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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Are WE the CFs here or neighbours??

553 replies

TigersRoll · 16/04/2019 16:56

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??

OP posts:
saraclara · 17/04/2019 07:04

Why not park your car on the drive, and the one that's too big, on the road?

Beerincomechampagnetastes · 17/04/2019 07:07

I moved house because of this problem exactly. I was the owner of the third house the cf in my case were the middle house. Sometimes they would have several cars from their visitors parked over the shared access and behind our parked vehicles bumper to bumper.
They were very angry with us for asking them to move-“ just knock - we’ll move”... do you need to go out?
Met with eye rolling from them as if we were the inconvenience.
And yes. We dreaded it every. Single. Day.

I feel so sorry for your poor neighbours.

Crazyfrog007 · 17/04/2019 07:13

Fuck me. Your husband is a prize asshat.

I'd be massively pissed off too if I had been coming home from working as a nurse, probably on my arse tired, and had to walk all the way down my road because some ijit had blocked it.

And the fact that you are letting him get away with it without having very stern words. Twats. The pair of you.

Bluntness100 · 17/04/2019 07:27

Op, the solution here is simple.

Clear out the garage. You have two parking spaces. One in the garage, you simply don't have the luxury of using one as storage,
Park one car in the garage. Preferably the Land Rover, so your husband can work on it inside.
Park your car on the drive.
He can't bring his work van home, but if he does, he needs to park it on the road. You simply don't have space for three vehicles, and this is your problem, it's not your neighbours.
Always park your car, or his, as close to the garage as possible. Do not leave it hanging out into the drive so your neighbour can't get past it.
Move the flower pot. There is no need to make your neighbours life as difficult as possible and mark your boundary.

And then ask him why he is antagonising both sets of neighbours and indulging in anti social behaviour.

You both need to realise because your drive is small, and you have elected to use the garage as storage, this does Not give either of you rights over the drive, or rights to disrupt other people's lives. These are all issues of your own making, so you need to solve them without negatively impacting your neighbours lives. Ie be grown ups and take responsibility.

TheNoodlesIncident · 17/04/2019 07:30

I'm of the opinion that OP's DH is an arrogant tosspot who knows perfectly well - how can you not?! - that he is massively inconveniencing the neighbours, but just doesn't care. It's quite obvious that putting OP's smaller car on the small drive and his Land Rover and the van on the street would solve the problem, but he won't allow that because then he would have to walk to the street to get to his vehicle, and he considers himself far more important than OP and therefore SHE should be the one who can't park directly outside. Heaven forbid HE be the one who can't park just where he likes!

Eight years he has been behaving like this. It seems unlikely to be exclusively about parking, I bet he's a selfish oaf about other things as well. I know I'm extrapolating a lot, but: EIGHT. YEARS. For eight years NDN has had to park on the street and walk all the way down to her house, sometimes with bags to tote there. And he doesn't think that's unreasonable??? It truly beggars belief. Shock

Beerincomechampagnetastes · 17/04/2019 07:48

I also suspect that there is an element of jealousy or resentment.
The neighbours have more space “it’s alright for them”. The “what am I supposed to do” ? mentality...

It’s not their problem that you don’t have space. Your neighbours paid more for their space. They are entitled to use it...you are not entitled to prevent them and you are not entitled to the same when you paid less - just because you want it or you think it’s not fair.

SinkGirl · 17/04/2019 07:58

What’s he like with other things - is he constantly selfish about things?

Roussette · 17/04/2019 08:13

I have a couple of questions...

If a car can be parked right up to the garage with no overhang, why doesn't he do that?

Is the LandRover old? If not, what the hell is he 'tinkering' with?

jarviscockerslover · 17/04/2019 08:19

Maybe you need to downsize from your Range Rover to a car that will fit in your garage... KIA perhaps?!

IWannaSeeHowItEnds · 17/04/2019 08:27

I'm surprised your neighbours haven't taken to parking on the shared bit themselves and either blocked your husband in or prevented him from getting to his parking space at all. or keyed his car

IWannaSeeHowItEnds · 17/04/2019 08:36

Does anyone know what the law is on this. I get that on public roads you can't block someone in but can park across an empty drive, but what about privately owned drives like the OPs?

Orangeballon · 17/04/2019 08:39

This reply has been deleted

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user1480880826 · 17/04/2019 08:40

I would be annoyed if I could never drive up my own drive and park in front of my own house. If you insist on having such a ridiculously big car you need to buy a house with space to accommodate it. Same applies to the work van.

However, your neighbour could have made an exception for the workmen who were working on your house. I can’t imagine that happens often. It sounds like the neighbour was being petty in that case.

flumpybear · 17/04/2019 08:44

You're either frighteningly naive or just plain stupid

It's a shared access way - you have no rights to park on it except to perhaps unload then move to your driveway or get onto the road you can park on

You're fodder for that TV series nightmare neighbours next door

rainbowstardrops · 17/04/2019 08:53

I imagine that the neighbours in house 3 have put up and shut up for years but now they've finally had enough!
Your DH sounds incredibly annoying, especially regarding the plant pot!
I wouldn't want to have a neighbour like him, so tell him to stop being a dick!

SoupDragon · 17/04/2019 08:54

Park one car in the garage. Preferably the Land Rover, so your husband can work on it inside

PMSL. The OP says that "The garages are tiny" and you think it's big enough to not only park a Land Rover in but to work on it too. 😂

Biancadelrioisback · 17/04/2019 08:55

Okay okay I think OP has got the message now.

swingofthings · 17/04/2019 09:05

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”
Just read the opening post again. Are you saying that the neighbour scratched his car previously trying to get through, assuming scratched the other side, so against a wall or something as if it was your OH's car, you would certainly have mentioned this, and you and your OH think he is unreasonable to ask that your OH moves his car closer to the garage door so it would prevent another scratch? What's wrong with being closer to the garage door?

Are you seriously so self centered that you can't see how totally unreasonable you are? You are very lucky that you have such well behaved neighbours as opposed to one's whose patience would have been tested to the limit to the point of coming out at night to scratch your nice car and pretending to know nothing about it. If you don't start behaving pleasantly, it could be what happens next!

flumpybear · 17/04/2019 09:39

@Biancadelrioisback - I don't know - it's taken 8 years of her neighbour telling them they're being unreasonable

woodhill · 17/04/2019 09:44

Is it a town house?

Kitchen behind garage. Loo and front door beside garage I wonder

WoollyMummoth · 17/04/2019 10:20

SHARED ACCESS.

DO NOT PARK ON IT.

SIMPLES.

Crazyladee · 17/04/2019 10:46

I agree that OP and DH are BU but I am gobsmacked at the vitriol on this thread. The pitchforks are well and truly out in full force.

Think OP has got the message now.

SnowyAlpsandPeaks · 17/04/2019 11:14

Well she didn’t get it for the last 8 years..... you sure she will now?🤔

SoupDragon · 17/04/2019 12:56

SHARED ACCESS.

DO NOT PARK ON IT.

SIMPLES.

RTFT. Simples. 🙄

Well she didn’t get it for the last 8 years..... you sure she will now?

She already has.

BreakfastAtSquiffanys · 17/04/2019 13:05

I think the OP has got the message.
But I wonder if her DH has

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