It’s a parking related one…

[Trysbutfails]

AIBU to leave a camper van parked outside a neighbours house for months?

We’ve got the opportunity to buy a large transit-sized camper van very cheaply from a relative. We’d love to have one for holidays and camping trips and it would be helping out our relative who is a bit overwhelmed about selling it.

However we live in London on a terraced street that only has off street parking for one vehicle (ie our car). There is unrestricted parking on the road, but it’s always hard to find a spot - for our neighbours who don’t have off street parking, spaces are heavily contested.

Obviously there’s no law against us taking up a space with a camper van that will be parked in the same place 99% of the time. But also it feels a unneighbourly to park a whacking great van outside someone’s house and leave it there.

But we’d love the van and have nowhere else to park it.

YABU - it’s unneighbourly, don’t do it
YANBU - it’s unrestricted parking, buy the van and leave it there

This would cause absolute murder in our street and everyone would be talking about you…pay for a caravan storage facility.

I wouldn’t. Think about how you’d feel if the roles were reversed and these things can cause friction and escalate quickly.

Get it in a storage yard. Lower risk of theft too.

Just to add some context - it’s a street near shops and a station di lots of people park on the street who don’t live here as it’s unrestricted and convenient, so it’s not like anyone has any sense of ownership of a particular space outside their house, you just park wherever you can find.

Some streets have restricts on camper vans...ours does. Yabu re this. Pay for storage. If it doesn't move for months the neighbours can report it to the council as abandoned....it happened on our road and it was removed and no idea what happened but it never returned.

Your neighbours will hate your guts if you do this.

From personal experience if you choose to park the van on the road rather than your drive, your neighbours will be extremely pissed off. Your car might even be keyed. Could permanently damage relations.

We did the same for a short time while we sorted a better parking place for the van. My husband insisted- I wanted to put the van on our drive and take our chances with on street parking for the car. But was overruled. So we had serious neighbour problems.

We finally negotiated a parking spot with a local mechanics for a small monthly fee. Could you look into similar?

(It would be even worse for neighbour relations if your houses don't have any frontage so the van cuts out light from someone's front room!)

Park it in your car space and take your chances with your car. Or pay for storage.?

It wouldn’t fit, we have a very small space only suitable for a small car.

That would be a really really unreasonable thing to do.. Next door park a bloody great transit outside my house for weeks on end, it infuriates me. It blocks the light and makes deliveries difficult. If I thought I could get away with it I'd had keyed it and let the tyres down. You are being very unreasonable and selfish.

Yeah don't do that. Pay for storage.

Will it block their light / view or anything like that? Will it cause issues in the road when parked (e.g cars unable to get past unless in single file)?

We have restrictions where I live on areas they can be parked in, honestly in their position I'd hate your guts for dumping something for months outside of my house. Regardless of no one owning the road etc, it's inconsiderate.

Are you just planning on parking it there when not in use? So 11 months a year??

Thinking about it, there’s some spaces at the end of the street that aren’t in front of anyone’s house, just next to a high fence. That doesn’t feel as bad as leaving it in front of someone’s house.

Pay for storage for it. More secure and a lot less likely to piss of neighbours

It’s a wide street and houses either have front gardens or off street parking so it wouldn’t be oppressively close to anyone’s front windows or block the road. And as I’ve just posted I realise I could leave it on the street but about 4’50m away from anyone’s from doors.

Not sure where 4.50 came from - I meant 50m.

Every response has said pay for storage but you’re never going to so why ask the question?

Obviously YABVVU.

As long as it is legally parked, you're fine. I personally would move it rather than leave it outside the same house all the time.

I don't own a car, car owners always own about other people parking but they don't have any special claim to the road.

Should read "car owners always moan"

That would be a really shitty and selfish thing to do. Like others have said, pay for storage.

The other issue is what is your plan if you come home from a trip and can’t park?

Yabu

I didn’t even know this was a thing, I’ve been off googling it.

Where we live everyone has a driveway for 2 cars, it doesn’t stop them parking their work vans halfway on the path on the corner of our very short cut de sac.
I’d sooner a camper van that may be gone for a few weeks and several weekends than a work van. So I don’t think you’re being selfish.