Parking space problems

aniascor

Apologies in advance, because I am mostly posting this because I need to have a good rant about what's just happened.

We have two parking spaces beside our house. Now before anyone asks, they are not roadside parking spaces or anything like that. They are in off the road, to the right of our house, one space behind the other. Think of it like a small driveway

Anyway, a couple of weeks back we were having problems because over the weekend a car would park in one of the spaces (the back one). We waited until we saw the people getting into the car one day and went out and told them that it was private parking, and that they weren't allowed to park there. They seemed embarrassed to be confronted on it and very apologetic. They told us they were our neighbours, and that it had only happened because someone else was in their space (no idea if this was true or not - I don't know where their space is, they don't have a little spot beside the house like we do). Being neighbourly, we said, not to worry, we just like to know who's parking there and that it was fine (meaning fine for then, not fine forever!!)

Two weeks pass by, and nothing. Then this weekend, they parked there again on Friday night. Only this time we were in the house when they parked there (lights on so it was obvious we were home) and so we could no longer give them the benefit of the doubt that it was simply because we weren't there that they didn't ask first if it was okay.

On Sunday a friend of ours called out, and he pulled into the second space, which blocked them in. As it happened we didn't know they were there are the time (because they hadn't asked AGAIN) and our friend didn't realise that it was a neighbour who was parked there rather than a visitor to us. Before he even got out of the car, they ran out of their house waving at him to move and let them out, which he did.

Still not too much of a problem...We don't have a car, and won't have one until the New Year, and we rarely have more than one visitor with a car at a time.

But this morning...Came out to find that our lovely neighbour had as usual parked in our car space. Except this time, she parked in the middle, taking up both our spaces, so that no one else could pull into our driveway. And we don't even have a contact number to ask them to move. I just can't believe the cheek of her to do that! So what I want to know is, is this kind of lack of consideration commonplace? Am I within my rights to knock on their door this evening and rant at them? Or is this kind of thing to be expected when you make the move to suburbia?

Has this happened to anyone else? And how did you resolve it? Obviously I don't want to fall out with my neighbours, but so far, they don't seem to care much about falling out with me :mad:

Calina

Ask them where their parking space is the next time they say someone is in theirs...

aniascor

We are just going to ask them not to park there again I think. Better to put a stop to it now than to be trying to sort it out next year when we have our own car. Plus we have a lot of visitors coming up over the next few weeks in the run up to Christmas, so it is just too much hassle to be worrying about whether our car spaces will be available or not.

Hopefully they will just accept that and won't argue about it.

Lord Suave

If I'm reading this right this parking space is just somewhere beside your house but not on your property, its just 'handy'. I'm not sure why you seem to think you have an exclusive right to it. Your neighbour is perfectly within their rights to park there as is anyone else who feels like it.

Sponge Bob

Its communal space unless its on your property . Even if it ' appears ' to be on your property it may be communal , especially in these high density shoebox estates they build nowadays.

If its on your property (for sure) you may bounce the car out onto the road if you wish or else put those lockable collapsing posts at the end of the driveway to keep the riff raff out.

Calina

Or, alternatively, the space may be assigned to them, as in fact, is the case in my estate.

aniascor

No, it is in fact on our property. We even have the boundary report to show that it is. Our next door neighbour (not the one parking in our spot) has one of those retractable posts in his spaces, so I might pop in and ask him who he got to install it and then do the same thing.

Sponge Bob

If they do not have their own space they WILL get desperate but its their fault for not buying one AND owning a car . Thats how things are in them suburban shoebox estates nowadays so thank **** for country living , my house has about 15 spaces ( and another 3 outside) before they start blocking each other and require my going out to supervise matters

Furthermore not having a post installed to stop the parking COULD mean you are liable if a car is vandalised in your space even though you did not explicitly permit them to park there. Your not stopping them could be viewed as acceptance of liability.

You should also have a "we are not liable for anything at all " sign put up in or around your spaces. Do that now.

Cantab.

aniascor wrote:

No, it is in fact on our property. We even have the boundary report to show that it is. Our next door neighbour (not the one parking in our spot) has one of those retractable posts in his spaces, so I might pop in and ask him who he got to install it and then do the same thing.

That's probably a more discreet solution compared to getting involved in long-winded confrontations and arguments with your neighbours. Plus, it will most likely solve the problem for the long-term.

aniascor

I think you are right Cantab. We have only moved to the estate within the past six months, so the last thing I want to do is fall out with my neighbours. [Although, because it only happens every second weekend, I am inclined to think the girl is a visitor to the house and her boyfriend is the resident. (He was the one who said he was a neighbour, and he was also the one who was very apologetic.)]

Until I saw how they had parked this morning I had been planning on giving them my phone number so that they could just check beforehand if it was okay to park there. And also ask for their number so that if we needed them to move the car we could call them.

I think we will still ask them not to park there anymore so that there can be no confusion.
And then we can sort out that retractable post.

dame

Are you sure those two spaces don't just like a turning circle to anyone else? Cos if it's not clear that they are definitely you property then people could have been making an honest mistake parking there at first. Once you've told them though it's a bit rich.

Could you get some of those incredubly sticky big stickers, I'm thinking something like the Iarnrod Eireann "Please Refrain Frm Parking In This Area" stickers. They stick so hard you have to remove them with paraffin.

I'd say just get big plain stickers and stick them on the rear door windows. Culprits should get the message.