We live on a main road. When we have family to visit, they have (legally) parked outside our house with two wheels on the curb and two wheels on the road. As buggy users ourselves with young kids, we are sure we always leave enough room for prams.
a few months ago, my parents stayed over and noticed their car had been keyed. I wanted to think it was perhaps just an accident and someone had scraped the car going past. But then a few weeks later, my sister stayed and parked in the same place (but again leaving space for a buggy) and her car had been keyed. So now we thought this must be deliberate. A week or so later, our car was on the curb this time as we had my parents staying to help with the baby and we woke up to our car being keyed. So that’s 3 cars now that have been keyed, all having parked on the same place.
this has made us feel pretty cross and upset, as our guests are always parked legally. It’s a busy main road but street parking is legal and we don’t have alternative parking for them.
this morning again my mum had stayed to help with the baby (we have a newborn and toddler so hence us having a bit more family help at the min!) and had parked on the road, and we woke up to a wheelie bin sat on her car roof and all the rubbish had fallen off onto the ground on the road.
my husband found it at 7am and took it down, but did take a picture.
it’s so frustrating as clearly this local person HATES us parking on the pavement, but it’s not illegal for our guests to do that. And what they are doing in response with the keys and now this is illegal and is surely criminal damage.
we have no evidence of who has done it though but my hunch is it’s clearly the same person each time.
part of me wants to continue to park there, but I equally don’t want any trouble with this anonymous neighbour as with 2 young kids we don’t want a local enemy! But a petty small part of me wants to set up a camera on our drive way (on our property which directly backs onto the pavement) and try and see if we catch the person doing it when our guests next park there. But this feels like the smaller person route!
I will just get our family and guests to park on a side street off the main road and walk to our house, but it is slightly frustrating we feel we have to do this as they often have lots of bags and stuff to stay over.
would you try take it further and get evidence etc? Or just choose the easier option and stop people parking there?
also please let me know if you agree with this neighbour, happy to hear the alternative view but we genuinely think we always leave enough room for a pram and / or wheelchair. And clearly this person isn’t a wheelchair user to have got the full wheelie bin onto the roof.