Parking wars

[Whoosher]

Another parking thread I’m afraid. Am I within my rights to ask someone not to park outside my door all day..?
backstory:

We live in a semi detached townhouse with a drive and on street parking, our drive is really thin with a metal gate down the neighbours side, my car doesn’t fit on it - I can’t open the doors both sides, and have 5 children including a baby in a car seat who I can’t get in or out if I park on the drive. So DH parks on the drive and I park on the street directly outside of my house. Attached neighbour parks on the street directly outside of their house. The drives are to the sides of the house so where we park is literally outside of our doors.

My DC go to a school that I have to drive to, but there is a school at the end of the joining road to ours, so at school drop off and pick up time lots of cars come and park on our road and the surrounding roads. I leave for school just as these parents are arriving, so once I’m gone someone parks outside of my house but this causes no issues as they’re always gone by the time I get home.

However, for the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed a car parking on our road and staying there all day - I think they work at the school. The last few weekdays she’s arrived just as I’m getting in the car, she waits for me to go then parks outside my house and stays there all day. I know I don’t own the road and it’s not legally my space, but it’s a big inconvenience as I then have to park down the road, which is annoying when I’ve got a baby in a car seat. When I get shopping etc, I have to either leave the baby in the car down the road or in the house while I go up and down the road bringing the shopping in. I’m always lugging things in and out the car - car seats for older kids etc and it’s annoying especially when it’s raining.

There are plenty of on street spaces that aren’t directly outside of someone’s front door, and she can clearly see that I’ve got a baby.. AIBU to ask her to park somewhere else if she’s going to be there all day?

But you're telling her off for being entitled. This other woman is being entitled.

We all know no-one owns the space outside their house, but common courtesy usually is involved, especially with a baby in the car.

It's not a case of OP 'leaving' it for anybody else. If OP gets there first and parks there, it's her space for as long as she wants it; if somebody else gets there first and parks there, it's theirs until they choose to leave.

It's also not 'entitled' to park in an empty space on a public road - any more than it's 'entitled' to go for a run every day in a public park or to go to the council tip every week. Entitled would be coning off a public space and insisting that nobody else can ever park there.

The space belongs to/is managed by the council, and they are perfectly happy for any road-user to park there, on a first-come-first-served basis.

I’m not telling her off. If you look back to my first post I said it’s fine to ask the woman if she’ll park elsewhere. Because it is! I can totally understand her frustration.

But the response she gave to someone giving a perfectly reasonable solution, laughing with a “why should I?” … well, that’s why. Because it’s not her space or her right to park there. If you don’t get a house with sufficient parking then you just have to deal with what you’re left with dont you? Not demand that others arrange their day around you and dismiss reasonable solutions to the problems that you’ve caused yourself.

Do what they do near me, and park half on the road and half on the pavement.

Works every time.

It's a shame your drive has been so badly designed, the problem of poor house planning builds and big cars.

You could pass by her, showing your struggle and hope she observes or ask her in a friendly manner? If I was parking somewhere and it was clear it was causing problems i would happily go somewhere else. Xx

Whether or not you own the road, neither does this woman, and she’s obviously waiting for you to vacate that space as though she has some claim on it. It’s incredibly rude and entitled of her.

If you know she works at the school, could you approach the school? They’re usually keen to be good neighbours and will address issues of parents parking, so they should be helpful over an employee. Write an email to the Head teacher with details of the car and the problem and they’ll delegate it to the appropriate person to get the message out. I don’t think you need feel bad about involving her employer, it might be less awkward for her coming from a colleague.

If you don’t like that idea, could you get a friend or neighbour to bag the space for you while you’re doing the school run, just to help her break the habit?

There’s a difference between parking a car for a short while in a public area and selecting a particular spot in a residential road and stalking someone to nab it on a regular basis. She’s a CF.

Simply take your remaining children at home to play outside with sticks and stones, footballs, cricket balls, throwing leaves up in the air, flour and water fights etc. Soon the space will be clear

Does the school have a breakfast club? For working parents to drop kids before school? Can you sign up the kids that are at school and your husband drops them early at school on his way to work so you don't have to move your car? Then hopefully after a few weeks of her not getting the spot, she will move on to park somewhere else? I get that it costs money, just thinking of a solution.

Or maybe you take a taxi to and from school for a few days?!

Surely if you park in your own street - outside next door etc, it’s not a million miles to get to your house? It’s a baby you’re carrying not a grown man

But the person parking there has done nothing wrong whatsoever - they’re parked perfectly legally.

But op is acting as if it’s her spot…….its not. It’s anyone who wants to park there

Obviously they are entitled to park there but can understand why it would be pretty annoying and inconvenient.

If you don't want to ask them not to park there as they legally can, do you have any friendly neighbours who park on their drive and don't work or work a little later? You could perhaps ask them to temporarily park there while you do the school run.

If my neighbours asked this, I would 100% do it.

I think everyone gets that, but if there’s an easy compromise that wouldn’t inconvenience the all day parker, surely there’s no harm in asking?

Yabu. You have no more rights than the person who is legally parking their car on a public road.

No harm in asking but the all-day-parker has a guaranteed spot every day atm - presumably she also has stresses and time constraints each morning so this set up suits her perfectly. I would see her angle if she refuses.

Indeed. You'd have to wonder why houses with a drive are so in demand and command a higher price in the first place, if 'it's understood' that you can basically treat a nearby spot on the public road as your own exclusive drive anyway, and any other member of the public wanting to use that public space is thus a massive CF.

It's interesting how many people view one member of the public regularly using a particular available space on the road as a huge entitled CF, but if another member of the public - one who just happens to own/rent property nearby - parks there all of the time, they oddly aren't entitled or CFs in the slightest!

So it wouldn’t piss you off then? 🙄