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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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:
LuckyVal · 21/04/2019 09:39

Sorry about the random ‘this’ was trying to indicate I agreed with the post before mine!

Attitude84 · 21/04/2019 10:30

@GinUnicorn there’s no reason not to act like a grown up and talk about it. Christ. As long as OPs husband is out of the way when everyone gets home. Calm down.

EllenMP · 21/04/2019 13:00

I agree with everyone else. Your DP has been inconsiderate. If your neighbor is a nurse she will be working shifts and could be coming in and out at any time of the day or night. And if she is arriving home exhausted at 11am after a long night shift she has earned the right to be pissy with your husband about not being able to park in her own drive. You need to get a car that fits in your own parking space and DP needs to park his van on the street. Workmen coming to you need to unload in your drive (which you have moved your car to the street to clear) and then move their van to the street.

GinUnicorn · 21/04/2019 13:27

I’m perfectly calm thanks. A polite conversation asking for occasional flexibility 8 years ago would definitely have been the mature approach by the poor OP’s rude sounding husband. Unfortunately now the neighbours are probably not feeling inclined to offer favours.

OP I hope you are okay.

Ated · 21/04/2019 16:05

A nice tin of gloss paint, brake fluid or paint stripper over the paintwork would clear up the problem immediately.
Someone with a new large jaguar thought he could do the same and a gallon of brake fluid, spilt on the roof meant that the whole car needed a respray and all of the window rubbers and seals had to be replaced. The road was a lovely shade of blue for years.

LifeImplosionImminent · 21/04/2019 21:01

You know what though, the biggest CFs of them all are the planners who designed the estate. Greedy bastards squeezed as much money as possible by adding too many houses for the land size and can't even build a wide enough drive way for each house.

Hopoindown31 · 21/04/2019 21:12

You are blocking the shared access. You are at fault.

Lizzie48 · 21/04/2019 21:24

Read the thread, that was established ages ago. Plus it’s the OP’s DH who is the CF, the OP parks on the street.

GinDaddy · 22/04/2019 07:46

A lot of people on here saying the OP’s husband is the CF, which is factually true. However I don’t believe all responsibility automatically devolves to him.

Eight years have passed where work people and the husband have blocked access.

OP, could your role from hereon be to speak to neighbours, try and establish some sort of relationship, be considerate with work people, and meanwhile bring major pressure to bear on your DH to be reasonable?

And if he’s “no, I won’t listen” then take it to another level and explain how it makes you feel, why this is a serious issue?

It sounds like your DH feels entitled to do whatever he wants without any regard for anyone

AdobeWanKenobi · 22/04/2019 10:08

Where on earth do you live that 2 houses, let alone THREE, share a driveway?

It's very common. Front house has a long back garden, develops it for 2 plots. Existing driveway extends to service the two houses behind. I can think of at least four set ups like this near me. You don't always notice them because they are at the back.

You will find though that when this is done the front house invariably sells up and fucks off as they don't want the shared access.

Mememeplease · 22/04/2019 10:25

You have a dh problem. Are you going to put up and shut up or create waves by sorting this problem for your neighbours?

I suspect this unreasonable behaviour is the tip of the iceberg and you have far more serious problems within your relationship that you probably think as normal but would horrify us.

DuchessOfPodd · 22/04/2019 12:07

I think we have firmly established your status as the CFs in this matter, but the bigger question is a) how are you going to get your DH to see sense and b) how are you going to make it up to your neighbours? I’d be over there - with DH - with a big bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine and a sorry card apologising for getting out of line using the driveway and promising to stick to more sociable usage in future.

bubblegumunicorn · 22/04/2019 12:28

Where on earth do you live that 2 houses, let alone THREE, share a driveway?

It's common in new builds we have it where we live too my house doesn't have a drive technically but we have have parking spaces we have 3 on one bit at the end of the road and there is a couple of other instances with garages on shared driveways too! It's just trying to fit enough parking in to a small space whilst maximising the amount of houses built!

bubblegumunicorn · 22/04/2019 12:29

That's 3 separate houses parking spaces*

m0therofdragons · 22/04/2019 13:20

We're in a corner of a cul de sac and have 3 houses sharing the access to 3 individual driveways.

SoupDragon · 22/04/2019 14:00

Where on earth do you live that 2 houses, let alone THREE, share a driveway?

If you think of it as an access road rather than a driveway you may understand better.

lilypoppet · 30/04/2019 11:38

I think this would annoy me tbh. Nurse probably didn't want to say anything but maybe she'd had a bad day and not being able to park on her drive was the last straw?

BlueSkiesLies · 30/04/2019 12:38

It’s a shared driveway with access rights, not a car park. YABU to park on it at any time.

cantfindname · 01/09/2019 08:50

Hmm shared drive, 2 Landrovers, person working on a vehicle?

This sounds like another current thread but posted from the 'other person's' point of view!

Catsandchardonnay · 01/09/2019 09:20

Hey @TigersRoll looks like your absolute delight of a husband is still annoying your neighbours. Tell him to stop being a twat.

Chloemol · 01/09/2019 09:55

Post from cantfindname has now been deleted by that op I assume.

Missymare · 01/09/2019 10:03

You’re in the wrong we used to have the same set up at our previous home and our neighbours would do what your DH is doing. It was a pain not being able to park on our drive when coming home.

Lovingthesunshine88 · 01/09/2019 10:13

Definitely you BU

WhereDoesThisToiletGo · 01/09/2019 10:16

We live in a house with exactly this set up. We are house 3
We have never had any problems as our neighbours are not arseholes

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