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

I don’t see why random car owners get priority? As I’ve said the on street parking is used a lot by people who don’t live on the street. There’s plenty of paid parking locally but people will take a place on our street if they can because it’s free.

Just because you can park it there doesn't mean that you should.

at the end of the road we can just park next to a wall that’s not going to be directly visible to any of the houses on the street then there's no issue at all.

It’s not even LWB, it’s just a standard WB but has extra height.

A bit like this one:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/motorhome-details/202303195406458?advertising-location=at_motorhomes&include-delivery-option=on&make=FORD&model=TRANSIT&page=6&postcode=BR3%201DT&sort=relevance&year-to=2023&fromsra

And your plan just makes it harder. Plus its an eyesore.

So a short wheel base (SWB) hi top.

You need to get the lingo OP if you want to join our club 😉

It's not that much more obtrusive than a regular car, let alone those giant tank cars every seems to drive these days.

Go for it, you'll have a lot of fun.

All cars are eyesores.

All cars are in the way.

All cars pollute.

The road is fair game so long as you've paid your taxes.

I don't understand why people get so riled about neighbours parking motorhomes and vans in the street, so imo YANBU.

We used to have a motorhome, we parked it on the street as our drive is too narrow to squeeze past it. I thought my NDN would mind, as she can be a bit whingey, but she was fine with it. There are another 3 in our road now, and no-one seems to mind. There are several houses where they have a van for work and a car, the vans are mostly parked on the street (NDN's son, who has recently moved back home, has a work van AND a camper van, both on the street), and the one neighbour who minds and moans about it just provokes people to park outside her house when they can't park outside their own.

I can understand it a bit more when a whole area becomes somewhere that all and sundry park motorhomes (this happens in the nearby city, where parking in the centre is very difficult, so motorhomes are parked en masse in residential streets on the outskirts by people who live miles away), but not when it's your neighbours.

Just keep moving it to outside different houses, unless you find a spot outside your house.

I live in a London street of terraces with windows almost on the pavement and I hate it when vans get left directly outside my house for days on end. I feel as if I am walled in.

But parking is parking, I bet other houses in your street have more than one vehicle.

OP won't park it in front of her own house as it will obstruct her parking.

it not like that here, the front gardens are reasonably long (long enough to fit a car).

And I don’t need to park so anyone is directly overlooking it. So I am coming round to the idea that it’s OK, at least as a short term solution.

YABVU pay for storage. I have one and wouldn't dream of pissing someone off like that. You'll probably end up with your tyres slashed or it being keyed.

No one who parks a vehicle on the road is expected to block their own drive

I think if parking is tight you are being unreasonable. You need to find an alternative place to park it

It would be more prudent to pay for storage, rather than risk the van getting stolen or damaged. Knew of one similar situation and it resulted in the van getting thoroughly vandalized (tyres stabbed, panels scratched and shot up by someone with an air rifle. All in one night).

I feel better about this now. I didn’t realise paying for storage was something people do, so it’s helpful to know that if we wanted to keep it long term we have options. And given we can park it so it’s not directly in front of anyone’s house, I think it’ll be acceptable while we’re in the state of sorting it out and deciding if we even want a camper long term

People steal them so I wouldn’t permanently be leaving it on the road.

I think this is one of those threads where everyone says YABU but the OP just keeps pointing out that they’re not.

Can't you just leave it at your elderly relatives property and travel there when you want to use it?

TBH I started off thinking it wasn’t going to fly, but I’m talking myself into it.

They are far too far away for that to be practical

Insurance for on road parking is £££. Just pay for storage. I would hate this if I were your neighbour.

Even if you can find a space not in front of someone's house, storage is a better idea as it is much more secure. The number of campers that are stolen is unreal, and they are rarely recovered.
It's not that expensive, and well worth it. Some insurers won't insure or ramp up the premiums if you permanently leave it in the road.

I’m definitely looking into this. Though it is an old van that’s worth less than our car, so I’m not overly worried about theft.

If you are so concerned about being a good neighbour, why don't you park your presumably small car on the road and put the large van on your drive? Then the only person who will be inconvenienced by lack of light or a view of an unlovely vehicle (I've just seen the picture) will be you.

When the street space outside your house becomes available, nip out and move your camper van into it and put your car in your driveway. Then you'll get more light in your front window and still none of your neighbours will be irritated or even notice.

That's if you are more interested in being a good neighbour than leaving the camper van, which you know is an eyesore, outside someone else's house for months.

I live in a similar street to you except the houses are closer to the road and we don't have off-street parking. We don't have a car (don't need one) but the road is fully parked up.

I'm occasionally mildly irritated when someone parks a high-sided vehicle outside, which could be a van or could be a BMW X5-type thing, outside because it blocks the light. I don't care that the BMW is more expensive and smarter than a van - they still block the light to my front room. But there's nothing I can do about it because people are entitled to park their vehicles if they are taxed and insured and they have a permit.

The irritation doesn't last because my neighbours move their cars. It never registers with me which type of vehicle it is unless it is a great big one like yours that blocks the light. But as I said, people move them and don't leave them in one place as you plan to.

Why do you need to park right outside your house anyway? That's assuming you have no mobility problems, of course. We used to have a car and sometimes had to park it down the road or in the adjoining streets because parking is tight here. That's just the way things go.

If someone is going to steal your car, chances are you won't be in when they do it so it makes no odds where it is from the point of view of theft.