To think neighbour is an absolute c**t!

[CanNeverThinkOfAName]

Massive row with new neighbours last night which had other neighbours coming outside due the shouting. Totally mortifying and want opinions on whether neighbour is the c**t we think he is!

Moved into property a few months ago with a drive with space for 3 cars back to back at the side round the corner. We enter house through back door as that's where drive is. We have a works van and other cars that park opposite our drive and it can be pain to get out but only takes a few more seconds to manoeuvre. Not a big issue. and not something I'd complain about as it's not parked illegally.

Front door is near the bottom of a dead end road - pavement and road in front two car widths wide. Directly opposite front of house, both houses have drives big enough to fit two cars side by side. Have one car each so plenty of room on drive.

Lots of cars parked at top of road as many do not have drives so it's basically a one car width road due to parked cars. At the top of the road there are about 6 properties with one car drives with cars constantly parked opposite.

No one parks in front of our house and I wouldn't have an issue if they did.

We had 3 cars (including DDs's). DD occasionally parked in road at front of house if she come in late as DH leaves for work early so he'd have to move her car out first. Perfectly legal to park there and neighbours opposite have room (one road width) to get out of their drives.

Anyway DD has now moved in with boyfriend and hasn't been at home for a few weeks so has not parked at front for that period. Last night she popped round to pick up a few bits. Parked in front of house so she could come in front door and carry stuff out.

She'd been in house for literally 2 minutes and neighbour opposite front knocked and said she needed to move her car now. It was 10pm. We've never spoken a word to them before as we rarely use the front door.

DH basically said what's the problem, your drive is not blocked, she'll be going shortly, you're not even going out now are you? Neighbour said DH was being a prick and we had a 3 car drive so shouldn't be parking on the road ever. He's going to call the police.

DH did get rather angry at being called a prick and told neighbour to get off property and car would not be moved, he can call police etc. Neighbour then starts shouting that he's had enough, he's put up with it for ages (we've lived there 2 months!), who do we think we are etc. His wife comes out shouting, other opposite neighbours come out shouting that we're blocking emergency vehicles and rude etc, etc. We are certainly not blocking emergency vehicles, cars are parked all down the road and bin trucks get through fine!

DD is mortified and insists she'll move the car (bit annoyed at that) despite DH telling her not to. Neighbour says to her 'at least you're a decent one' which enrages both DH and I even more. DD is furious her Dad has been called a prick and shouts at neighbour that he's not decent either for swearing at her Dad.

Neighbour refuses to get out of front garden and keeps saying how horrible we are. Other neighbours have opened doors to listen by then so whole street will have heard. Had to slam door on him in the end.

He had his leg in a cast and was going on that he's had to come over to our house while in pain and didn't want to stand there any longer but he wouldn't leave as he wanted to continue the argument🤔

Neighbour now thinks he can tell us where to park and is the dogs bollocks probably thinking that told them!

Who was BU?

I've asked DD's boyfriend to park his battered transit van in front our house for the weekend - unreasonable?

You're not being unreasonable but people do get pissy about parking and if you have a 3 car driveway I can see why they'd be a bit annoyed that you keep parking on the road. Regardless of whether you're blocking anyone in etc it does make it more awkward getting off your own drive with another car on the opposite side of the road. (I think that's what you're saying has happened). I can remember a van kept parking outside my parents drive (opposite side of the road) after my Dad had had a cardiac arrest and he'd lost so much confidence driving that he stopped leaving the house while it was there because he was so worried he might scrape it. Essentially, it sounds like this guy is having a crap time, you've got a lot of space to park off road and haven't, and he needed a scapegoat. Also, it might be an unwritten rule on the road that those with the bigger drives stick to them etc.

Yanbu

Hate it when people park directly opposite my driveway, close to junction. Fortunately doesn't happen often. It's not illegal but defies common sense as it is dangerous, as well as inconvenient for me.

Sounds like you were all being unreasonable and it escalated into a slanging match.

you’ve moved into somewhere new and upset the neighbours and now after this slanging match things are worse. It’s such a shame

how will you deal with this now? Can you patch things up somehow ? You might be living next to these people for a king time and it sounds like it’s more than one household you’re at war with.

is there any chance you’d want to make amends?

It sounds like a very rough area with coarse ill bred people and in recent years we have seen in the news tales of people brawling in the street, stabbing each other and even killing on occasion.

The fact that it was more than one neighbour up in arms shows there is another side to this story, so be mindful that you don't allow a feud to commence which escalated into violence.

Older cars as well don't have parking cameras. Mine has a reverse bleep which reacts to a plant nearby!

YANBU @CanNeverThinkOfAName
We have a pair of neighbours who live next to each other opposite our house.

From day 1 of us moving in they've been arseholes.

At that time there was no permits (there is now). We had a moving lorry parked, not blocking road or anyone, but had the back open so we could get our stuff unloaded.

Fat bald tosser neighbour comes storming out his house, moaning that we are taking up a parking space by having the truck open.
DH said to him well how else do you expect us to empty it? We are moving in!

Because DH laughed a bit, bald tosser gets irate and then his equally tosser mate comes from the other house. Before we knew what was happening, their wives joined in and they were just shouting at us. About how they were sick of our shit and our selfishness (literally had been there for an hour moving in), they would get us evicted, the best one was "we don't want your type here"- we are a normal English family of 4 and these 4 were Asian!

It felt quite intimidating. Police turned up as another neighbour called them, and they told tossers to go away as we weren't breaking any laws.

In our situation, other neighbors made a point of saying they knew it wasn't us, everyone in the street hates the 4 of them and they moan about everything from Christmas decorations being put up to parking.

Make sure you speak to others, they probably have form and you can do some damage limitation. Also, send a letter saying you are removing their implied right of access to the front of your property, it bans them from coming up your garden path. I'd also look at a non-molestation order and definitely log with police in case any damage suddenly happens to your cars.

Jerry! Jerry!

My friend lives on a road like this. People have drives and tend to park on them but when guests /tradespeople come, they park legally on the road and create a rat run - but still passable.

It really, really, really bothers some of the residents and they kick off. Parking seems to be their trigger.

The fact that 2 opposite neighbours came out to tell you that cars parking there shows it's awkward for them both.

Legally, you are in the right on the parking but I can see how parking there makes it harder for them. They shouldn't have called your DH a prick. You shouldn't have shouted and fallen to their level. I don't think you should park DD's BF's van there as you will be making the situation worse.

Do you think you could calmly talk to them? You could live opposite each other for years.

i’d probably a be a bit annoyed OP. my new neighbours used to park directly across our drive but on the other side of road. They weren’t technically blocking it. The only way in to my drive is to reverse park up. makes it almost impossible if another car is parked across as it’s really tight on the turn. They also had a 3 car drive but just couldn t be arsed to use or coordinate it.

They don’t anymore but sometimes cars park there and only partly go across the drive. So they think they’ve left us space but it still makes it more difficult to get in or out.
usually it’s visitors so i don’t make a big deal but someone parked there over a week and it’s super annoying.

On a smaller two car width road, it is hard to swing out of the drive if there’s a car parked opposite. Nose first and you’re struggling to turn; reverse out and you’re swinging into traffic and the parked car without visibility.
I think what has coloured your view is that people on your wide road do it to you and you are happy to ask them to move if needed but that’s really not what people want to do. I would hate to knock in when I went to pop out for 10 mins.

Is this a new-ish build estate by the way? I lived on one and life was a permanent car parking drama. I moved in the end.

So you have a massive drive, space for 3 cars, yet you park your works van and DDs car on the road? Yeah, you'd have pissed me off too tbh!

I don't live in a rough area but most people have the common sense not to park like that. I've only once ever had to ask someone to move their car, which they did.
Running event and cars everywhere. I was about to get a taxi to hospital to have broken bone in foot assessed, so no longer would wear boot. Two days before Christmas and really wanted to drive to get last minute pressies.
Explained, they probably thought I was a crap driver, but moved.

You said it was two lots of neighbours shouting at you - it's definitely you that's the issue and you just need to not park there anymore .

They dont have a works van, it was a neighbours.

And they have two cars now that their DD has moved out.

Fuck sake man, they don’t have a works van. The works van parks opposite their drive.
Do they not teach comprehension in school anymore?

Is it that your neighbours need the whole road in front to be empty to get out of their driveways?

Agree with this poster. Two wrongs don't make a right after all.

I've got bad neighbours (absolutely blimmin' terrible in fact) and there's been loads of parking rows (amongst other things) - even though I don't have a car myself and so it's my visitors they're on about. I just basically take the attitude of making sure I (my visitors then...) are absolutely "right/correct" in what they do and then I'm on the moral high ground if neighbours are misbehaving (make that when they are misbehaving). Stick absolutely to normal practice in this country and the law and then they don't have a stick to beat you with seems the most logical approach to me (goodness knows my neighbours still "have a go" - but at least it's easy to prove to a reasonable person that I myself have done nothing wrong so to say).

Your use of words like "engraged" lead me to suspect you weren't exactly helping the situation.

I don't understand why other MN users get so excitable about parking threads. A couple of years ago a local couple were murdered whilst their children slept upstairs, all over a parking feud.

Relations between the two families had been cordial until the Chapples got a second car. Each house on their street had only one designated parking spot and Jennifer Chapple began to park on an undesignated area that did not block Reeves’s spot but made it slightly trickier for him to manoeuvre. Reeves took umbrage and in May 2021 confronted her aggressively and told her: “You can’t park there.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/17/collin-reeves-ex-soldier-somerset-couple-murder

Look, no one can tell who is in the wrong without looking at the street properly. It could be your daughter had parked inconveniently and they’ve had enough. It could be your neighbours are completely nobheads and it’s not out of the realms of possibility you’ve got 2 arseholes in cahoots who like to play street bullies.

But, if it is the latter (and I’m inclined to think it is because no sane person attacks you that aggressively in the first instance or instantly goes to cry to the POLICE), you need to smile and nod at these type of men and grow some thick skin. Next time they start hysterically screaming about calling the police for a car parked on a road, just say “ok Bonny lad” and shut the door. They’ll either be so furious you’re not playing their game they’ll burn themselves out, or the police will get sick of them and tell them to pack it in.

Learn the smile and nod and ignore.

Wasting police time is a criminal offence, if they by some chance did call round, suggest to them that he is charged with that (I expect he did not).

Leg in a cast? By the time the cast has come off, he may need physio, so has a condition affecting his driving for more than 3 months. DVLA need to know, you'd better tell them.

There is a difference between parking considerately and parking legally. Doesn't sound to me like your daughter did anything illegal as long as she parked 10m away from the side road and facing the direction of traffic per the highway code.

As others have said, the neighbours are probably pissed that you have multiple cars but choose not to use your drive for all of them, but picked a suboptimal manner of imparting this to you. I can see that perspective especially if parking is tight.

It does sound like it all escalated rather quickly, and it might have been better for OP and family to have kept calm.

My household has multiple vehicles, but we try to keep them all on the drive regardless of whether it means swapping them round. The only exception is when we are having work done and need parking for trades people. Each to their own though.

Pretty much what I thought, too.

Nothing good comes of escalating a situation like this. They sound a bit sad and mad.
I wouldn't do anything just carry on.
It's all a bit ridiculous. I wouldn't get into another row with them just ignore and get on with your life.

Fencing for me, on a side note, also an issue. New neighbours erected a high fence obscuring my view of junction and pedestrians coming round corner, school run. Next to driveway. Initially they didn't want it changed, even though I'd offered to and did, pay.
They eventually agreed but had also checked with town planning. Again, common sense.