Parking - feeling terrorised by neighbours

[CinnamonSwirl82]

I've included a drawing because I know you'll all ask.

Key:
Blue = driveway
Green = hedges covering garden of neighbour on different street
Red = our house
Pink = partners car

My partner's tyre just got slashed after countless arguments with different neighbours because he sometimes has to park on the street maybe one or two days a month. He makes sure to park at the end of the road where there are no houses and that he isn't in front of anyone's house or drive. Our drive parks two cars but you can only get the one at the front off, so if I need to leave for business at 4am then my partner puts his car on the road the night before and moves it back the next day. I WFH mostly so my car stays tucked on the drive 99% of the time with him having full access.

Previous arguments have been neighbours saying that because we have a drive, we have to use it 100% of the time and OH has to get up at 4am to play musical cars. Ironically, most people on the street have drives but don't use them and park across their drive or elsewhere on the street. These are the ones moaning at us.

It happens so infrequently but it's got to the point now of tyre slashing and I feel like we're being terrorised by the neighbours. We're moving soon (thank god) and have to get a skip meaning both our cars will have to be on the road and we really can't afford 8 new tyres when they inevitably get slashed. I'm so worried.

Am I genuinely being unreasonable parking a car on a road, not blocking anything, once a month or is there anything that I can do? Police feel pointless as we're moving soon.

The other option is just park further away in another street if need be u til you move. But if you know for a fact who slashed your tyre, it would be tragic is someone did the same to them when you leave.

@LuckyLil I'm not insured on it, can't get insured & it's a work truck with his tools in. Also not economic on fuel. He wouldn't be able to go to work on days I'm travelling away. It's also not a question on what to do on those 1% days, it's how the hell do we move house without having all 8 tyres slashed because we've had to put our cars on the road due to a skip being on the drive.

Also shouldn't have to live being terrorised by unhinged neighbours... The car is hurting no one being on the 10m of empty street at the top of the road where there are no houses.

@LuckyLil oh yes. It would indeed 🙂

sound deranged so ok for them to park on the road but not you-bet youre glad youre moving

OP you have said a couple of times you shouldn't have to do this or that. Theoretically I agree, but if you also don't want to raise a police report about your neighbours, then you do whatever is most likely to keep your vehicles safe from any further vandalism , for the few weeks you have left.

It's perfectly legal, with the correct procedure followed, to put a skip on the road.

Could that be the safer option to avoid your cars being damaged?

@rookiemere I completely agree! I just really need that skip for all our waste so both of the cars have to go on the road. No way around that unfortunately.

Definitely glad to be moving. The area used to be lovely but it's going downhill fast. Fortunately, the new driveway fits two cars without anyone being blocked 😅

@WireSkills nowhere on the road to put a skip, except for where OH car sometimes sits. If I put it across our drive then that defeats the point as we won't be able to get the cars out.

Just gonna have to suck it up for the last few weeks and hope our cars are okay 😭

I'd consider scaring them by putting a note through everyone's doors saying you wanted to let them know that your car tyre was slashed and the police are aware. The police are looking into local CCTV, going to be doing random drive-bys and you have installed hidden cameras as suggested.

I hope everything goes smoothly for you from here. I've got awful issues with neighbours too, who we were friendly with until the council installed a disabled bay for me outside our house 🙄

Forget the tip and ask the nice neighbours to take a bag of rubbish each to the tip in exchange for the furniture.

Park on the drive, swap cars at 4am, but rev the engine and accidentally lean on the horn.. they'll stop complaining if they get woken up early!

I’d use a rubbish collection/disposal service. We have used that twice and they were great and in and out swiftly. They took so much away-probably more than would fit in a skip or two and for less £ and hassle.

All the best with your move. One or two of my neighbours is total batshit crazy, I could write a book. I love my house but hate it's location. I will never let my awful neighbours win and intend to stay for as long as I can. I've done nothing wrong so I wont move. For your next house get cctv at least 8 cameras.

Why don’t you just swap the cars the night before - seems like the obvious solution.

We did... That's what we did every time. That was the issue.

We've moved now anyway so 🙌

It's a residential estate 😂 I think we'll be getting keyed/more tyres slashed if we start parking on other streets.

Where on earth do you live that tyre slashing is routine? I hope your new house is far away!

I came across this and when I got to the info about tyreslashing I remembered that awful case a year or so ago ( in somerset?) when a couple were knifed to death in their own home when a neighbour didn't like the way they parked in a small cul-de-sac with limited parking....their two children were upstairs in bed at the time. I regret I'm not more specific with the details but it was so unnecessary for two people to lose their lives and for their children to be orphaned that it has stuck with me. Can you message your local neighbourhood police...yes I know you never get to see officers/PCSOs these days but we can leave messages in the local council office so does your area have something similar? You never can tell how far these things may go. so I would seriously think about passing your incident /concerns on to the police and try to insist the issue is recorded.....do it after you move but do it! To go as far as slashing tyres is just too far....yes parking issues do wind people up and I write this with no judgement about any of the situations here...if that's possible. At least you will have shared the info and you may not be the first people this has happened to but you will have passed the incident on .

CinnamonSwirl82 · 30/10/2022 15:09

We're paying £180 for a skip so unless it's cheaper than that...

I paid about that last spring, 1 week with a council permit for the road, which the skip company organised. I think that the permit was £25 - Newcastle area.

Report to police and name the neighbour you suspect to them. The police should (in the interest of doing their damn job) should have a word with them along the lines of checking in with all the neighbours: did they see or hear anything/ had anything similar happen to their cars?/ That they'll be keeping an eye on the area in case it happens again/have recommended you fit dash cam or cctv and they'll be checking all neighbours ring doorbells, cctv etc & that anyone caught doing such a thing would be facing prosecution for criminal damage and will end up with a criminal record etc and all the things that that affects such as employment or getting into America etc- frighten them a bit