started to notice he is becoming a nuisance!

I have a sign outside my street house asking people not to park outside my home as I have babies

😂😂😂

Does anyone pay attention to your sign. I can just imagine it encouraging people to park there quite honestly. Have you thought about painting a P&C bay outside your house?? 🤔

At our previous house, we had an angry man that would sit twitching his curtains and if you parked in front of his house, he would run out and demand that you move as he simply didn't like people parking there. He would get quite agitated and at first I found him intimidating but his shit got old and it became a daily goal of ours to park in front of his house and regale each other with stories about the crazy man and what he shouted at us that day.

Seriously, he doesn't own the road. I'd park there every day. Fuck him.

Can't everyone just park outside their own house? If people have more than one car then that's their problem. I have a sign outside my street house asking people not to park outside my home as I have babies....

"Can't everyone just only have one baby, so they never have to leave another one when carrying the only one baby that they should have to and from the car? If people have more than baby (and everybody knows that multiples are always a possibility when they choose to get pregnant), then that's their problem...."

We also need a diagram of the neighbour knocking at the door, complete with angry face. Otherwise it's impossible to understand your problem.

Blimey the babies sign

The worst abuse I've had is off a woman. I was visiting a friend around the corner I. A terraced network of streets where parking is murder and she had to walk a bit with a shopping bag as I was returning.

Properly shouting and swearing at me.

My gran lived in a semi in a quiet residential area - no need for non-residents or visitors to park there. She had a drive as did her neighbours.
The neighbour used to reverse out every morning and park outside his own house and the car would stay there (unless in use) until about 7pm, maybe earlier in winter, when he would drive it back in.
It used to drive my gran mad. She could see him doing it from her favourite seat and she would be filled with rage at his craziness even though it wasn't in front of her house nor affecting her view of the street. She reckoned that someone parked in front of his house once in the early nineties just after he retired and he started it then, just in case someone dared to park there again.

Can't everyone just park outside their own house? If people have more than one car then that's their problem. I have a sign outside my street house asking people not to park outside my home as I have babies and to get them to the house safely means not having to take one to the house leaving the other in the car alone then when I have to go and get them up the road because some people with 3+ cars are parking outside my door my other child would be in the house alone.

Oh you’re the person in the country with babies. I wondered who it was.

People are generally quite bonkers when it comes to parking. I lived on a terraced road years ago, not massively busy but not guaranteed to park outside, or near your house. I parked outside a house 2 evenings on the trot as it just happened to be where there was a space - following morning there was a note on my windscreen saying 'do not park outside no.78 again - it is not your personal parking space!!'

@BrightYellowDaffodil I wouldn’t suggest any restrictions on cars per household, it would be pointless and unenforceable. And I agree no-one has any right to the space outside their homes. My point is that these situations wouldn’t arise if people chose houses with adequate parking for their needs to begin with. To me it’s like buying a house with not enough bedrooms for your family, or having no garden when you have pets.

Oh you’re the person in the country with babies. I wondered who it was.

What a sad, boring life these people have if their only hobby is protecting the public-owned space in front of their own house - which then drags in all of the neighbours and makes their lives that bit more annoying.

I'd be interested to know if these selfish idiots who believe that only they are allowed to park on the road in front of their house extend that belief to others and therefore would categorically refuse to consider parking on the public road outside anybody else's house.

I'd just double-bluff them - play them at their own game - and tell them that, as it happens, the bit of road in front of their house is actually my land - as can be clearly seen on my deeds. This is much better done when other neighbours are there to witness it and share in the fun.

When idiot neighbour starts to froth and demands to see these deeds, tell them they'll need to get their deeds too, so that you can compare and decide the matter once and for all.

Whether or not either/both of you can show your deeds or you go as far as downloading digital copies, or even checking with the council, is neither here nor there. What is important is that you will have to exaggeratedly pretend to eat humble pie and concede that you do not own the piece of road, as you have no proof that it's your property - and exactly the same will be true for idiot neighbour as well.

What possible justification can they then have but to categorically concede that it must in fact be publicly-owned road and therefore equally fair game for anybody to legally park there?

All they're left with is to throw a tantrum and start whining pathetically in front of everybody "But I LIKE parking outside my own house!". In which case, just reply "Well I'd really like to share my street with reasonable neighbours who act like grown-ups and just let each other get on with their lives - but we can't always get what we want, can we?"

Bank their pathetic whiny toddler tantrum well in your memory so that, should they ever be stupid enough to approach you again, ready to complain, you can just perform it straight back to them until they go away fumming but soundly defeated.

@lalaloopyhead I really hope you edited the note to : following morning there was a note on my windscreen saying 'do not I CAN park outside no.78 again - it is not your personal parking space!! AS IT IS A PUBLIC ROAD.

And popped it back through their letterbox

I used to work with someone who HAD to leave by 4.30 every day so that she could park outside her house. If she didn’t, other neighbours might have parked there . She did everything to avoid her turn on the late rota in case she had to park up the street !

We also need a diagram of the neighbour knocking at the door, complete with angry face. Otherwise it's impossible to understand your problem.

Somebody really MUST gather nationwide photo and video proof of these ridiculous frothing reactions to perfectly legal everyday parking by entitled idiots without a leg to stand on and publish them on a dedicated website - there could even be a permalink from MN Classics. That would be comedy gold! Pretty sure the domain www.MYspace.com has become available again by now.

My point is that these situations wouldn’t arise if people chose houses with adequate parking for their needs to begin with.

Oh, I SEE. Those who need a car should limit themselves to properties no wider than their vehicle (as opposed to, say, buying what you can find that you can afford), or else magically find the money for a house big enough to have its own drive. Got it.

Alternatively, we could all just budge up a bit and be a bit more flexible.

My point is that these situations wouldn't arise if people chose houses with adequate parking for their needs to begin with. To me it’s like buying a house with not enough bedrooms for your family, or having no garden when you have pets.

You do realise that you have to pay a lot of money for houses, don't you?

Real life isn't like an Enid Blyton book, where you can go wandering in the forest, happen upon an adorable unoccupied giant toad-stool cottage that takes your fancy and just move in straightaway.

Even if money were no object and everybody could just instantly have their own perfect dream house, what do you propose would happen to all of the drive-less houses in the suburbs with no public transport to speak of (assuming no disabled people, young children, shift-workers or tradesmen with power tools etc. live there, of course) - would they just be deemed worthless and abandoned?

I sort of get the impression that the UK isn't currently in a position where we have hundreds of thousands of spare houses that we can just leave permanently empty.

Someone on our road keeps cones in the car and puts them out when she uses her car. I don’t go out of my way to move them but if there isn’t a closer alternative it’s mine.

Please tell me that the baby sign is a joke. Surely nobody's that entitled! You really think people should be inconvenienced because of your lifestyle choices?

My street become easier to park in once they introduced residential parking (quite near a tube station so people just dumped their cars). We do have one bloke who asks us all to move so that his old mum can get in & out - she's in a chair. We all move for him but everyone tells him to speak to the council about getting a disabled bay.

There’s a completely bonkers lady that lives near the primary school in our village who accosts people that park near her house. Not many actually do as the school has a very generous car park. She went after a school mum one day and the woman told her to fuck off. She complained to the school! It made absolutely no difference to her or anyone else, she just thought she owned the road outside her house. She has a perfectly roomy driveway and a small hatchback.

She’s bonkers in general, not just about the public road.

I do get annoyed about the cars that park in the lay-by outside my house. We live on a little lane and I think they live on the main road. It’s like living in a bloody car park but there’s not much I can do about it.

I did get cross with one lady once who thought she could turn round in my driveway. I pulled up and she gestured me on. I think she thought I wanted to turn round too. I gave her a swift exit sign with a stern face and she was most affronted. Get off my bloody driveway you cheeky bint!