When you live on a street with limited parking, just finding somewhere to leave your car can be a daily struggle.
It’s especially frustrating when someone always steals the spot in front of your home, leaving you walking what feels like miles to get home once again.
So what would you do if the car outside your house belonged to your neighbor, but it never moved?
The woman in this story decided to take friendlier action than other people on her street, so she was shocked when the response was less than neighborly.
Read on to find out what happened.
My family and I moved into our home four years ago.
We are a family of five, whilst our neighbors across the street from us have eight people living in their home: the two homeowners who work, their daughter, and her five kids. The daughter is 40 and three of her five kids are college age.
Between the eight of them, there are six cars, and three never move from the street
The homeowner works early and asks that no one parks behind them. So four cars sit out in front of other people’s homes, as their home has a fire hydrant in front.
Let’s see how this situation caused a neighborly dispute.
For four years we let them park in front of our house, but often have to ask them to move when we have bad weather, because one of the trees over our driveway fell on my car once.
Our other neighbors have started calling the city and reporting the three college kids’ cars because they won’t move for weeks at a time.
We have never reported the car in front of our house, even though the local law states they can be there for no longer than 24 hours without moving.
This is about to get way more complicated.
Today, we were having bad weather so I asked her to have her daughter move her car.
I then said, “and can you please have her start parking it somewhere else, because our daughter is getting a car in two weeks and she will need that spot.”
She wrote back saying that they can’t really move their car because of her parents cars, and that they have eight people living there. She said that we could shuffle around cars in our driveway if we really needed an extra spot, but to let her know when we actually have a car for our daughter, and then she will have her daughter move hers.
I responded to let her know that unfortunately, we would still need that spot. I said that I was sorry things are so cramped at her house, but that we would like to be able to park in front of our own house.
Read on to find out how the neighbor responded.
She got so upset, telling me she hopes one day I have to juggle six cars and eight people in one home. I just said “thanks for being so understanding”.
When she got home, she sent me a bunch of messages about how we don’t need that spot right now, we have a driveway, and proceeded to tell me how to arrange our cars. I wrote back with, “all we wanted to do was use the spot in front of our own home.”
She said again that we didn’t need it, and I told her she was being childish. She sent a bunch of emojis, and I said that multiple neighbors had called the cops, while I asked nicely. She was losing her mind over it, and told me I was entitled. She said, “you don’t own the street. It’s the city’s.”
Finally, I replied: “you’re right. But I do own my home and if you owned one of your own, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
AITA?
Woah. For the most part, it seemed like the woman was the person in the right, but her last comment to the neighbor was uncalled for.
When things start to get this petty, it’s hard to believe that anyone is in the right.
Let’s see what the folks on Reddit had to say about this.
This person agreed that the parking dispute should have been straightforward, but that the woman’s response wasn’t okay.
And some people thought that the other neighbors who had taken more serious action were totally right to do so.
Meanwhile, this person offered a sensible solution.
The way that she spoke to her neighbor really wasn’t okay.
But it’s understandable, when the neighbor is taking up half the street with cars that she doesn’t even use.
Newsflash: it’s not okay for your car to stay stationary outside someone else’s home for months on end.
If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.
