to think Dh should have told the old bag to 'call the police then......................'

[OnTheWayToASmallerButt]

DH parks his car in a road at the back of our house (as he can then take a short cut to the motorway which cuts 10 mins off his journey, more if traffic is heavy) and has been getting grief off an old hag who has an issue with him parking in 'her' road (it is a public road BTW). Shouting at him, nasty letters on windscreen and today she threatened to call the police .

The road has very few cars parked in it as it is full of bungalows for the elderly and not many of them seem to drive and where DH parks, there are normally 4 or 5 other spaces along that stretch of road. This elderly hag lady does not have a car so he is not taking 'her' space (and obviously therefore does not pay roadtax) but she says he is taking a space that she may need for her relatives if they come to visit! I could understand it if the road was choc a block and she had a car . When she said she was going to call the police, he just walked off but I told him that he should have told her to go ahead and waited while she did and they laughed at her (am assuming this is not a criminal offence).

Makes me furious that this woman accosts him every time he comes home from work. Why should he stop parking there? I was taught to respect the elderly but she takes the biscuit!!

sorry, I can understand the OP's anger but let's look at it a different way.

Almost all elderly people suffer some degree of neurodegeneration, leading to personality changes. Hence the ubiquitous phrase, 'grumpy old men/women'. In a mild form, you get grumpy, unreasonable old people. More advanced and you get dementia. It also makes them very fearful of change and they can develop some slightly odd strategies to cope with the fast-changing world..

Your old lady is damn irritating, there's no doubt about it. But she's old, her brain is going, it's not her fault. Perhaps if your DH was a bit more friendly, asked her gently why she is so upset, you might reach a compromise. BTW, I'm not suggesting your DH is in any way being unreasonable - just thinking you could see things from a different angle?

Hope you work it out!

I think it is an "old person" thing too as my lovely great aunt can get quite upset if when we visit we can not park outside her house...the most we have had to walk was 6 houses along no real hardship.

I am looking forward to a whole new parking nightmare now as my mother has just become wheelchair bound.

Couldn't agree more Lisa. And by the way your children don't go to my children's school by any chance do they?! We have exactly the same situation at ours. The area is mostly double yellows or residents only permits so there are very few spaces where we can park legally anyway. One woman comes out and stands in the empty (legal)space opposite her house at school run times! I've seen her refuse to move whilst someone tries to get in the space. They were eventually forced to drive away as she clearly wanted the car to bump her so she could ring the police and say they hit her on purpose! I felt like ringing the police myself to be honest. Appalling behaviour.

We have a little residential horse-shoe shaped street. It isn't a private road, but it is a quiet residential street.

I have complined in the past about a van that parks there for weeks on end - its taxed and everything but it is VERY annoying. We have very strict rules in the deeds of our house as to what we can park in our street - we aren't allowed commercial vehicles and we aren't allowed caravans for example.

The owner of this van lives on a nearby street and parks on ours - so he isn;t bound by these rules because he doesn't own a property on our development.

This van can sit there for 6 weeks at a time, then move for a day, and then be back for 6 weeks at a time...The only activity I've ever seen is some men loading and unloading leather furniture from it - its clearly someone's wee sideline business.

When the roads are covered in ice and snow it REALLY annoys me, simply because we have to go round a van that really shouldn't be parked there - we live on the road to a Sheltered Housing complex and that road is busy with carers and other vehicles - all of whom in the ice and snow are having to wait and let other traffic past rather than it being a 2 lane road at the point where the van is parked (does that make sense...)

This guy with the van might not be doing anything illegal, it is a public road and the van is taxed but it does cause a huge amount of resentment - not because we feel its OUR road or OUR spaces, but because we know he is local and frankly should be parking his van for weeks on end at his own property, rather than us all having to drive round it near ours.

"It's just my pov. It doesn't really matter to anyone but me, does it? "

no it doesn't and it shouldn't, and it's understandable why you'd get annoyed about it given your situation, but to call it rude of the other person when they have no idea about your situation. but in the op the woman is trying to force her p.o.v. on the husband in this scenario and that is unreasonable, and i'dsay exactly the same of you if you behaved in the manner that the woman did in the op (nasty notes,shouting,threatening to call the police)

"I really dislike the attitude that people should do whatever they like as long as it's legal. Why are someone's rights suddenly the most important thing in the universe? I can't imagine wanting to do something that obviously upsets someone over and over again purely because the law says that I can."

i'd agree with you, but he's not doing it just because he can. he's doing it because it is more convenient and makes more sense. if he was going out of his way to annoy someone while gaining absolutely nothing from it but hiding behind the fact that it's legal then i'd say he was BU. but he's not he's parking on a public street, how can anyone say that it's unreasonable to do that, but ok for people who happen to live beside public roads to try and enforce some ridiculous notion of ownership upon others who have just as much claim over the roads. what if someone happened to take offence to you walking past their house everyday as they didn't like you on "their bit of pavement" and you made them feel upset and vulnerable" for reasons known only to them but this was the way you walked your kids to school or to get to the shop,and the other route added 15 minutes to your walk. no one would say you should change your route, they'd say be polite and talk to the person if they addressed you but you have every right to use the public path.

Bathsheba - can totally understand your pov - it is annoying.

TiggyR - school is in london ?

Excellent post mayorquimby. That's obviously why you are the mayor!

lisalisa - not London, Essex, but in a very busy part of a major town. Most of us commute in from outying villages so walking or bussing is not an option. We would happily park a bit further away and walk for 5 mins but the parking restrictions and residents only bays are spread over such a ridiculously wide area that it's not practical to do so. At least if you drop them off on the doorstep you can leg it back to the car if you see the warden coming! OTT parking restrictions are therefore totally counter-productive and actually give people an incentive to park nearer to the place they are trying to get to. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Mayor, I think you should go in and sort it all out. You seem to be the only voice of reason in local government!

Good point MayorQuimby!

OTWTSB, how old it this woman anyway?

I think most people have had a go at the op because of her use of certain terms to describe this particular old lady. None of us know what sort of language she has used when speaking to the op's DH nor what she has written in the notes she has left on the windscreen. It could well be that she has been well and truely provoked for all we know.
There is no law that says all old people are sweet little old ladies/gentlemen. People don't suddenly become nice when they collect their pension. Old people can be just as unreasonable as young people and age does not make it acceptable. I do think this particular old lady is being unreasonable in her insistance that the op's DH doesn't park in her street and also unreasonable in the way she has gone about achieving this aim.
The op has made it clear that he doesn't always or deliberately park outside this lady's house. He does park in the road to save him being caught in traffic and adding 10 minutes plus to his daily journey. I would do the same if it meant I didn't have to sit in a traffic queue for 10 mins everyday. From what she has said it would appear that her DH has been very restrained and not allowed himself to be provoked by her. She said he walked away when she threatened to call the police.
I think maybe he should go round and speak to her, explain why he prefers to park there and ask her the reasons why she has a problem with him parking there overnight. He could say that he is aware that he has the legal right to park in the road but if she has a good reason why she would prefer him not to leave his car outside her house then he would try not to in future. It would seem to me this old lady has a problem with him parking in the whole road and not just outside her house which seems odd to me. Maybe she has a reason, rational or unrational, op's DH could try to find out or park elsewhere or put up with her letters and shouting.

"Why is her age even remotely relevant? Would it be different if it was a middle aged business man who objected to him parking outside his house? Or a 30 year old SAHM?

I HATE the objectification of old people that seems to be the norm (and considered acceptable) - "elderley people such as this are venomous" !!!!! Substitute any other group here and see what it sounds like!"

I'll keep posting this in the hopes that it may make someone think!

Sorry, should say irrational not unrational!!!

I suspect the OP is a troll and her arse "butt" used to be substantially larger...

Huge perhaps ...?

Albeit, I do agree that her dh had done nothing wrong in parking there

Seeker, not sure if you're refering to what I said, but her age is relevant when people are using dementia or cognitive degeneration as a defence of her dreadful behaviour. Also when the "respect your elders" argument gets bandied about.
I agree, her age should be irrelevant. She sounds like a horrible/rude/petty person and therefore deserving of our ire.
If she was a middle aged man he could expect to be called a rude prick, if he was a 20 something woman she'd be called a silly bitch, but as an rude old woman she get's old hag. It's not meant to be nice, but if the shoe fits.

TSM, I was thinking that!! She hasn't popped up for a while!!

I can never park outside my house because it's full of other people's cars and often have to park a few streets away (there is no off street parking at all where I live). It doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's the way it is. the old lady is being unreasonable.

This 'not liking when someone parks in front of your house' attritude must be a provincial thing I guess. Having always lived in London with parking space at a premium it just seems ludicrous, but maybe if this isn't the case, you start thinking of the public kerbside outside your house as 'yours'...

But it isn't in the end, and while you have the right to 'not like it', and to ask someone to stop (loney as you will look) you don't have the right to actually try and stop someone doing so.

End of!

Unless the space actually comes with the house she lives in, there's not much this woman can do is there?

My in-laws hate anyone parking outside their house, but the road is a public one so they have to lump it like everyone else.

Tell your OH to park further up if she's giving him grief, and to just ignore her. She'll soon find something else to obsess about.