Neighbour sits in her car in road for hours with engine running

[rumblefish23]

As title says, neighbour sits in her car on the road for hours with engine running, smoking fags, flicking buts out of her car onto pavement. Hours as in 3/4 hours. Can MN give me the balls to man up, can you give me words of wisdom to confront her (while she is sitting in her car)

It's annoying and most of all it's illegal !

So many people thinking car idling is okay - take a look at the carbon emission stats and children

I’m Shocked so many people think this is no big deal! After that flying thread where everyone said they’d give up flying for the environment! Yet sitting in your car idly pumping fumes into the air for hours is totally fine!!

She'd probably too cold to stand outside. I remember my neighbour spent what seemed like months standing outside her house smoking. And then she left her husband. And they had a poisonous divorce. I realised all that time spent outside was her festering and building up courage to leave.

My mum used to go to her car to escape my dad when he was being abusive, I can't think what other reason there would be for someone to do that?

She would drive me mad! Not sure what the best way to get rid of her would be, presumably she doesn't give a damn about other people. Who would pretend that neighbours are not inconvenienced by noise and fumes?

Maybe she isn't actually a neighbour but is an undercover spy surveilling you OP?

Idling is disgusting behaviour. I used to live on a busy road and a coach used to stop outside our house and idle for ages. Made me fume with rage. I asked the bus company to ask their driver to turn off their engine. I would take her reg plate and report her.

The sound of the engine would drive me nuts

You live in an odd neighbourhood OP. Perhaps she’s friends with your laughing gas selling neighbours son, but isn’t doing so well sales wise? 🤷‍♂️

I’d be very concerned about her mental health tbh, and wonder if you could ask her if she is ok?

Sounds like she might have some domestic or mental health problems.

I would strongly advise not doing anything to make her situation worse.

Er, why ask if she’s ok? She’s sat there, polluting the environment and making noise and a mess of the road. Of course it’s not unreasonable to want to confront her

I wouldn't be offering her blankets, cups of tea, a chat etc

She probably has the heating on that’s why she keeps the engine running. And she might be afraid of being in the house.

Lots of local authorities now put these signs up. If yours doesn't you could laminate your own perhaps? You can google lots of similar signs.

no|idling|sign

Get one of those "Cough,cough,engine off" posters and display it nearby.

I wonder if shes doing this to keep warm. Maybe she has fuel in the car but has a pay as you go gas meter and has run out but has no money to top up.

Interesting to see how everyone is totally shocked at Australia burning and climate change but do not see the connection with their use of cars.

Driving around for no good purpose, keeping the engine running while sitting in place is appalling behaviour (though not as bad as that of men who drive their wives to escape to the car)

I'd think she was unhappy and uncomfortable at home. That's sad. Try bring neighbourly instead of curtain-twitching.

I would leave her alone.

We have a farm, lots of acres and for several nights for an hour or two there was a car parked by some of our haystacks - far from the public road. I left them alone because I was young once. Then one day I saw the rubbish they had been throwing out of the window - beer cans, used condoms etc so the next time I saw them I drove up to them with my high beams on and they quickly left and never came back.

Just had a look at your prev posts Nd see that you posted ajout laughing gas salesperson neighbour. Could this neighbour in the idling car be waiting for an Entonox shipment delivery? Saving her car parking space? - (if her partner is about to come home and she's off out - - we had neighbours who used to do this. One would go out b4 the other was due home and ensure the could park).
Or she could be getting a break from someone /something,.. Can't smoke at home,... Or perhaps she's said she's working but she's lost her job and hasn't let on to anyone...
All depends if this is a one off (in which case she could be locked out) or if it is a regular occurrence. The OP eluded to the latter.
Perhaps checking to see if she's OK would sort it either way? As if she's genuinely in need of help you may be able to signpost/help and if she's just mooching she may at jeast turn the bloody engine off (4 hours of idling is terrible).

Is it illegal to do this, not sure really. But this person must have a reason for doing this.. It sounds a very sad situation for her really. It is odd to sit in the car with the engine running for ages and ages.. But not so odd to sit in a car,smoking fags for ages. as you don't know what has happened to her before all this.. People don't normally do these things without some reasons or other.

I’d sweep up her butts over a few days and put them in an envelope and post them through her door.

At least someone gets the littering. I would do this as well. The butts end up downstream FFS.

‘Adult woman sits in car shocker’. Hardly hold the front page time. You could ask her what she’s doing, but be prepared to be told to bugger off and mind your own business.

It sounds like she's got something going on, I used to sit in my car a couple of streets away for hours to avoid my STBXH in the hope of arriving home after he'd gone to sleep