Reporting neighbours for reserving a parking space with cones

[YodaBabe]

Fully happy to admit I Abu, obviously too much time on my hands.

We live on street where it's all street parking for terraced housing. The couple opposite everyday the lady leaves the house, man runs out with parking cones to save the parking space. They have upgraded to parking cones it used to be the wheelie bins.

Aibu to report them to the council? Parking ban be limited but you can usually park a few houses up or down and most times outside your own home.

It just really riles me and to be honest it's dangerous.

Dh thinks I'm being a busy body

Yes they're wrong to do it (obstructing the public highway).

Yes you'd be a massive. over-involved busybody to report it (and would achieve nothing.

If one day you cannot find a parking space, except for the one they've reserved, then move their cones and use it.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

My neighbours used to do this. I never considered reporting them, I just moved the cones and parked in the lovely space they had saved for me. I would stack the cones neatly on their page so they could reserve it for me again the next day.

They stopped doing it eventually.

So funny :)

Used to be a man that did this by my old Doctors. It was funny because he had the largest drive on the street and could have easily fit half a dozen cars on it, but he didn't want patients parking outside his house.

It was like a magnet. Every time I went to the Doctors I removed his cones and parked there. Within weeks every time I drove past his cones had been thrown in the garden and random cars were there. I think he got that message.

I get it OP. They have no entitlement to the road outside their homes and the cones are ridiculous. Shame you cant direct a passing group of drunk students towards them.

just move the cones if you nees that space.

You can’t reserve yourself a space on a public highway. Just move the cones. Everyone has to try and find a space not just her.

@YodaBabe

Ahh I feel I need to add

We think she may work for the nhs she comes and goes at different times, does that make a difference?

Like I say I am fully aware I have too much invested in this as wfh and looking out of the window all day

It makes no difference where and when she works. Why would it?

Steal and "re-purpose" the cones. Hopefully, they will replace them and you will be able to fill many happy hours with producing cone-art. You could even start your own business selling traffic-cone products on Etsy and get rich off the back of your neighbours' anti-social habits.

A couple more ideas. Shame it's not coming up to Halloween.

@RapunzelHadExtensions

Hahaha what losers. Another one saying move the cones. They don't own a piece of road, assuming no disabilities meaning they've put a drop curb in or anything?

Even if they do have disabilities....they don't own that piece of road

I would think it fine for a rare large delivery ( eg washing machine/sofa etc, or house move) . If done daily I would find it annoying, do not think I would report though.

Don’t report them, that’s petty.

Just park there if you need to. Or fancy a change. Or if your 10 visiting friends need to. (When we can have friends over, obviously).

YANBU to find it annoying in principle.

But YABU to make a big deal of it if everyone can still park near their houses.

It's not good use of council time and money.

Just move the cones if you need to park there. They can't reserve a spot just because it's outside their house.

A neighbour used to do exactly this in our last road which was all on street parking in London but no restrictions- you couldn't always park in our road but usually find somewhere in the next road. Anyway she started with the cones in front of her house. So, if I drove into the street and there were no spaces, I would park in the coned off space and move her cones. If I could park in our road I left it. But usually someone moved her cones. She lasted about 2 weeks doing this. She had no reasons other than parking in the next road pissed her off.

So OP I'd move them if the space was needed due to no other reasonable spaces. Otherwise leave it. But they are completely unreasonable. That's why we moved houses to a place with off road parking.

I'd just park and run over the cones in the process

Our neighbour did this, he had nicked one of the cones from the highways depot when we had the road resurfaced. Kept putting the cone out to reserve 'his` space. DP took the cone back to the council.

Is there a parking issue in the street? If not just laugh at them.

I live on a very similar street and there's a couple of houses that use cones. We also live within a mile of a hospital and 5 schools, so during non-lockdown times everyone with a car lives with a hope and a prayer coming home to a space. Never mind most houses around here seem to have at least 2 cars per household.

I still wouldn't report the cone-owners. I understand why they do it, especially the older couple.

Unfortunately, whilst we're generally a friendly neighbourhood, there is a particular person who thinks they own the place. They once took out not only their bins, but also nicked ours/others to block off a space for all their household cars!

Do they have on going building work? We would need to do this for plaster and sand delivery’s not everyday though.

Move the cones, park there and replace the cones carefully on your bonnet.

What do you expect the council to do ?

Agree with others. Don’t bother reporting. If and when you need the space, just move the cones and park there. It’s annoying though.

I'd just park there if I needed to and move the cones.
I wouldn't report them.

meh if they were putting them outside my house I'd probably be annoyed or If I was struggling to get parking but other if not, how does it even affect you?