It's a Parking One

[ILoveFlumps]

Ok mumsnetters I need some ideas.
I popped out for 10 minutes this morning and come home to a random car on my driveway (outside my house). This is private property and allocated parking for a New Build. The Main Street it's off is permit parking only - this car has a permit.
The only place I can park is blocking it in causing a semi obstruction which I've done.
Police won't help as a civil matter.
Note has been left on the car by me telling them it's private property.
What else can I do?! Immediate neighbours have no idea whose car this is.

@Whythesadface

And there we have the problem with society today. If you do something wrong you have to own it. If the person you wronged decides to tell you off you have no excuse , you choose to do this. There are no circumstance that excuse this man, all the oh BUT people on here are wrong. You were right OP and you told him why and made him accountable for his actions.

I fully agree. I have a niece who simply can't accept she ever makes a mistake or is wrong about anything. She's a nightmare. She's only 22 but has already had dozens of jobs - she leaves after a few weeks because "being bullied" - when you dig deeper, it's not bullying, it's because she's made a mistake, or has been late, and is reprimanded for it. If it were the occasional job, I'd accept genuine bullying is possible, but it's literally EVERY job, so I think it's HER who's the problem, not the employer. She's like that with everything else in life too - boyfriends, hairdressers, etc - she makes a drama out of everything.

I wouldn't have been very nice either - if I came home to find an unknown car on my drive leaving me in a situation where the only place I could park would block not only that car in but also my neighbours. I wouldn't be rude - and Op wasn't - but I'd be bloody assertive to get my point across.
What planet are some MN'ers on that they think Op is in the wrong in any way?
However if a "key worker" carer knocked on my door and asked to borrow my empty drive for half an hour I'd probably let them. There's the difference if someone doesn't act like an entitled twat.

@Needsmustnow

Oh god, I think that's awful that you said that to him and humiliated him in that way. So much for Key Workers.

You have to be joking! being a key worker does not entitle anyone to take the piss.

@stablefeet why the air quotes around key worker? Do you no think care workers should qualify as key workers?

@Needsmustnow

Oh god, I think that's awful that you said that to him and humiliated him in that way. So much for Key Workers.

Really, don't be silly. Being a key worker is not a licence to park wherever you fancy and cause problems for other people.

He's very lucky that being humiliated is all that has happened. OP could well have reported him to his employers.

Well I for one think you handled the situation brilliantly, @ILoveFlumps.👏👏👏

You did much better than I would have done in the same situation. 😁

Exactly! But people seem to be clamouring to be awed and amazed at OPs brilliant dressing down of the person on her drive. She’s now basking in the glory of mumsnet for having been actually quite nasty. Just because someone parks on your property it doesn’t give you the right to talk to them like that. It’s horrible

I haven't been basking in the glory of Mumsnet as you so eloquently put it.
It's comments like this that give MN the reputation it has.
I do hope your day gets better.

Bask away OP, Bask away

Well this thread derailed nicely.

Am working class, have friends who are carers, does this mean that I/they can be twats and nobody can complain?
DH has a big van, he could cause some great parking threads.

I'm happy to accept that I'm the only one who feels it was unnecessary, but I just think we all have struggles, we all make mistakes and there's no need to humiliate someone.

This wasn't a mistake. He admitted it was an entirely deliberate decision on his part.

@Nith

I'm happy to accept that I'm the only one who feels it was unnecessary, but I just think we all have struggles, we all make mistakes and there's no need to humiliate someone.

This wasn't a mistake. He admitted it was an entirely deliberate decision on his part.

Which he apologised for....four times and it still wasn't enough?

Wow this thread is.....insightful

But the OP didn’t reply like that “for fun”. She had no idea for a number of hours who was parked on her drive! The driver was inconsiderate and left no note. He gambled she would be out for the day (what if OP was an elderly blue badge holder?) and that gamble didn’t pay off. He deserved the rollicking he got. My guess is it’s not the first time he’s done that.

I'm late to this (can't believe I missed a parking thread!), but have RTFT.

I'm generally on the side of OP, although she possibly did slightly over-egg it; then again, as a recent PP said, some people do think that they can do anything they like, then say sorry several times, and basically get away with it.

In fact, when all you do is keep saying 'sorry' a number of times, it can often reach a point where it morphs from meaning a (genuine or lip-service) apology initially into an implied PA 'you're being unreasonable and I'm just having to pacify your unreasonableness by repeating the same word until you realise and accept that you're the unreasonable one'.

Just saying the word itself means nothing if it's not said with any genuine sense of apologising. Most people would have held their hands up and said "I'm a carer, couldn't find anywhere to park and an elderly disabled gentleman was waiting for me to feed and change him, so I made a bad quick decision. I'm very sorry - I shouldn't have done it and I promise I won't ever do again." I know OP says he was young, but he was at the very least 17 if he was driving - a bit old to be looking to the ground, shuffling with his hands in his pockets and saying "Dunno, sorry".

He also outright LIED to OP by saying he 'didn't know' that it was a drive, when it must have been extremely obvious - as well as all the signs saying 'private property'.

He was doing an important job, but he had no idea whatsoever about the personal circumstances and job/daily schedule of OP and her neighbour. When he parked up at 7:30 in the morning, she could have been a hospital worker, soon to return from a night shift, and then heading straight to bed for a delayed 'night's' sleep in advance of another night shift. He isn't the only carer/key worker/emergency worker in the country.

That said, though, the worst CF in this scenario is getting away with it completely unblamed. I actually think that OP should consider contacting the care agency/council, but in a positive way. This man is doing an essential job, but is neither provided with the time nor the facilities to do it properly. If they can't ensure that he has somewhere close to the client to park (maybe having to carry in bulky supplies/food/medical equipment) - even having got him a parking permit on an oversubscribed road - the onus should be on them to pay him for the extra time it takes him to park as close as possible in an available, appropriate space and then go to the client's house. I believe Royal Mail take this into account, by giving a much shorter round and transport if necessary to their workers delivering to remote houses and those with very long drives, so goodness knows how a care agency is allowed to just blatantly ignore this need.

He was lucky it was you OP. If it was me I'd have blocked the car in and gone off for my daily walk, or just ignored his knocking for a good hour.

Being a carer doesn't give you a free pass to inconvenience others!

OP has said that on-road parking was difficult. He made a call, it turned out to the the wrong one. He apologised.

It didn't "turn out to be the wrong one". It was wrong from the start: it was a very deliberate decision to park on someone's property regardless of the extent to which that might cause them problems. The fact that he gambled on not being caught doesn't make it one iota better.

That's a good point, that this carer has to attend to a client who lives where there is nowhere to park, so he needs to feed that back to his employer.

@Needsmustnow

but he's doing a rotten, desperately needed job for very little money. Why would anyone want to make his day worse for fun?

Yep.

How are we about him making OP and her NDN's day worse for his personal convenience? If he didn't want to be put in this position, the remedy lay entirely in his hands.

@BlokeHereInPeace

There's a working class person put in their place, well done!

For all OP or anyone else knows, he's the Hon. Cecil Cholmondeley-Huffington, doing the carer job whilst on furlough or for the hell of it. Do you really think OP's approach would have been any different if she had known that to be the case?

Also, those saying that a carer is much more important than a plumber, it isn't necessarily the case. The carer could be attending to perform a routine check of something non-urgent, whilst the plumber could have been called out to a burst pipe gushing gallons of water a minute into somebody's kitchen. It's not a hierarchy of which of two or more important jobs is automatically the 'most important'.

We've had this problem on a couple of occasions due to one of the various parking apps (e.g. parkatmyplace) giving misleading information on the location of the available private parking space, or the driver misunderstanding or misreading the correct location. Seems to be specially relevant to new housing estates. V annoying for you nevertheless.

If he had stopped for 2 minutes, the OP would have been absolutely right, but you could understand posters pretending she was over the top. Just about.

For 2 HOURS, when he's not even visiting the next-door neighbour but someone further?

Absolutely out of order, he's very lucky he was only confronted by a mild, reasonable and non-threatening woman.

@Needsmustnow

Why are some people claiming that anyone is saying he had a right to park there? Nobody is. We're just saying that there's a proportional response, and one that's a bit kinder.

Do you think it might have been a bit kinder of him to leave a note with his phone number on prominently displayed so that he could minimise the inconvenience he was causing to others? Is there any reason why a key worker or anyone else should be excused from doing at least that?

Why are we comparing plumbers and carers now?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Also, those saying that a carer is much more important than a plumber, it isn't necessarily the case. The carer could be attending to perform a routine check of something non-urgent, whilst the plumber could have been called out to a burst pipe gushing gallons of water a minute into somebody's kitchen. It's not a hierarchy of which of two or more important jobs is automatically the 'most important'.

Whether you're a carer or a plumber, and whether it's an emergency or not, you should still park so as not to block or inconvenience someone. There are really very few times when there isn't an alternative to causing serious inconvenience to someone else. Even if it's an "emergency", a plumber has no automatic right to block a drive or park on double yellows etc - he'd still get a parking ticket as he's not exempt.