Are WE the CFs here or neighbours??

[TigersRoll]

3 houses share our driveway (including ours). So you get the 1st house and then ours next to each other and then at the end you get the 3rd house. 3rd house is a big house and has a double driveway (prob enough room for 3 cars anyway). 1st and 2nd house have a tiny section of driveway each, ours been the smallest, barely big enough for one car.

Anyway, DH likes to faff with his car, our driveway is too small to do anything on so during the day when everyone is at work he pulls it into the shared bit. Occasionally he parks his work van on the shared bit but basically, if anything is on the shared bit, 3rd house can’t get to their driveway which is why DH does it when everyone is at work.

This worked well for ages, occasionally woman next door would come home early but would park at the top on the street and walk down. One time all of a sudden she came home at 11am (!) came storming down the driveway carrying a number of bags (she’s a nurse) and muttered something about so much for buying a house with a driveway”. DH was confused as she’s never mentioned it before but he moved his car straight away anyway.
A week or so later we had workmen at the house and they parked on the shared drive. She came home from worked, marched up to the workmen and told them they had to move. This meant packing up tools, ladders and various other stuff before reversing out of the drive just so she could park next to her house. As soon as she was in they moved everything back, low and behold they came out almost immediately and said they had to move as she was going out. They did, she went out and reappeared 15 minutes later again telling the workmen they had to move everything!!! Surely if she knew she was going back out she could have just parked at top of drive where there is tons of room??

Anyway she appears to be making a point of doing this now everytime DH has something on the shared driveway but has never actually spoken to him about it!

Last night we got an angry knock on the door. Her husband was stood there and he looked at our car and said “can you move it” in a really snappy tone. It’s a big car (Land Rover) and as our driveway is so small the arse of it sometimes sticks out into the shared bit. Unfortunately neighbour also has a Land Rover making getting past a bit of a squeeze. DH looked at the car and the space (as it was on our driveway) and the bloke snapped “I’m not scratching my car again trying to get past. Move it”. DH then had to move the car so it was practically touching our garage door. This bloke has always been very pleasant before so it seems so out of character!

AIBU to think his wife has started some kind of vendetta against us and roped him into it or is it our fault??

What house is only the width of a Landrover? Even my tiny house is wider than that. Especially if you have a garage. Don’t you have windows at the front of your house?

Honestly OP, I think you know you've been very unreasonable, Its awful to be on bad terms with your neighbours especially when you are in the wrong,
I'd show your DH this thread and ask him to park considerately in the future and try and repair the relationship. Its definitely not worth the agro and tension as you try and avoid them.

How would an ambulance / fire engine get past his van, if needed?

if I lived at house 3 I’d have accidentally scratched your car/van/jumbo jet by now

I can't get past the fact he puts rhe plant pot or whatever out to mark out his boundary, whilst totally ignoring it and using everyone else's space and blocking the family at house three as and when he pleases.

It really is mind boggling.

What's wrong with him why is he like that, do you know? Is he selfish and inconsiderate in other areas of your life?

If this was my husband he'd have done it once and I'd have put an immediate stop to it. However I don't live with a dick head so it's never been an issue.

@TigersRoll, do you think your husband will listen to reason? It seems a shame that he's created all this tension with the neighbours.

You are the CFs, obviously. Your neighbours are entitled to use the drive any time they want to and should not have to ask you to move vehicles.

YABU. I currently have curt and frosty relations with one neighbour who kept blocking my drive. It’s stressful and frustrating.

I'm not sure you're a CF but your DH definitely is. If you know how UR he is being, surely this stresses you? And if so, why does he not care that he's being a CF, pissing off the neighbours and making life stressful for you? He sounds horrible.
The neighbour should have sent him the bill for the scratch on their car caused by his plant pot too.

I just love the “how very fucking dare the nurse come home at 11am. Entitled bitch.” It’s ludicrous.

He is an absolutely massive dickhead.

OP, I really hope that you're going to show your inconsiderate tosser of a husband this thread.

What kind of world does he inhabit where it's ok to prevent your neighbours from getting access to their home? I think he's been very lucky that they haven't lamped him before now, or at least put a nail in a tyre or two, or a potato up his exhaust.

My neighbours do this and it can be very irritating. They block the shared bit with workmen's vans and their visitors cars. They are otherwise lovely, but they don't always seem to get that shared means exactly that - you can't hog the whole space and prevent your neighbour from accessing their own property.

Apologies to your neighbour, let them know you were unaware, Best move forward on frierndly terms.
They are obviously accommodating NDNs if they let it go for so long, probably stressing about it.

Or is this just an ingeniously goady thread to get MN frothed up?

Mmhmm

Obviously YABU @TigersRoll

I would never buy a house with a stupid shared driveway anyway!

Who the hell designed these monstrosities?!

But it's still you/your DH in the wrong!

Your DH sounds like a proper ass.
He should NOT be parking on the access road. End. Of. Story.
You are lucky. If you lived next door to me I'd block the access road to your house until you got the message.

You sounds nice, OP. It's our DH with the problem.

Your fault.

You are the CFs.

Shared access is for access - not parking.
Your DH has trouble understanding terminology. If it was for parking it would be called parking.
I feel very sorry for your neighbours.

There is a group of houses that has the same parking arrangements near me.

They all have small cars that fit for a start! No way would they allow workmen to block the drive, if they have anyone round doing work they move their own cars to make room!

It's definitely you (and I'm still finding it hard to believe that it's not a reverse as it's so obvious!)

"A while back NDN slammed into a concrete plant pot that DH has at the end of our drive. It scratched her car (I found this out through house 1) and her DH moved it back further into our driveway. DH moves it back again straight away saying it’s actually still on our driveway and not the shared bit."

Your husband is a total wankbadger.

Yes. He’s the twat. And it seems you’re very aware of that, and certainly you are after this post.

Why have such a huge car if you have a tiny driveway?

This sort of thing is my worst nightmare as I can’t do confrontation. It would take me months of being furious indoors to get to the muttering under my breath stage. She’s a nurse and she’s coming home after dealing with god knows what and can’t even access her own driveway? That’s ludicrous.

Do they use all of their driveway if it fits three cars? If not you could have asked nicely about renting some of the space from them to park one of your cars - but now they dislike you so that won’t happen.

I get cross enough about our neighbours parking and I have no right to. We have no drives, it’s all on-street parking. The terrace to our left have two cars, the terrace to our right has two cars and a van. We can hardly ever park close to our house as a result and we deliberately have a VW Polo as there’s not much space. We have twins with autism and no sense of danger so being unable to park outside is a massive pain in the arse - there’s no reason they need to park both / all three vehicles directly outside their house when there’s a side road very close by. But hey, they’re not technically doing anything wrong - and it still gives me the rage.

Sorry YABU

You are definitely the CFs.

You're the CF.

It's a real pity that you didn't start off on the right foot with the neighbours. It's possible that they might have agreed to you blocking their access occasionally, by arrangement in advance, especially if you'd taken them round a bottle of wine or done some other favours by way of showing your gratitude.

E.g. your dh might have tried, "I need to do some tinkering on my car and it would be really handy to do it on the access road. I don't suppose there's a day in the near future when you'll be out all day and I could do that...? I'd really appreciate it. So what time will you be returning home? Okay, I'll make sure everything is cleared up well before you are due back."

It's too late for that now, unfortunately. Particularly after your dh was so petty with the plant pot. He was technically in the right about that, but he can hardly expect the neighbours to be accommodating and helpful towards him if he won't allow the pot to be repositioned to make their lives easier.