To put a note asking them to move their car?

[Openalltheadvent]

It’s been outside our house for 4/5 weeks. I don’t know who it belongs too. I resisted at first in case they were isolating but it’s bugging me now. Especially as it gets towards Christmas, we will be coming from parents house with a car load of presents and we keep having to park far up the road. We have a 3 year old dd. Just to say, I don’t think the space is ours but think it’s inconsiderate leaving it outside someone else’s house for so long?!

YABU - it’s a free country, get over it
YANBU - leave a polite note on the car

Anyone who says they wouldn't care is lying.

Agreed.

I've just called in to say, I live in a terraced house (Victorian) and, IT HAS A GARAGE😏😊.

@Openalltheadvent Still doesn’t give you the right to park in front of your own house. Anyone can park there.

I wouldn't care at all and I don't understand why anyone thinks they have any say about who can park legally on the road near their home.
Anyone can park and leave their car there for as long as they like, for absolutely any reason.
Leaving a note is ridiculous, because, as you know, you don't own the road.

YABVU

I'd they aren't parked illegally or over a driveway and it has road tax not much u can do about it sorry... They have as much right to park there as you have

Mine hasn't moved because it is broken down but outside my house. You don't own the road but it also annoys me when people who don't live on my street park on it when there is limited spaces. If the person doesn't live there I would leave a note.

@Wingedharpy I hate you

Surely by process of elimination you can have a pretty good guess at what house it belongs to? It could be someone ill/dead/in need of help, get some post it notes out and start eliminating potential owners in an elaborate diagram.

God the parking purists are out aren’t they!

In reality, most of us put up with on street parking because it’s a win some/lose some situation. Some days you get the spot outside your house, sometimes you’re just down from it, sometimes you’re two streets away. Of course it’s annoying to never win that parking lottery!

A similar discussion on our local Facebook page last year about a car that had been there three weeks ended up with someone finding out it belonged to a serving military member with no apparent local connections who had been deployed for three months...

5 weeks is a long time. I'd report it. If it's stolen someone could be very relieved to get their car back for Christmas.

I'd find it frustrating too, and indeed have done when a car was parked outside our terrace from May to November this year. I'm still not entirely sure who it belonged to (possibly abandoned by associates of a neighbour) but we have permit controlled parking here so it should really have been dealt with sooner than it was. After the first few weeks I checked to see if it was taxed etc and it was so there was nothing to be done other than to report the oil leaking out of it onto the road. In October I checked the tax status again and discovered it was untaxed! I reported it online to the council and it was removed within a couple of weeks. It's been great to have the space outside freed up again and available for being parked in by people who live near/opposite the space.

There is a local secondhand car dealer that parks vehicles on residential streets for weeks at a time, only removing them once sold. The car itself doesn't advertise the fact it's for sale but the reg number comes up when a bit of rummaging through sale sites takes place.

That said, it's nearly Christmas and the end of the weirdest year yet. The owner of the car may be chancing it but may be isolated and/or struggling. If there's some kind of street WhatsApp or local Facebook group perhaps you could put a call out to find the owner of the car to check they're OK. It won't make you feel less annoyed about the inconvenience of having their car parked outside your home but might make a different sort of a difference.

Wrap it in cling film op!
I'm joking (obviously)

@TokenGinger

I feel for you, OP.

I do have a drive, but I live on a street with a school. If I get home around school pick up time and my drive is blocked and I need to park further away from the house, it is hard with a toddler.

Do I leave him in the car, out of my view, whilst I bring in the shopping? Do I bring him in first, then leave him unsupervised in the house whilst I'm back and forth to the car?

Like you say, you know you don't own the space outside, but it's frustrating and inconvenient and I wouldn't do that to somebody else.

When I last lived in a house with no drive I had two kids under two. Coming home with a car full of groceries was like that game about the fox, the chicken and the bag of grain!

When we moved house I only had one stipulation - must have parking!

Hi OP, I live in a house with no drive and steps up to the front door - I use a wheelie trolley to move food/other stuff from my boot into the house.

It's honestly awesome even if some of my family have openly laughed at me (they are jealous).

One hand for trolley, one hand for lively 3 year old, sorted!

@MrsBobDylan I might ask Santa for one

@SE13Mummy there is a car dealer at the bottom of our street too! I initially thought it was them but the car isn’t listed on their website. The dealer who had it before did this constantly, and they were all untaxed.. got moved pretty quickly!

Yeah yeah yeah everyone is entitled to the space but some people just take the piss with it.
Some people are ill. I hope that isn’t the reason. But as I say I have never seen it before on here.

@prawntoastie

Mine hasn't moved because it is broken down but outside my house. You don't own the road but it also annoys me when people who don't live on my street park on it when there is limited spaces. If the person doesn't live there I would leave a note.

Why does it make a difference whether they live there or not? It’s a public road and anyone is free to park there.

Being internally irritated is a normal, human response. The small things are often annoying. However, you cannot leave a note without looking petty and unreasonable so I voted YABU.

I live in terraced houses with only on street parking so I do know what it’s like. Inevitably there is never a space when it’s dark, pissing down, you have bags of shopping and the toddler decides to throw a tantrum. It’s life though. I’d love to be able to afford to live somewhere with a big drive.

You are entitled to be annoyed, but to put a note would en unreasonable.

You say you know you don't own the road, now all you have to do is accept it. You very obviously can't.

Log it with 101

The point I am making is that the vast majority of people would be pissed off at the SAME CAR being stuck outside their house 24/7 for 4 or 5 weeks, when they don't know who it belongs to! Anyone who says they wouldn't care is lying.

Even if you would care, that's your problem to have to learn to accept and come to terms with - not that of the owner of the car or the owner of the road.

Suppose you were a landlord and you advertised your property on a public market place, and you accepted an application from an 18yo to become your tenant - and then they, with your agreement (and that of your children/heirs, subsequently), occupied and lived in your property until they died aged 98. Would that be selfish and morally reprehensible for them to prevent anybody else having a chance to live there for 80 years? Would the only decent thing be for them to keep moving on every year or two to another property, so that everybody got a fair crack at it? Maybe with priority given to those who happened to already live in homes on the same road, as they might like to stay very local? Even though the owner of that property made it clear they were happy to have the same person living there indefinitely? Even though all of those other people do have almost identical alternative housing available to them? It's not really very different in principle.

There was another recent thread imploring people not to use their cars excessively and to think before automatically driving somewhere. We all know that our joint environment suffers from unfettered car use; but if somebody does walk and cycle short distances, car-shares with a friend/colleague, uses public transport into city and town centres - they get people complaining and demanding that they drive their cars more rather than leave them parked in a safe, legal space until they next do really need to use them.

I really can't believe people advising somebody to 'report' a car that's been legally and safely parked in a parking space for a few weeks. It reminds me of an elderly relative who used to watch people walking past her house along the public pavement and dreaming up all manner of nefarious reasons they had to be doing such a mundane, normal, everyday thing.

The one above that hasn't moved for two years is a bit different, as unless it's less than three years old, it must be lacking a valid MoT if it's never moved to go to a garage for the test and thus is parked illegally.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I really can't believe people advising somebody to 'report' a car that's been legally and safely parked in a parking space for a few weeks. It reminds me of an elderly relative who used to watch people walking past her house along the public pavement and dreaming up all manner of nefarious reasons they had to be doing such a mundane, normal, everyday thing.

The one above that hasn't moved for two years is a bit different, as unless it's less than three years old, it must be lacking a valid MoT if it's never moved to go to a garage for the test and thus is parked illegally.

Many of us wouldn’t have got our stolen vehicles back if people hadn’t reported them after a “few weeks”. Mine was reported after a fortnight. It was a massive relief. In this case it’s over a month. It’s perfectly reasonable to report it.

We had one at the end of our road for weeks (admittedly it had been crashed) I didn't recognise it. I tweeted a picture to the police and whilst I never got a reply it went within 48 hours. I think it had probably been stolen, crashed and dumped. No bad thing to let them know, especially if it's still there ina few weeks, unless it's stolen though you have no right to the space. If you did report I might not even mention that it's outside your house, just on our street.

Many of us wouldn’t have got our stolen vehicles back if people hadn’t reported them after a “few weeks”. Mine was reported after a fortnight. It was a massive relief. In this case it’s over a month. It’s perfectly reasonable to report it.

That is undeniably a good outcome, but the vast majority of cars parked for a few weeks won't have been stolen or abandoned. A car that's been parked there for one hour could have been stolen and abandoned - where do you draw the line?

I suppose it's all the same to the police/DVLA/whoever it's reported to, but I got the distinct impression from some of the PPs that their motives in reporting were not out of concern that somebody might have had their car stolen but rather to make a point and/or cause inconvenience for legitimate owners who had legally parked their cars in a space that they (the reporters) felt should properly be theirs to use instead.

Anyone who says they wouldn't care is lying

Er, no. I honestly wouldn't care.

What really annoyed me were the inconsiderate parkers who parked up on the pavement, such that I couldn't get past with a wheelchair or pram.

No-one has yet explained - not even the OP - is why it is so wrong for one car to be parked there for 5 weeks, in comparison with, say, 10 different cars being parked there for 3 days each? Or any other variation.