Strange parking with diagram!

[PonkyPonky]

So I am prepared to be told I’m in the wrong here but be aware I have so far done nothing or said nothing! I’ve attached a diagram, I live at number 1. Bloke who lives at number 5 works an early shift so gets home when the whole road is totally clear of parked cars, chooses to park directly outside my house. When I get home, he is always parked there despite there being loads of space directly outside his house. I can’t think of any sensible reason why he would do this unless it’s because he’s scared of parallel parking and the space directly outside my house is on one end of the row. Although the other end of the row of cars is closer to his house. WIBU to put a polite note on his car asking him to choose a space closer to his house when there is space? It’s really bloody annoying to come home with a boot full of food shopping and see that’s he’s there again and I struggle up the road from the space outside his bloody house! But yes it’s a public road and we can all do whatever we want essentially as no one has any right to park anywhere in particular but it’s just inconsiderate and irritating. This only started about 6 months ago for some unknown reason. Before that, I think he just parked by his own house

This is actually the most unpleasant comment I’ve seen today.

It makes me really sad that there are people that think like this in the world. You literally admit it doesn’t inconvenience you at all.

Jesus Christ what is happening on this thread and why on Earth do people think like this?

It’s a public fricking road.

Your neighbour hopes you'll get broken into? Lovely.
Maybe leave a note on your door : "owner of wanky car lives at #45"

For being slightly annoying you'll take delight in him being broken into?
If it's a company van/tools it'll be covered by his employers insurance, if he's self employed he would also (I hope) be insured but it could result in a great loss of income not to mention then inconvenience.

I wonder how you behave when you are genuinely slighted.

I would be having word's if your car is damaged and it's not in view it wouldn't be recorded which isn't fair when you have bought it for that purpose.

We have a very similar type of set up. Old terrace row never built for cars. No driveways. Cars generally park outside their own house. 2 car houses take up an express space in a small car park at the end of the street. But that seems to be full these days if vans that belong to people over the grass on a totally separate estate - would given them a whole 10 mins extra time getting out of our town on a morning that winding through their estate and then round the town !!

It used to drive me bonkers when I had a baby and a toddler and shopping to unload if my space was taken - often by visitors. The car park at the end is too far to leave the kids unattended whilst I carry shopping back and forth. I did leave a polite note one day and a person came and knocked to apologise saying he hasn’t realised it would be inconvenient for me. I have on occasion parked with my hazards on in the middle of the road to unload my shopping then drive round to park. That inconveniences anyone driving past as they can’t get past due to width of road with cars parked.

we had an issue with neighbour who always pulled over my gates to leave his gate clear. I parked so close to him one day so I could get in that he knocked and called me aggressive. I also find if I park too far over next door’s gate then he complains as he sometimes pulls his car onto his back yard. My neighbours could get her bike out one day to go to work. She opened her gate (6ft fence and gate) to find a van had parked outside but right up against her gate so it wouldn’t open. She couldn’t get out the gate so ended up having to take her bike through the house and out the front door (we all use back doors on the road).

Some people are really inconsiderate.

I’d try and have a polite chat with him about it. Not unreasonable for being irritated by it.

my DB had a neighbour that did this but would moan their heads off if anyone parked in “their” spaces and he had a word and now the guy doesn’t do it anymore.

It was an issue for my DB as they have a baby and when someone parks outside their house they have to park to the back where there’s a slope of grass and with a buggy it’s a pain. Once that was explained his neighbours stopped.

if he chooses to listen there’s nothing you can do to force that.

I feel for you, we live in a terrace of 7 houses, no parking, no front gardens, no pavement. We had people move in quite far down the road a few years ago, they don’t live in our terrace but quite some distance away, and between the two adult drivers they have one large white van, one camper van and 2 cars. Guess where they park them all? Outside our house and the neighbours house, so if we don’t get back at the right time the rest of us have to park a 10 minute walk away. It’s really irritating, especially if I have shopping and the kids with me etc, they don’t care though as long as they get to park their vans and cars somewhere safe.

Do you open your front door straight onto the road/parked cars then?
I can't picture it.
10 minutes is really quite a way - over 1/2 a mile. So the people with 4 vehicles park 1/2 mile away from their own home and you park outside theirs because they live in a less secure area?
I can see how that would be very annoying.

Actually I do know there are houses which open straight onto the road, but they usually have double yellows to ensure cars don't park there.

Outside our house and the neighbours house, so if we don’t get back at the right time the rest of us have to park a 10 minute walk away. It’s really irritating, especially if I have shopping and the kids with me etc, they don’t care though as long as they get to park their vans and cars somewhere safe.

@DurdleLau I definitely think there is an irritation element that comes from noticing its the same vehicle. I'm not quite sure why this is.

It's like @Throwncrumbs post

A guy in the next road parks his works van outside my house, I assume it’s because there’s double yellows outside his house, has only room for his car on the driveway and also because we have cctv cameras outside. I hope it gets broken into, and I will have great delight in telling him to piss off if he knocks on our door. We have a driveway so it doesn’t affect us really, but it’s annoying when he’s out there rummaging around in it sticking stuff on the pavement right outside my house!

I've had this experience with a heavily branded work van there every evening in a place outside the house but where it doesn't actually affect us but it's still really iritating.

I'm fairly sure that if there was a different vehicle parked there every day in the same spot at the same time - even thought the practical effect is exactly the same - that I would be less annoyed by it.

Maybe it's because you notice it, then once you've noticed it you can't stop seeing it and begin to attribute to the driver a sense of 'road entitlement'. It makes me want to go and park in that spot for no other reason than to stop the van parkign there.

Even my annoyance makes no sense to me

Yes you get it! It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if it was a different person every day. This is different, it’s way way more irritating for it to be the same car every single day. I just don’t understand it

@PonkyPonky I'm not sure why it's so annoying either - my best guess is three things

like I said first because once you've noticed it, you can't stop noticing it and even look out for it so you have a greater awareness about the particular vehicle than random ones. It becomes like a stone in your shoe. Is it there? Of course it's bloody there.

second I think there is this thing that - because of the repetition of the parking - you start to attribute motives and characteristics to the owner/driver which aren't warranted because of the annoyance factor. Like selfish/could park any where/ so entitled/ doing it to annoy me/ other people don't do this.

third is that you mentally manufacture for yourself a state of confrontation in your mind which isn't healthy but is sort of self perpetuating. You feel like it will bug you until it's resolved. Which means speaking to the person and possibly a confrontation. In my case, I won't do that because -

fourth is probably the irritation that comes with feeling impotent and as a consequence frustrated. I know that being annoyed
(in my case like @Throwncrumbs it just just a visual proximity annoyance because it's not obstructing me or blocking me in, I just don't want this big branded work van outside my house. I suppose I could say that it bothers me having a crime target outside over night but that is rationalising and untrue)

is unreasonable because

its a public road, he is entitled to park there every day - even if he has a drive, even if he has an offroad parking space - it's allowed

I have no basis to complain

I therefore can't do anything about it at all . So feel even more irritated and stew away like some kind of parking van man hot pot.

*four things!

Am absolutely not suggesting it at all, but I had nails put in my tyres twice when I used to park in a road near the hospital where I was working. Dangerous and frightening.

I went to a garage for the tyre, and the very helpful mechanic said to park somewhere else, he said that the way the nails were put in my tyre, showed it wasn’t an accident. He also said it’s quite common. Much more common than people think.

I was very upset, as I hadn’t realised that I was being annoying to the people who lived in that road, but clearly I was. The road has now got ‘part time’ yellow lines, so they no longer have this parking problem!

Incidentally, we are thinking of downsizing, and after reading various parking threads, off street parking is VERY high on our list of must haves!

🚗

Why has he just started doing this? Maybe just talk to him and let him know how inconvenient it is to carry heavy shopping cos you can't park near your house. If he's adamant he can park there etc etc just say you weren't making demands just seeing if there was a chance he'd think about where he's parking. Id then say it was good meeting you and leave. Let him stew it over, you never know he may be more considerate...

I've never considered buying a house without parking since I bought my very first house with this exact issue. Frustrating as heck!

Just a thought @PonkyPonky is there a tree outside his house where birds roost? Could it be that he doesn’t want guano on his car?

Very irritating. I can understand if he hasn't got a place to park but clearly being inconsiderate so he can quickly reverse out and less effort. What if you had shopping and a baby in the car or someone who was infirm?
I had this with a neighbour of mine. I had 3 month old in the car and bags of shopping. I kept knocking on every time she parked there. She soon got fed up!

So you’d rather do it by a note? Sorry but if you can’t do it face to face then just don’t. He’s not doing anything illegal and he probably likes not having a car in front and pulling out the space with less faff.

Unfortunately if you want to park outside your own house you should purchase a house with a driveway.
I find it so petty when people get possessive over on road parking outside their houses.

Our driveway was out of action for a few weeks whilst we had a porch built, and I was parking where ever I could that was close, my neighbour asked me not to park outside his house, so when my husbands car broke down we left it there for a couple of weeks, and I have to say it’s now my favourite parking space.

It must be great to have nothing else to worry about other than someone else parking outside your house. If it’s that important to you buy a Property with allocated parking.

She has said that's not the case there's plenty of parking. Do you not think it's odd that he goes out to move his car as soon as the space in front of they're house is free?

I imagine because there are double yellows behind it almost guarantees he won’t get blocked in if he’s leaving super early.

In the nicest possible way, I would think a neighbour asking me not to park on a public road which doesn’t have allocated parking was really strange.

Maybe he was boxed in at some stage and therefore parks with ease of getting out? Or he leaves in the middle of the night for work and doesn’t want car doors and engine to disturb HIS family.
Either way you’d look a plonker to leave a note, he’s done nothing wrong. You could ask him why though.

I understand that it's a little bit of a struggle for you to park in front of his house and walk up but that might be what needs to happen. It may irritate him and he might realise what he is doing to his neighbour (you).

Does anyone park in front of his house?

If you do start to park in front of his house he might notice, you might bump into him and start to make polite conversation, which then might lead to him not parking in front of yours?

UANBU to be annoyed/intrigued even though you accept he's not doing anything wrong.
I concur with the poster suggesting it's not appropriate to leave a note, but having a chat and enquiring why rather than complaining maybe enlightening. Perhaps do it with a tray of coronation cakes and talk to your other neighbours too?