To find this infuriating.

[Burtiebojangles]

New family just moved in to a rented house technically down the side of our house. They have 4 cars, one parking space. The street has space for 5 cars in total, so they deem this a suitable place to park - right across our drive.

Having asked them to move it, I got told they have nowhere to park and he doesn’t want his daughter walking too far to get to her car. Aibu to think we shouldn’t be inconvenienced because these people didn’t think ahead when deciding to rent this house, and what the hell can you do in these circumstances?

One of the more sinister aspects of this matter is the conduct of the police. Your neighbour obviously regards himself as above the law, and is using his position within the police for his own good. What a nasty piece of work.

Sorry, I forgot to mention I’d contacted the MP. I got a letter back the other day that was pretty much saying vote for me if you want me to carry on dealing with your issue. I might fire off another email but this election has probably shat on that.

I think the complaint was to the right people, it’s an email address I got from their website. I was going to ring 101 but that’s got us nowhere this far so I thought I’d put in in writing.

I would try a recorded letter to the letting agent stating their inability to respond or deal with this situation is on the brink of allowing the landlord to unwittingly to be in possession of an unsalable house with a neighbour dispute.

Might spur them into action.

I bet the landlord is totally unaware.

Send that last image too plus their empty drive.

The latest development has enraged me on your behalf. So they can just block your drive so they don't block anyone else's? Crazy! They know you have an ill child and could be needing out at all hours. This behaviour is unacceptable....no one should be above the law regardless of what job they do!

Twitter? Facebook? Make it public. My local police have social media, as do council etc.

@Burtiebojangles I second a PP’s suggestion about escalating this whole thing to the Chief Constable actually. Write it all out factually, keep the emotion out of it (hard I know), use your timelines, reference the wife saying he worked for CID, which we all now know is utter BS, attach all your pictures, you can of course refer to your child’s hospital appointments. Plus the fact that when you were intimidated the previous issues weren’t automatically connected by the local force. Etc etc. Today’s visit and the Dad’s attempt to get the officer on side, plus the officer’s lame ‘garden’ reaction, has me fuming on your behalf.
Go straight to the top now, with a formal complaint - ensure you put that at the top of your email.
Good luck.

Are you parking in that spot yourself OP when you can. So that they can't?

I’ve just spoken to the woman at the council she scoffed at the garden comment. She said we’re well within our rights to extend our drive, we don’t need planning permission because it’s a permeable suffice (which we knew) and pointed out that it’s dropped kerb anyway. She clarified a few things with the photos and gave me some could be good news that’s not confirmed yet but told us to keep our heads down and she’ll work away in the background. She hasn’t really elaborated on much but she seems quite convincing that she can sort it. Hopefully it’s quick 🤞🏼

Finally someone who sees this for what it is 🥳

Liking the sound of the council lady! Wondering if she's now got a bee in her bonnett about the twats that are your neighbours and is enjoying doing her job to give them their comeuppance.

Definitely a thank you gift of chocolates for her if she manages to pull something together. (She wouldn't be allowed to accept anything big in case it's seen as bribery)

Maybe council lady is a MNer

WHAT. Oh op I am actually so fuming for you! This is out of order. As pp's have said you need to complain to police superiors now as they are not taking it seriously and are clearly siding with their "mate".
Actually so angry for you. Hopefully council lady is getting somewhere 🤞🏻 x

If she sorts it out I’ll head down to the council offices and kiss the woman. Fuck it, I’ll marry her. Sod my husband haha.

I’m still seething about the police man this morning. He was so rude and obnoxious and so sarcastic. Would the police responding to a burglary step over a dead body and be like I’m only here for a burglary? What happened to protecting the community and not your colleagues? Then again, I’ll be honest with you, this is South Yorkshire Police, they hardly have the best reputation.

It’s got to look bad on mr CID though that he supposedly had no idea any of this was going on, was really apologetic is now chasing down police cars for still doing something he’s been told about and fucking apologised for and said he’d sort his kids out.

The funny thing is, we noticed the neighbours of these pricks who were caught taking photos of our house had started parking on their neighbours drive at the other side, she’s an old woman who lives by herself, she had some family round for probably about as long as we’ve lived here that moved out recently so the cars have gone. Today I’ve noticed the woman’s blocked her drive with the bins so it clearly wasn’t a friendly arrangement. They’re fucking bat shit, the lot of them.

Really quickly -- in the last photo, it looks like your DH has parked his (blue) car on the new piece of drive you've created? And the block paving to the left of his car - is that your original driveway?

Obligatory diagram! 😆 Is this right?

Just wanted to chime in on the MP thing - I wouldn’t waste your time for now. They’re no longer an MP - just a parliamentary candidate - so whilst they can, technically, make representations on your behalf it’s without the weight of an MP. That letter you got is essentially true; if they’re re-elected they have the power to act.

In the meantime push on with the council woman as she sounds fab! Any physical trespass, shouting, threats, 999 rather than 101 and say you’ve a baby in the house and can’t leave.

So sorry for you. I’ve lived with neighbours like this (one eventually got a conviction for assault against me) and it’s awful.

I've just be reading through this.
How dreadful for you OP, no one should feel this stressed in their own home.

I had a child in my class last year who's family was going through almost the exact same thing. It was upsetting the child and she was stressed and tired because of it. When this was all going through the ASB department at the council I gave a quote to the council about it because the child had spoken to me and it was leaving her too stressed to work.
The neighbours were council tenants and ended up getting evicted.

What a very stressful thing for you to be experiencing! I really do understand your frustration and level of incredulity at just the CF parking. The harassment must be so very scary and wearing.

I have had people constantly parking me in (usually school parents) and I am in London with a responsive council. I think that when I ring, they must groan but I pretty much know the parking compliance hot line staff by name now. And I have made myself very well known to the parking planning team who all agree that those doing it are very much in the wrong.

But I have a very aggressive across the road neighbour whose adult daughter was persistently doing it until council laid down double yellow lines! So, I am standing in solidarity!

@AnuvvaMuvva yeah that’s right. We parked that far over to try and stop them to be fair but they follow the front of our car like flies round shit and put theirs as close to our bumper as possible so we can’t swing round.

The gravel bit is by far the biggest part of our drive now probably about a metre wider, maybe a bit more, than our ‘old drive’, it used to have a strip of grass that we ripped up to give us more drive room. The tarmac is too thin for our car which is why we’ve always parked over but used a woodchip base whilst we were waiting to extend it properly because the previous owners must’ve had a thing for it and we had loads to distribute.

Ideally we need to park half on the gravel to give us room to get on and off, get the baby out, and give next door enough room. Obviously it’s our problem we got the bigger car that doesn’t fit which is why we took the hit to extend our drive. The tarmac ‘entrance’ isn’t wide enough to get the car on but the dropped curb is all around our drive so we never had a problem until these creatures crawled up.

Their excuse is that the gravel is garden but the council said it’s a drive if we want it to be because it’s all dropped kerb.

There’s no mention of a shared access with our and our neighbours drives in the deeds so we really don’t have a right to be driving over our theirs to get in and out and we can only do that if they’re not parked across their own drive, if they are, we’re fucked. But they’re parking miles away most nights so they’re not blocking us in which isn’t fair on them either.

Since your MP isn't s possibility, you could go to your local councillor(s). They can intervene with the police too.

There'll also be an elected police and crime commissioner, who probably won't be impressed by any of this. S/he probably has something about tackling ASB as a priority in their policing plan.

I hope the lady at the council is successful. You can say how helpful she's been when you got to your councillor.

OP this is disgusting. They’re bullying you in your own home. It is harassment and the dad should lose his job. The mum and kids sound like antisocial morons. I hope to soon read an update where they all get their comeuppance, but can’t believe it’s gone on for this long already. Some people are just absolute inconsiderate nobs. I’m impressed with the way you and your husband have handled this as I think I’d have been tempted to do it a different way by now, but you’re definitely taking the best approach. Well done. Hope you’re son is okay. And I hope that you & husband are okay too with all of this stress. Sending hugs. I don’t live too far from Yorkshire and have a car that’s barely used while I’m also on mat leave so if things don’t get resolved I’d be happy to drive it over and park where it doesn’t block you as much as it’s only a fiat 500. And we have another family car that we use mostly.

@alibear90 thank you, that means a lot. There’s times that we’ve both stopped each other doing something stupid, I just hope it works out for the best because I’d love to smash the shit out of their car but I’m also a wimp haha.

We actually got really good news at the hospital yesterday, he’s definitely doing well, we’ve still got a few hurdles to get over but he’s doing better than expected.

Well, if you ever need a parking space around the area, we’ll definitely make room for you 😉 lol. I hope your mat leave is going well 😁.

@Burtiebojangles it's great to hear a good health update about your baby. Sorry you're still going through all this parking stress. Sounds like it may be over soon if this lady is right though. Hoping she is right! Xxx

OP I'm sure you've already done this but have you checked that anyone is actually legally allowed to park on the road at all? In our old house, we didn't have any footpaths, just dropped kerbs all along the road, which was a cul-de-sac. It was actually stated in the deeds that no parking was allowed anywhere but in the driveways. Something to check if nothing else :)

I can't believe this. What absolute fuckers.

We had nightmare neighbours and parking where we lived previously. It spoiled my maternity leave too, although we didn't have drives there was a "friendly" agreement about parking which they only stuck to when it suited them.

Luckily, we moved while I was on maternity leave receiving SMP (and we definitely needed my pay to get the mortgage). But I still felt a lot of my maternity leave was wasted on getting upset about the parking situation. We managed to move as there are mortgage companies whereby if you get confirmation you are going back to work and earning £XX they can still use that to work out the mortgage - particularly as you will soon be back and get the first "proper" payslip. I can't help much with your situation but do consider that you can use your full pay for a mortgage rather than SMP sooner rather than later. We used a mortgage broker which really helped too. You shouldn't have to move but maybe you can move sooner than you expect!