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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

WWYD if someone parked on your drive

166 replies

FlippertyFlip80 · 28/06/2021 16:42

or in your private parking space?

You point it out to them that they are parking on your private space and they mumble a sorry and walk off without moving their car...

I have blocked them in. AIBU?

OP posts:
wasthataburp · 28/06/2021 18:25

Who are they? Phone the police

victorioussponges · 28/06/2021 18:31

Right with you, OP! Where we live has lots of on-street permit parking and some off-road allocated parking. Allocated parking is clearly labelled with house numbers. Before we got a car we would quite frequently find people parked up in our allocated spot. Often for hours on end and sometimes even overnight. Never a note on the windscreen.

Whenever we mentioned it to other people they said - you don't have a car, so what's the problem? But like you I just find it hard to get my head around how you can be so ballsy. I doubt the people who did it knew we didn't have a car, and there were times when we had people visiting and we had no choice but to sort out a permit for them because we couldn't get hold of the people in the spot. How do you get the guts to do it?!

victorioussponges · 28/06/2021 18:33

Oh and now we have a car DH indeed says to just block them in Grin

Shehasadiamondinthesky · 28/06/2021 18:36

Id get their car towed to timbuctoo no matter how much it cost.

Willowowisp · 28/06/2021 18:38

I can't believe it either but the site says:

What if someone else parks on my driveway?
If a vehicle is parked on your driveway without your permission, they are trespassing. As trespass is a civil and not criminal offence, the police will not always get involved. At most, they may send an officer to try and determine the owner of the vehicle and ask them to remove it.

If a car is parked on my driveway, can I block them in?
If someone has parked on your driveway and you were to block them in, your vehicle may be causing an obstruction to the public highway and this is a criminal offence. The owner of the vehicle could therefore call the police.

SirenSays · 28/06/2021 18:38

@AliceLivesHere Haha I never gave a flying fig about the legality of it, especially at 14. I care that my mother almost died because he couldn't be arsed to find somewhere else to park. There's no excuse for being a shitty human. He's just lucky I didn't let my friends spray paint his car like they wanted.

Alleycat1 · 28/06/2021 18:41

I used to live one road back from a popular beach. I regularly came home to find a car either across the dropped kerb or actually in my driveway! The usual response to my irate demonstrations was "But where am I supposed to park? All the spaces are full". After ten years of it I moved.

GoodbyeToCare · 28/06/2021 18:45

There was a great parking thread here some years ago. OP had someone from a nearby school park on her drive so she blocked them in and phoned the school (which was holding a fete.) Car owner ignored the school asking the owner to move it.

Later the car owner returned at the OP refused to mover her car and kept the strange car on the drive overnight.

Next day the car owners husband and car owner showed up, husband apologised profusely while the woman wouldn't even look at the OP.

That thread was brilliant!

2bazookas · 28/06/2021 18:48

Oh no, today's the day I'm upcycling some old furniture with a spray can paint.

CharityDingle · 28/06/2021 18:56

It was a workman at a neighbours who "thought I was at work all day and he would only be a few hours more." And "he couldn't move to my neighbours spot as he had got his tools set up on it" neighbour had gone out, never found out (didn't care) if neighbour knew or not.

Had similar here, arrived home to find a strange car on my driveway, and another on the next driveway, where an elderly lady lives. I was incredulous, and not pleased. I banged on the doorbell of the house where they were working, and told them to get off my drive. They claimed the neighbour told them to park wherever they liked. Hmm Mind you, she probably did.
Both cars were moved quick smart though.

It was obvious that the drives belonged to other houses AND there's plenty of room to park in the road. Angry

starsparkle08 · 28/06/2021 19:01

I had this happen to me and contacted police ( non emergency number ) they told me it was a civil issue and nothing they could do. They did send a community support officer to talk to the group of men doing it and they did it a few more times before stopping . Police also said if I caused any damage to their car whilst it was on my property I would be liable .
It can quickly become a difficult problem and I was lucky that it stopped

EarthSight · 28/06/2021 19:18

@FlippertyFlip80

They managed to get out Angry and left a note saying it didn't say private (I told them it was private and there are 4 signs up all over the car park saying private parking).

It's the entitlement that gets to me. "I don't care that it's your space, it doesn't say private over this specific spot so I'm still going to park here". I told them we pay to have that space.

They were given the correct knowledge, had a chance to move and they didn't because they thought they could do what they liked.

Next time, take a photo with them in their car and the car reg. Not sure who you would take this to though. You say you pay for that space? As a last resort, you could try to find somewhere else to park and alert the person you're paying that there is now someone parking there instead of you for free and they can sort it out. Actually, maybe it is up to them to sort it out anyway - you're paying for a service and it's up to them that it's provided.

mummydoingamasters · 28/06/2021 19:19

I asked someone to move off my (very clearly marked, private) driveway and they waved away. I asked again, they left and then came back and keyed my car.

Unless you have CCTV or the patience to sit in your car, I don't personally recommend asking people to move. People can be vile, lazy creatures

EarthSight · 28/06/2021 19:22

@Alleycat1

I used to live one road back from a popular beach. I regularly came home to find a car either across the dropped kerb or actually in my driveway! The usual response to my irate demonstrations was "But where am I supposed to park? All the spaces are full". After ten years of it I moved.
@Alleycat1 Cheeky fuckers.

If someone dumped rubbish into their black bins and said 'but ours are full. Where are we supposed to put this?' that would be fine with them, yes?

EarthSight · 28/06/2021 19:25

@Bexily

My neighbour once had this, she blocked them in. They came and knocked to get out and she told them she'd let them out in her own time as she was busy now. She made them wait an hour Grin
@Bexily Brill XD
JingsMahBucket · 28/06/2021 19:33

I would have just had them towed. They can pay to get their car out of the impound lot. After they figure out where it’s gone. 🙃

VerticalHorizon · 28/06/2021 19:39

Getting it towed is problematic. Any damage would down to you, and there's a good chance an irate idiot will try to claim you've caused damage.

RedToothBrush · 28/06/2021 19:45

I've done this before. It used to really wind me up as having two private parking spaces was one of the reasons we had bought the house and it added about £20,000 to the value of it.

It was always our spaces it happened to as they were the easiest spaces in the car park to use. It always used to be one of the neighbours friends who had just turned up thought they could park anywhere and it always used to result in much embarassment to the neighbours. After a while the neighbours did take the hint that if they invited friends it was polite to tell them where to park.

Its so rude though. You wouldn't park on someone's driveway so it always baffles me why they think its ok to park in someone's private parking space.

MrsClatterbuck · 28/06/2021 19:47

@SirenSays

We always used to have people parking in my mother's disabled space. One day a man yelled at me, called me a little bitch and walked away when I asked him to move and tried to very politely explain why. I was 14. My mother ended up needing an ambulance and they couldn't park on our street to get to her. After that we bought gigantic stickers that basically said You've stolen my parking space, would you like my disabilities too? Every car that parked there after that got stickers.
A shopping centre car park near us does this to cars who park in disabled spaces without a blue badge.
Crankley · 28/06/2021 19:52

Block then in.

When I lived in London and someone parked in my disabled space outside my house to pick up her child from school, I had asked her a few times before not to park there, which she ignored so I double parked mine, blocking her car. She banged on my door and when I looked out of my upstairs window she screamed and swore at me. I said I had asked nicely several times not to park there and closed the window.

A couple of hours later her husband arrived with more shouting and swearing which I ignored. Later the following evening I removed my car and she never parked there again.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/06/2021 19:56

As well as complaining to Asda, I'd have been on their Twitter account about it. I wouldn't for the parking alone, if he'd apologised; but do Asda really want somebody like that being their public face? He so deserved to lose his job with that blatant bad attitude.

Surely, if you have a disabled space painted on the public road, anybody who is disabled (you would expect with a blue badge - on display) can use it, but it most definitely isn't a free for all.

As for this idiot saying that there's nothing to say it's private, 99.9% of all drives in the country don't have a sign up saying that it's private. Even with parking spaces in general, if it isn't very clearly on public/council-owned property, you should assume that it IS private. How would he like it if you followed him home and then pitched a tent in his back garden - or even waited until his front door was open and just wandered straight in and put the kettle and the telly on. Well, he doesn't have any sign up saying that it's private, does he....

RealBecca · 28/06/2021 19:59

I wouldn't block them in as its a dropped kerb and ypu moght get in trouble. I would let down air in their tyres though. Either 2 so they cant change a tyre and drive off or enough in all 4 that they cant go far.

VerticalHorizon · 28/06/2021 20:01

Do not let down their tyres. If they drove and crashed, you could be convicted of manslaughter, it's that serious.

Sunnyday321 · 28/06/2021 20:02

We had a man park his car outside our house close to the driveway, making it almost impossible to get out car off the driveway, he would then go off to work for the day.
One day I parked really close to him so he couldn't get out, he knocked and asked us to move. I told him my dh was at work and had taken his keys , but he was due home in an hour or so . I made him sit on his car for 45 minutes and then went out to say dh had just phoned home from the train and hadn't taken his keys after all and told me where they were. Never saw him again !

PawsQueen · 28/06/2021 20:03

My neighbours used to do it a lot. When I say a lot, I mean it went on for a decade. They just don't give a shit and let all their visitors park there
I alternated between
Blocking them in, taking the intercom off the hook and going for a long bath
Ringing 101
Parking behind them and blasting the horn
Banging on the door and saying move (this was the least effective)

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