Neighbours sat in car for hours on end with engine running. It this weird

[greenishredblue]

Names changed as could be outing

we got some new neighbours across from us about 6 months ago. A man and a women. I was talking to another neighbour and she asked if I had noticed they sit in their car for hours on end with the engine on. Now I had noticed them a few times sat in the car but though nothing if it. The car is parked outside this neighbours house a lot.

Now the neighbour has said to me DH and I have been more aware of it, especially with doing lots of work in the garden. And the fumes from the car as well have been more noticeable since we have been outside a lot. Neighbour is a bit nearer so has noticed them doing it during the day and at night as well. Usually between midnight and 6am.

Basically they sit in the car sometimes it’s the man, sometimes the women, sometimes both. The engine is running all the time (yesterday it was about 7 hours). They seem to be always on their phones and then one of them will get out go in the house and then come back out again into the car. Sometimes they will just get out of the car, walk round it and get back in.

yesterday the other neighbours husband went out and asked them to turn the engine off as his son has asthma and the car is right outside his window and was told very forcefully to mind his own fucking business.

now if it was not for the engine being on all the time I probably would just shrug and think “each to there own”. But this is very strange is it not?

I agree they might be dealing or using a neighbour's Wi-Fi.

But is it possibly a tenanted property for which the landlord prohibits smoking inside the house?

It would drive me mad. Some years ago, there used to be regular coach trips organised for people in this village and the pick-up point was very near our house. The coach drivers would keep their engines running for over 15 minutes while waiting for trippers to board the coach.

More recently, our next door neighbours used to run their engines (often parked in front of our house) for 10 minutes or so in the winter to clear condensation or frost on their car windows. One of them used to leave for work at 6.30am, when we were all still in bed. It used to make me so cross that they did not give a stuff about neighbours who were trying to sleep.

An engine running for 7 hours at night would drive me bonkers.

Yes i had a neighbour who sat in there at night with her son. Turned out they had no electricity on the meter so used it to keep warm during harsh winter nights. I thought that was sad :(

Fumes, you say?

Is it a diesel car?

Now that all non-historic cars have Cats, I only notice unpleasant fumes from diesel cars, especially older French ones.

Doesn't matter. There is no need to add to carbon like this

Come on, they would just smoke in their back garden
Or spend the time in this car, not 7 hours

Thought you were my neighbour for a second lol..

Neighbour directly across the road from me is always sitting in his car with the engine running too, Also on his phone, noticed him once by chance when I was in my kitchen one night and then it was all I could notice. Everytime I looked he was there no matter what time it was, everytime I went out he was there. Sometimes it's his wife sitting in the car and he is in the house.

In my neighbours case they are smoking weed. Maybe it's something like that.

I only noticed in the first place because my kitchen window looks out directly to where he parks and it was dark, His car was lit up like a disco!

I've only read your posts, OP, so I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this, but stationary idling is an offence

Oh, bless you @AngelicKaty! Yes, they have - very early on in the thread actually.

Sad and mad because on harsh winter nights it will be much colder sat in a car and expensive if they have the engine running for hours!!!

Drugs

If it were a camper van and they were sleeping in it, they wouldn't keep the engine running.

I do love how we are expecting suspected drug dealers to give a shit about breaking highway laws!

@greenishredblue I'd give your local police station a ring and just say that you've witnessed people approaching the car for a few minutes at a time on numerous occasions at all hours of the day. That should should hopefully prompt them in to sending someone round.

You could contact the police anonymously, say there's people sat on your street with their engine idling for hours and you've seen them exchanging packages with other people and suspect they're drug dealers.
If they're sat there all night then they're clearly up to something nefarious as you've seen them handing out packages.

I was told by a police officer it's perfectly acceptable to call 999 if you believe you're seeing a crime in action.

Good luck OP, this would really annoy me.

No, they're surplus income to afford a nice new car will be from having lower outgoings compared to their (drug-dealing) income and council rents (I never mentioned HAs, you did) are heavily subsidised. If they were private tenants, rather than council tenants, they would have significantly reduced income to spend.

This did make me chuckle.
Going to the bother and expense of procuring a Ring doorbell, installing it, collecting data and passing the data on to the authorities is much more of a PITA than "job done" would suggest 😂

We had something more understanable - girlfriend or adult sons who lived a few doors down doing this usually by themselves occaionally together - parking outside our front window just waiting.

The neigbours were a pain in the arse anyway always doing loud car work on drive and parking cars so no-one could get pushchair or wheelchair past on footpath. Anyway FIL asked older couple WTF - turns out depsite living at house neither son was allowed in without either parent being there and the girlfiends weren't allowed in till father was home.

Local grapevine said this was actually sensible one son was in trouble with law - another and GF had drug problem and things went missing round them.

If this couple owns the house and only ones living there makes no sense.

I'd report on none emergecy line to local police and keep record and see if council will be interested and encourage neigbhour to do so as well.

Just put it on the door than not suspicious and a deterrent

I don't think that's what people mean - I think they mean that if they have been witnessed doing something they aren't supposed to do, then police/council etc can be called to deal with it whereas if you phone up saying you think someone is drug dealing then it's all just hearsay.

There is a saying something like don't break the law when you're breaking the law - apparently people get pulled over all the time for something like not wearing a seatbelt or similar and then the police get a hunch (or smell strong weed or whatever), search the car and find loads of drugs.

Why do they need to have the engine running?

This.
It is an offence to leave a vehicle engine running for no specific reason ie working on the engine and even then it wouldn’t be running that long. Perhaps a word with the local plod might deter them. Very inconsiderate of them too

But if they're dealing drugs - why are they BOTH sitting in the car? It's not a team sport.

And you don't need to run the engine to deal drugs. You can get away from the police quite quickly enough, should you need to, by starting the engine and driving away. Er. So I've heard...

The fact that they told you neighbour to eff off just shows they’re more than likely up to no good (drugs). Bless all the posters trying to say it’s WiFi, or to help a baby sleep. They’d just say that then, wouldn’t they?!

we've all got terrible mobile signals inside our houses in our estate and a lot of us make calls in our cars so this was my first thought.

however, the hours on end makes me think this isn’t the case for them

They are not subsidised. The housing revenue account is ring-fenced and council housing funds itself in the medium-long term. It's cost neutral.

The only subsidy comes from cheaper borrowing to finance the building of them, which comes from central government at lower interest rates than they could get from commercial lenders. This is why older council properties tend to have lower rents than new ones: the money borrowed has been repaid.

Maybe "subsidised" was the wrong word, but you are being totally disingenuous if you don't recognise that council rents are set at a lower level than private market rents precisely so that they are affordable for people on low incomes (who will likely also be claiming housing benefit).

I would speak to their immediate neighbours to fish for clues