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.

I can see why she would get annoyed we have had a car parked outside our house for 10 days straight to can hardly get past walking then I was ment to get a sofa delivered and they couldn't park anywhere or get past the cars who have half parked on path and road so they ended up taking it back, we don't drive but need to access the outside of my house for deliveries to and from

@seventymodules YABU.

Yeah this would get on my tits, and I can't blame the lady for being pissed off/annoyed.

This is one of those occasions were just because you CAN do something, that doesn't necessarily mean you SHOULD.

Parking your car right outside someone else's house all day, (nowhere NEAR where you live,) is a piss take. The posters on here who think it's OK to do it because it's a public road would be just as pissed off if it happened to them, and I don't believe for a second that they wouldn't be.

The fact she has a four car driveway is none of your business. She is entitled to be pissed off about this.

Why can you not drive back home, leave your car at YOUR property, and have your colleague pick you up there?

Personally, if I was her, I would park MY car in that spot to stop you doing it. And IDGAF if it makes me petty, or like a 'yappy little dog'. I am as ENTITLED to be irked and irritated by this, as YOU are to park in that spot right outside that woman's home EVERY DAY.

And according to this thread, it seems a lot of people feel the same.

@dixiechickonhols

My mum/her neighbours gets upset by this. She’s mid 70s but youngest on her street of bungalows. They tend to have a lot of services and tradesmen - cleaners, carers, gardeners etc and get mithered if they think they won’t be able to park. Plus relatives or taxis picking them up and some can’t walk far. They are all up early so do the park in road to stop someone parking there if they are expecting a tradesman or delivery. They only have small drives.

This. ^ These entitled, inconsiderate 'I will do what the fuck I like' types, don't think for a SECOND about whether they are causing an inconvenience to people. Because they don't care about anyone but themselves.

@Ginuwine

There are so many folk in Britain who seem to think the road outside their house is actually on their property deeds.

Pretensions of grandeur doesn't even come into it - they have aspirations to live just off a dedicated private access road, with fields around them. Instead they live in a community and can't deal with the fact other people also live and work there.

Yawwwwnnn,

The OP DOESN'T live and work there... She lives miles away from that parking spot. Her kid's school is nearby, and she dumps her car right outside someone's home, while she fucks off to work for 6 hours - in her colleagues car... And she does this EVERY DAY.

@ginuwine

Technically the OP can treat it like her personal parking space. She's legally entitled to.

Don't talk such utter nonsense!

@Frazzle76

Honestly ? In hindsight what you should have done is knock on the door months ago and dropped round a bottle of wine and chocolates. Because while you arnt technically doing anything wrong it pisses people off. You have no idea of her personal circumstances and how much this is affecting her. Lots of people here have used the 'public rd' argument. If this was outside my house and you did some of the things previous posters have suggested you would have an all out war on your hands. Take a bottle of wine back with you and be sugary sweet to diffuse the situation. And change your parking pattern.

Why would she do that?

The woman doesn't own the road outside her house.

If she's unhappy with living on a public road, she should move house and live on an enormous country estate where folk parking beside the gate lodge doesn't bother her.

If she can't afford that, it's sad for her - but not the Ops problem.

I'd be getting a dashcam though. It's unlikely she would damage the car because she sounds like she's just trying to be threatening so I'd ignore her entirely. Park there. Sit on your bonnet and have a little picnic. You can do that on a public road on your own car........and if she challenges you again maybe have some examples of country estates for sale that might suit her needs better than where she is currently living.

Public road that you have paid for through your taxes. It is not her property.

In your position I would mention her threat to damage your vehicle to the local police - before it happens.

@seventymodules
The people saying this is annoying: why is it? It's a public road with no parking restrictions. Assuming the OP isn't blocking access, I can't understand why it would even be an annoyance. People are so bloody weird about parking, I can't fathom it.
Because it can cause an inconvenience. I want to be able to park outside my own home and my visitors do as well. It makes it easier for me to bring children and shopping in and I can see my car to make sure no one is damaging, stealing it.
Completely understand that I have no legal right and there's nothing I can do about it, but it is still irritating, especially if the op is doing it all week.
Move the car about, why does it have to be that one spot all week.

[quote littlepattilou]@seventymodules YABU.

Yeah this would get on my tits, and I can't blame the lady for being pissed off/annoyed.

This is one of those occasions were just because you CAN do something, that doesn't necessarily mean you SHOULD.

Parking your car right outside someone else's house all day, (nowhere NEAR where you live,) is a piss take. The posters on here who think it's OK to do it because it's a public road would be just as pissed off if it happened to them, and I don't believe for a second that they wouldn't be.

The fact she has a four car driveway is none of your business. She is entitled to be pissed off about this.

Why can you not drive back home, leave your car at YOUR property, and have your colleague pick you up there?

Personally, if I was her, I would park MY car in that spot to stop you doing it. And IDGAF if it makes me petty, or like a 'yappy little dog'. I am as ENTITLED to be irked and irritated by this, as YOU are to park in that spot right outside that woman's home EVERY DAY.

And according to this thread, it seems a lot of people feel the same.

@dixiechickonhols

My mum/her neighbours gets upset by this. She’s mid 70s but youngest on her street of bungalows. They tend to have a lot of services and tradesmen - cleaners, carers, gardeners etc and get mithered if they think they won’t be able to park. Plus relatives or taxis picking them up and some can’t walk far. They are all up early so do the park in road to stop someone parking there if they are expecting a tradesman or delivery. They only have small drives.

This. ^ These entitled, inconsiderate 'I will do what the fuck I like' types, don't think for a SECOND about whether they are causing an inconvenience to people. Because they don't care about anyone but themselves.

@Ginuwine

There are so many folk in Britain who seem to think the road outside their house is actually on their property deeds.

Pretensions of grandeur doesn't even come into it - they have aspirations to live just off a dedicated private access road, with fields around them. Instead they live in a community and can't deal with the fact other people also live and work there.

Yawwwwnnn,

The OP DOESN'T live and work there... She lives miles away from that parking spot. Her kid's school is nearby, and she dumps her car right outside someone's home, while she fucks off to work for 6 hours - in her colleagues car... And she does this EVERY DAY.

@ginuwine

Technically the OP can treat it like her personal parking space. She's legally entitled to.

Don't talk such utter nonsense![/quote]
It's irrelevant. The Op can park there. It's not harming the home owner. It's only annoying her because she is choosing to be annoyed by it. Objectively it's not harming her at all.

No pavement outside her house? Does she have a fence or a wall to separate her property from the road or is it all open?

Legal, but annoying. Very annoying if it's already a street plagued by the school run.

If its legal for you to park there then i can't see that you're doing anything wrong.
Would your colleague consider parking their car there a few days a week though and you drive you both to work instead? She would still have to look at a car 5 days a week but at least you can say you made an adjustment with your car for her

Well OP it doesn't really matter what anyone here thinks. Just matters that it has pissed her off and if you want to park everyday knowing you are pissing off someone else and they may damage your car. Is it really a conflict worth escalating?

Just park in different spots.

Genuine question.

She has to live there and it's probably making her life a misery every time you rock up and park there MOST of the day five days a week.

It would piss me off

Yeah this would get on my tits, and I can't blame the lady for being pissed off/annoyed

People saying stuff like this. Why?

How far away from school do you live. If you don't need the car all day, why not walk to school

People used to park outside my last house, it was walking distance to the train station. Even if they were considerate, they were still making my exit from the drive really hard. The drive had a weird camber & poor visibility. It's remarkably annoying having the same car parked outside all day, even tho perfectly legal.

People use my street as all day free parking, and it's rude, inconsiderate, twatty behaviour

This thread is the gift that keeps on giving. People are perfectly entitled to park on a street if there are no restrictions.

I think that @Ginuwine is saying it is perfectly legal for the OP to do what she has been doing, @littlepattilou - not that it is her own, personal parking space. Legally speaking, as long as there are no restrictions/residents' only parking etc, on-road parking is legal.

I can see how this would be very annoying for the woman. At the very least move your car around a bit. I certainly wouldn't expect to be able to park my car in a spot like that all day every day unless I lived there, even though it is legal.

However surely the best scenario is you walk/scoot to school and then get picked up by your colleague.

She should live in my street! We count ourselves lucky we can park at all in the street let alone outside the apartment!

I wouldn't worry - you are allowed to park there. I would tell her she can take it up with the council if she is that bothered.

If a car is parked legally, then people should stop jumping up and down saying it's inconsiderate, spoils the view, visitors have to park a fraction further away. Get over it.

You want a nice view? A space for visitors? And so on? Then move to the countryside, plenty of room there.

Legally you’re fine, morally you’re not, in my opinion. Unless a builders lorry bringing stuff to the house can easily get up the drive you could be causing a problem occasionally. I get that would not be an issue usually but I would stop you doing it outside mine by parking mine there but I wouldn’t have a problem with neighbours having visitors park there. It’s the fact you’re doing it all the time that would drive me mad if I was her.

As others have suggested, why not try parking in front of a different house every now and then? I'm surprised the same spot is available for you to park every day, would never happen where we live (SW London), but as the house owner is clearly getting annoyed, I'd just look for somewhere else to park and not stick to the same stop all the time. Problem solved!

Legal and inconsiderate are not mutually exclusive, @TurquoiseDragon - and people have a right to feel annoyed - their feelings don't have to be logical or reasonable.

But they don't have a right to take their annoyance out on people who are doing something perfectly legal. If they want to fume and work themselves up, they are only hurting themselves.

I'm another who would probably be annoyed if the same car did that every working day. I wouldn't threaten the car, but I'd secretly be extremely irritated and wish they'd "share the love" a little by parking in other places, too.

Public road. Unrestricted parking. Anyone can park there as often, and for as long, as they like.
End of!

We had a random man park his car on our 2 car drive all day when I was at Uni. He parked at the end nearest the street and blocked our visitors access to the street. We kept leaving notes asking him to stop using our drive but he carried on doing it.

So we started blocking our drive off by leaving our bins on it and our neighbour's bins, with their permission of course. He parked on the street, moved our bins out of the way and promptly parked on our drive.

It was cheeky fuckery as not his drive but as we were a rare student house with no car our landlord's workmen used our drive when doing jobs in the area and couldn't access it so inconvenient for them. Also inconvenient for us as it prevented our visitors from parking (permits needed for the street which we didn't have due to a 2 car drive). Even when we left a note on a Tuesday saying please don't park here on Wednesday as we have a visitor he ignored it.

In the end we got a friend who lived nearby to park on our drive for a couple of weeks to block the man off from parking.

That's a cheeky parking fucker, not someone parking legally on a residential street and not blocking anyone's access to their own drive.

I absolutely can believe the frothing that goes on about parking. So many people seem to think that they have the right to park outside their own houses on a public road. They DO, but so does anybody else have the right to park in that spot if there are no restrictions.

We have this on our road also - we're on a bend and double-yellows. It's no effort to walk but wherever we park it will be outside somebody else's house even if it's on the opposite side of the road.

One of the residents further down complained that my car (parked on the other side of the road but opposite her house) was in HER space and she HAS KIDS! She was so angry. She'd rather be able to see her car from her window - and drag her kids across a fairly busy road - than park alongside the pavement where her children can be unloaded in safety. Stupid - and lazy.

We have lazy people on our street, afraid of a walk but perfectly capable of it.

People have become territorial and proprietorial over things they neither own nor have control of. All these 'pissed off' ones... utterly crazy.