Really shaken up. Did I do anything wrong here?

[seventymodules]

For past two years I have done the school run, I park on a street near the school. There is a detached house with a driveway and a patch of grass next to the driveway. I park in front of the patch of grass, not blocking the driveway whatsoever.

Once I drop my child at school I get collected by my workmate (we are cleaners so have company car) and then work till 3 until I have to return for school run and car.

This morning as I was getting out of the car the lady in the house came charging out, she said 'can you stop parking your car in front of my house?' I said 'it's a public road' and she said 'you park out here 5 days a week, if you refuse to move it I should make you aware that I will be cutting my grass today and any damage to your car is not my responsibility' said with a sarcastic smile on her face, she then walked back into the house shaking her head.

I've left the car but worried now she is going to damage it.

Am I being unreasonable parking it there? It's a public road and not on her property at all.

We can invalidate the woman's annoyance by focusing on the implied threat but OP's question was is her parking unreasonable. Yep.

I'm not invalidating the woman's annoyance in any way. But being "annoyed" with something, luckily for all of us, doesn't give you free reign to behave threateningly.

And if we're reading this without ANY nuance. In black and white.

Has OP done anything unreasonable to legally park on the open road, where there are no parking restrictions and not blocking access?
Nope.

Are you coming back @seventymodules - was your car ok when you got back to it yesterday, have you seen the woman since, what happened this morning and how do you manage all your commitments?

@AmandaPlease

sunglasses she didn't immediately threaten. She waited 2 years and then first asked if OP would stop leaving her car there, and was met with "it's a public road".

We can invalidate the woman's annoyance by focusing on the implied threat but OP's question was is her parking unreasonable. Yep.

Nope

@Lampzade

It’s common decency not to park outside someone’s house five fucking days a week We all know it is not against the law, but it is annoying. My dh once packed outside someone’s house which was near Luton airport. Dh was away for ten days, when he came back someone had let his tyres down.

Agree with this.

@ArcheryAnnie

Nearly 1000 posts, and I still don't understand why the homeowner is so upset, or why anyone is defending her actions.

Really? You might not agree with the homeowner, but not understanding is odd

@ArcheryAnnie

Nearly 1000 posts, and I still don't understand why the homeowner is so upset, or why anyone is defending her actions.

The homeowner has a driveway, so her own parking isn't impeded at all.
The road is public, and she has no rights or ownership over it at all.

People have cited stuff as "it's inconvenient for her", "she has to look at someone else's car all day", and "she might have visitors".

How is it inconvenient for her? She has her own drive. It would be inconvenient to the OP if she didn't park there - why doesn't her inconvenience count for anything? She's paid for the road as much as the homeowner.

As for looking at someone else's car all day - please. If you don't want to look at someone else's car all day, you are out of luck unless you live somewhere really remote. I look out of my living room window to a sea of other people's cars. I wish they would all vanish, tbh, but that sadly isn't up to me.

Might have visitors? Why should someone from even further away have any "right" to that space? Ridiculous.

"Common decency" - no, not unless you think it's "decent" to claim as yours something that's in common ownership.

Perfectly summed up. I think we can close this thread now, nothing further needs to be said.

@ArcheryAnnie

Nearly 1000 posts, and I still don't understand why the homeowner is so upset, or why anyone is defending her actions.

The homeowner has a driveway, so her own parking isn't impeded at all.
The road is public, and she has no rights or ownership over it at all.

People have cited stuff as "it's inconvenient for her", "she has to look at someone else's car all day", and "she might have visitors".

How is it inconvenient for her? She has her own drive. It would be inconvenient to the OP if she didn't park there - why doesn't her inconvenience count for anything? She's paid for the road as much as the homeowner.

As for looking at someone else's car all day - please. If you don't want to look at someone else's car all day, you are out of luck unless you live somewhere really remote. I look out of my living room window to a sea of other people's cars. I wish they would all vanish, tbh, but that sadly isn't up to me.

Might have visitors? Why should someone from even further away have any "right" to that space? Ridiculous.

"Common decency" - no, not unless you think it's "decent" to claim as yours something that's in common ownership.

All of this, exactly! Nobody has articulated any reason other than basically 'well I just don't like it.'

Doris Noooooo, what about the property owners right of access to cut her grass? What about No Mow May? We can’t just stop it must go on!!

Technically you aren't doing anything wrong but you know you are being a jerk for doing that!

I think people just get that feeling that someone is somehow 'getting away' with something, or has some 'unfair' benefit, and they don't like it. The fact that they personally don't need the benefit and that it doesn't harm anyone seems to be beside the point for these nutters. But they know they can't just say, I'm a nutter who doesn't like it when other people find solutions to their problems that don't affect me. So they come up with "she's going to be looking at that car all day" and other spurious shite.

See also the posts suggesting that OP gets picked up from her own house - because she's got a house with a bit of road outside, and here she is parking on the road outside someone else's house, it's not fair! Quick Hyacinth, she's getting away with it!

Crazy.

@Crocidura

I think people just get that feeling that someone is somehow 'getting away' with something, or has some 'unfair' benefit, and they don't like it. The fact that they personally don't need the benefit and that it doesn't harm anyone seems to be beside the point for these nutters. But they know they can't just say, I'm a nutter who doesn't like it when other people find solutions to their problems that don't affect me. So they come up with "she's going to be looking at that car all day" and other spurious shite.

See also the posts suggesting that OP gets picked up from her own house - because she's got a house with a bit of road outside, and here she is parking on the road outside someone else's house, it's not fair! Quick Hyacinth, she's getting away with it!

Crazy.

Um. What? 😂

@Crocidura

I think people just get that feeling that someone is somehow 'getting away' with something, or has some 'unfair' benefit, and they don't like it. The fact that they personally don't need the benefit and that it doesn't harm anyone seems to be beside the point for these nutters. But they know they can't just say, I'm a nutter who doesn't like it when other people find solutions to their problems that don't affect me. So they come up with "she's going to be looking at that car all day" and other spurious shite.

See also the posts suggesting that OP gets picked up from her own house - because she's got a house with a bit of road outside, and here she is parking on the road outside someone else's house, it's not fair! Quick Hyacinth, she's getting away with it!

Crazy.

Fantastic summary

@Crocidura

I think people just get that feeling that someone is somehow 'getting away' with something, or has some 'unfair' benefit, and they don't like it. The fact that they personally don't need the benefit and that it doesn't harm anyone seems to be beside the point for these nutters. But they know they can't just say, I'm a nutter who doesn't like it when other people find solutions to their problems that don't affect me. So they come up with "she's going to be looking at that car all day" and other spurious shite.

See also the posts suggesting that OP gets picked up from her own house - because she's got a house with a bit of road outside, and here she is parking on the road outside someone else's house, it's not fair! Quick Hyacinth, she's getting away with it!

Crazy.

Agreed!

Well reasons like "she's going to be looking at a stranger's car all day" are obviously too deranged to be true, so trying to fathom what be the actual problem...

Um. What?

I posted earlier about this, but rightly or wrongly, many people do view their streets as communities, which brings responsibilities (keep your house presentable, keep the music quiet) and rights (parking access for you and your visitors). An outsider who comes in and takes a right without the responsibility is seem as bucking the order.

You may not agree, but it's not so weird for some people to view their street as a community, surely?

Residential streets are not there to provide free all day parking for people who don’t live there and aren’t visiting someone who does or a nearby shop or business. It is cheeky to use them as such.

Residential streets are not there to provide free all day parking for people who don’t live there and aren’t visiting someone who does or a nearby shop or business. It is cheeky to use them as such.

Clearly we all live in different areas which is how the divide probably falls. In my city this would be laughable.

@CounsellorTroi

Residential streets are not there to provide free all day parking for people who don’t live there and aren’t visiting someone who does or a nearby shop or business. It is cheeky to use them as such.

Wrong. If there are no restrictions, residential streets are for parking on, and no distinction is made between people who live on the street and those who don't.

Distinguishing between residents and others is what resident parking permits are for, which this street doesn't have.

Residential streets are not there to provide free all day parking for people who don’t live there and aren’t visiting someone who does or a nearby shop or business. It is cheeky to use them as such.

Show me the law that says they are not.

@CounsellorTroi

Residential streets are not there to provide free all day parking for people who don’t live there and aren’t visiting someone who does or a nearby shop or business. It is cheeky to use them as such.

Oh! Priceless!

I'd love to see the place where this never ever happens.

Erewhon perhaps!

I'm not invalidating the woman's annoyance in any way. But being "annoyed" with something, luckily for all of us, doesn't give you free reign to behave threateningly

Nobody has condoned her response but the replies on here do clearly demonstrate she's not some territorial anomaly in feeling frustrated. We all know the parking is legal, the question posed by the OP is does the homeowner have a point?

Technically you're right OP is free to say "fuck you, you don't own the road, I'll do what suits me". But the responses on here suggest many are in sympathy with mowing woman, even if they wouldn't act on it.

OP asked the question, these are the answers.

It must be head bangingly frustrating to look out over a strip of kerb and FEEL like it's "yours"
but KNOW, in reality, it does NOT belong to you. Especially when cars you don't "like" are parked there.

As previous have said Mower Woman has "done well" not to say anything before.
Sounds like from her threatening, when she goes she's going to go big time.

Technically you're right OP is free to say "fuck you, you don't own the road, I'll do what suits me"

Maybe if Mower woman had swallowed her ridiculous sense of ownership and just asked nicely there wouldn't even be be a need for a technical "fuck you". Which of course OP has never said.

Show me the law that says they are not

Straight after you us the law that says it's illegal to not invite your MIL for Christmas or to only invite some of the children in a class to a birthday party.

sunglasses she DID ask her not to park there, and having tolerated it for 2 years I'd bet she phrased it politely enough. But OP replied "it's a public road".

If I'd been parking outside someone's home for two years I think I'd have given the first request the time of day but OP wasn't having it. Guess she's met her match in Mower Woman!