Everyone has been there before. You’re already 5 minutes late for work, running out the door, and wouldn’t you know it?

Your car is blocked in.

And it’s moments like these that give way to a particularly malicious day dream involving a hammer and that other car’s windshield.

Or you could take a page out of this user’s book, and get elected to her neighborhood committee to enforce the parking rules on inconsiderate neighbors herself!

Check it out!

Block me in one more time….

I used to live in a multi level apartment complex in a large city that is well known for having very expensive car parking.

I had two dedicated car parking spaces (back to back) allocated to my apartment.

I used to sublease the car park space to a friend that would park his car on work days. Often on a Friday night he would taxi home after Friday night drinks and leave his car.

He would then come in on the Saturday or Sunday and pick it up. Often, he would park me in, but this wasn’t an issue as we had access to each other’s cars.

This mutually beneficial parking arrangement was disturbed by the arrival of a new neighbor…

A new neighbor moved into the complex and unfortunately for me that neighbor turned out to be a real jerk.

They would often see my spaces free and park me in or tell their visitors to park me in. I would often have to call them or go see them and ask for them to move their cars.

It became such an issue that I had them on speed dial.

And no matter how they tried to dissuade them from using her space, it was no use!

We tried several things to stop them parking in our spots, such as putting in bollards or parking in the front spot and moving the cars when we needed to park.

But they would end up parking us in and parking illegally. My friend got so frustrated and said he would stop subleasing from me.

This wasn’t a big deal as it was only an arrangement of convenience for both of us. In Australia, it is very difficult to enforce parking on private property.

It is basically illegal to tow, clamp or detain a car. So building management couldn’t really help besides putting warning stickers and writing letters.

But just because the building couldn’t do anything about the illegal parker didn’t mean the residents of the complex couldn’t get their own revenge.

I talked to a lot of the residents in the complex and they where having the same problems. Cue revenge.

I joined the strata committee which consists of all the owners and after 6 months got elected as the president which wasn’t hard as only a hand full of residents would actively participate.

I then got the common areas, which included visitor parking, to be managed by the council. We had to pay a fee but it was worth it.

And the council was not as forgiving when it came to parking violations!

When council started to patrol the common areas, the offending cars got fined pretty heavily till they were removed.

I saw at least 5 tickets (each approx. $250) on 3 of the cars.

In addition, one of the cars wasn’t even registered and was ticketed for abandonment and was eventually removed.

This didn’t resolve the private car parking issues.

So I had by laws drafted, that if residents let visitors into the private carpark instead of using the visitor parking, their access would be “reassessed”.

Essentially, they could hold their parking rights hostage if they decided to disregard the rules.

This meant that their access FOBs (Keys) would be disabled until the residents confirmed and accepted the bylaws.

Soon the offending residents, who were renters, were constantly calling their landlord and complaining as we disabled the FOBs everytime we caught them using it to let visitors in.

Of course it took 24 hours and an administrative fee to reactivate the FOBs….

But the crusade against inconsiderate parking wasn’t over yet!

Eventually, I got the carpark upgraded and the carpark key FOB system removed and replaced with number plate identification instead.

I’ve since moved out, but as I still own the property and am still on the strata committee I’m still well informed.

I am happy to report that there are no more parking issues 😛

Talk about a good reason to get involved in the community: revenge!

Reddit applauded the persistence, and said that she was right to make sure NOBODY was above the law.

Even if it was the parking law.

And this user said it only takes one bad neighbor to turn the complex into a parking dictatorship.

This person even had weightlifter friends who would physically pick bad parkers up and move their cars.

And finally, some people suggested a much more colorful revenge.

Be the change you wish to see in the parking rules.

Where there is a will there’s a way.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.