Neighbour wants to "share" my driveway. I... don't

[TheUnexpectedPickle]

Parking one, buckle up.
I live in a 3 storey Victorian townhouse, my flat is at the bottom, and above me is a 2 story house owned by Snooty Neighbour. I rent, if that's relevant.

The driveway belongs to my flat and the steps up to SNs front door are about halfway up my drive.

Its a double drive and Paul-Next-Door, who owns all 3 storeys of his house, has the other half of the drive.

I bumped in to SN last week and she commented that she is struggling to find parking on the street now that I've moved in. The flat was empty for a while and she was parking on the drive. She then said she's noticed that I'm out for long stretches of time so possibly she could use my drive when I'm out. I pointed out that she wouldn't know when I'm going to be back, so she wouldn't know when to move her car. She then suggested that in that case I park on the street!

So it appears she is imaging some sort of first come first serve arrangement. It took me off guard a bit so I said I'd think about it. Obviously, I thought "no fucking chance"

Last night she caught me coming home and asked if I'd had the chance to think about it. I politely declined and explained that I don't really want to be searching for parking after a 12 hour shift so it doesn't work for me. She then suggested I message her my rota so she knows when she can use the drive, to make it "fair" and then let her know when I'm going to other places and when I'll be back.

Wtf!? I don't want to have to tell a random woman when I'm going to be home! I'm 35 years old, I don't even tell my mother that!

I probably didn't help the situation as I laughed when I said no to that. She then got huffy and started going on about me letting other cars park on the drive. Other cars being my DP, who I then park in front of and block in and Paul Next Door when he had a skip on his drive and asked me very nicely if he could park there for about 2 hours while he had a tyre changed. Neither of these things caused me any inconvenience.

The conversation ended up with her slinking off muttering about me being "unfair"

Bonkers.

I know I'm not being unreasonable really but her whole expectation that this was a great idea has me questioning myself just a tiny bit.

AIBU?

Those siding with the neighbour: would you be willing to have to 'book' your house every time you want to return to it from work/shopping/holiday/whatever?

Even if nobody else were able to use it whilst you were out, suppose your landlord/council brought in a rule that you would need to call or message ahead for an access code, every time you were on your way home - maybe as a community fire security system, so that, in case of fire, the firefighters would know at all times which homes were currently occupied and prioritise them?

Would you be happy with having to report and check every time you wanted to return to your own home? Now, suppose that the person who issues the access codes is on holiday, off sick, or on their lunch, or just has a huge backlog, so you might need to wait an hour or two (or week or two) before they can give you your home-access code. What if they 'are' there and available, but are unhappy as they believe that you come and go too many times each day and they think you should change and restrict your routines to make it more convenient for them? In fact, you're creating a lot of hassle for them, so maybe you could sometimes regularly go to kill time in a cafe or other public place, at times when you know they're busy or tired, instead of going home as you'd planned.

This is all completely ludicrous, of course - but it's exactly how (in principle) this scenario would play out before long, if OP had been born yesterday.

Hi OP, what a pain in the arse she is!
Why don’t you recommend she contacts the landlord directly and asks to rent the drive from them?! You could say to her she’s doing you a favour as it’ll bring your rent down.
The inconvenience, together with demonstrating that you actually pay for the use of the drive, might shut her up. And if she actually does and the landlord says no, we’ll that’s that then, isn’t it? X

If you're reasonable with them they're usually reasonable back

When starting from zero, I agree
But surely the point here is that the neighbour's already shown herself to be unreasonable, with repeated requests, helping herself to the drive previously, suggestions that OP should park elsewhere, muttering when she doesn't get her own way and so on

Why risk making it worse when there are already so many red flags?

Wow what a CF your SN is! No, of couse YANBU

@JaniieJones

God, who cba with parking rows with neighbours. Life is too short, seriously.

If you or visitors are using it fine, if not and at work for 12 hrs what difference does it make to let her use is occasionally.

I'd much rather get on with people.

Excellent. I'll be round to sit in your back garden later, enjoy the last of the late afternoon autumn sun and all that. Any MNetters up for joining me?

I know its yours but life is too short and you want to get on with people 😂

@Puzzledandpissedoff

If you're reasonable with them they're usually reasonable back

When starting from zero, I agree
But surely the point here is that the neighbour's already shown herself to be unreasonable, with repeated requests, helping herself to the drive previously, suggestions that OP should park elsewhere, muttering when she doesn't get her own way and so on

Why risk making it worse when there are already so many red flags?

That assumes the other party is actually reasonable/nice/rational. Sometimes they are not and no amount of reasonable/kind/sympathetic behaviour on your part will make a blind bit of difference to them. The best thing is to be clear, direct and impersonal.

Just keep repeating the same thing every time she mentions it ‘No sorry that doesn’t work for me, I pay for full use of the driveway 24 hours a day. Have a good day bye’
Repeat repeat repeat.

Totally agree, Elfton. Personally I prefer to think well of folk unless they've proved otherwise, and the point here is that the neighbour already has

If you're reasonable with them they're usually reasonable back.
Ah ha ha ha ha. This neighbour's been reasonable, has she? How? When she wanted a grown adult's work and personal timetable?

Bickering over parking spaces is just ridiculous. It's not a parking space.

We take the lady down the street's bin out for her after she asked, the cf. How is this comparable? Does taking her bins out mean you may not be able to take your own bins out?

You certainly can tell who on this thread would be the CF.

@Flowerlane

Just keep repeating the same thing every time she mentions it ‘No sorry that doesn’t work for me, I pay for full use of the driveway 24 hours a day. Have a good day bye’ Repeat repeat repeat.

Way too long.

‘No. Bye!’
Repeat repeat repeat.

As I said above allowing a third party to use the drive could breach the tenancy and the tenant might lose her home. I would not put that above being "nice" to an unreasonable neighbour

We're neighbourly but the difference is that we all do turn and turn about for each other and don't worry about saying no if something isn't possible.

OP, don't worry about being smart with her, she's clearly not a reasonable sort, given her comments about you, wanting you to clean her car for her and keep your garden door closed when she chose to have 'a private conversation' outdoors.

All you have to respond if she says it again is that fair is paying for what you need and getting what you pay for.

She really sounds like she'd be better suited in a house with a driveway of its own.

Say No, you rent this flat because of the parking. If you didn't need or want the parking you'd have rented a flat elsewhere that was considerably cheaper.
(You could offer to sublet the space for £20/day, cash in hand perhaps?)

Say no. End of. And when she takes the piss and parks on your drive anyway, solicitor's letter.

I'm a landlord & I'd be straight on this if a tenant complained about a neighbour infringing on my property. Plus harassment of my tenants, not on.

Mind you, I've had tenants not mention neighbours encroaching on theiir garden so I'm a bit sensitive.

@JaniieJones

God, who cba with parking rows with neighbours. Life is too short, seriously.

If you or visitors are using it fine, if not and at work for 12 hrs what difference does it make to let her use is occasionally.

I'd much rather get on with people.

And yet you’re SO strident about the law when it comes to covid…

I'm so glad you laughed at her, it was exactly the right response - I did too, at She then suggested that in that case I park on the street!

"ha ha ha Snooty Neighbour, great joke you are such good value!"

When she bangs on about you 'allowing' other cars again (I get the feeling she's not the type to let this lie), drop the laughter, fix her with a steely gaze, & tell her:

"This is part of what concerns me - you simply don't seem to understand that this is MY drive, & MY decision about who gets to park on it. Your entitlement in telling me I 'should' park on the street to accommodate me is a big red flag about how you'd respond if I asked you to move your vehicle when I return home. I'm not interested in that kind of arseache & dispute, so you need to accept that it's my drive, & I don't want you using it. I won't be discussing this again - have a good day."

"to accommodate YOU"

apologies

luckily I already had an inkling that she's a bit... eccentric- I had a previous thread in which she asked me to clean out her car when she was doing mine- so at least it wasn't entirely out of the blue!

OMG it's HER! - funnily enough, was thinking about her earlier this week She's feckin' hilarious. (So long as you can continue to blithely say "No").

'And yet you’re SO strident about the law when it comes to covid…'

Hmm you see when there's a pandemic we have to stick to restrictions to reduce risk and spread which is completely different to letting a neighbour use a space if you're out for 12hrs.

I hadn't twigged that OP had written about this before
Not sure if we're allowed to link a poster's previous threads on here (I'll gladly ask for this to be removed if not) but those suggesting OP enables her might want to read them ...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4323167-My-potentially-crazy-neighbour-part-2

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4307758-To-not-vacuum-neighbours-car

You could offer your space when it suited you on one of those 'park on my drive' type apps (if your landlord agreed). CF neighbour could then check your schedule accordingly and pay to park!

sounds entirely reasonable
but have you checked that it's definitley 100% your drive, and not the letting agent telling you what you want to hear?

@JaniieJones because the neighbour has no right to it and you probably missed the bit where she suggested the OP should try and find an on street parking spot if she was in her spot since you missed the rest of the First post . This suggests if she gets in there she won’t move. Advance search the OP’s posts and you will see that his is very likely as this neighbour is batshit. She demanded OP Hoover her car for her, she also told OP not to use her courtyard and close her doors as she was in her garden. She likes to think she owns the full property and is very much one of the give them a millimetre and they’ll take the circumference of the planet.

@ThinWomansBrain if it wasn’t owned by the lower flat you can get CF neighbour would know.