Sharing spaces in a crowded city can be tricky, especially when someone feels entitled to what’s yours.
How would you react if a neighbor’s guest kept taking your reserved bicycle parking spot, leaving you stuck walking to the station every day?
Would you just go with it?
Or would you find a way to confront them?
In the following story, one person has this very thing happen to them.
Here’s how they handled it.
Using my parking space? All good, you will be using it forever
So I’m living in Japan now, and people ride bicycles a lot here.
You can’t leave your bike anywhere, and you have to pay for parking, between 1 and 2 dollars per day.
There are very few free parking areas for bicycles.
Most people leave their bikes at the same place, so they pay monthly because it’s cheaper and you have your own space.
This started a couple of weeks ago.
Someone in my building started having a guest who decided to steal my bicycle parking space whenever they came to visit.
Sometimes, they stayed the whole night, so I had to go to the station, pay one dollar, and come all the way home walking.
Which meant I would need to walk to the station the next day (getting up earlier, walking like 20 minutes to the station while carrying my heavy bag).
At first, he tried to be polite.
All the bicycle spaces have a number, which means they are reserved for someone.
Mine is the 105, but this guy decided to take mine whenever they came to visit.
The second time this happened, I told the building manager, but they didn’t do anything.
The third time I saw the bicycle there (it was the same expensive red bicycle), I left a note in Japanese saying, “Please don’t leave your bicycle here; this is my space, and I am using it every day.”
I found the note taped (with the tape I used to tape it on their bike) to my parking space and it had a couple of bad words in Japanese at the end.
Basically he was not only stealing my space but making fun of me by insulting me. Fine, its just fine…
After the person got rude, he opted for a more drastic measure.
I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it if he hadn’t written those words, but this triggered me and got the worst of me.
This person did it again a couple of times, so I knew this would continue.
I was thinking about buying another bicycle, a better, more expensive one I could use to go on cycling trips, so a good chain/ luck was needed anyway.
I bought one of the thickest they had at the store and decided to try its efficiency.
I locked his bicycle the next time I saw it there.
Apparently, the person learned their lesson.
It hasn’t moved for the last 7 days.
There were two notes.
The first one was very aggressive, with more bad words and threats about going to the police (which I don’t care about, so let’s go that way, buddy).
The second note days later was an apology, and they begged for me to unlock the bike because they tried to break it, but they couldn’t.
I guess he has learned his lesson.
I’m pretty sure he won’t do it again, but I just want to enjoy this feeling of victory for a couple of days more.
I will free it in 2-3 days, I guess.
That’s one way to teach them a lesson!
Let’s see how the folks on Reddit relate to this situation.
This would be pro revenge on a whole new level.
According to this person, they should ask for compensation for all that missed sleep.
Oh my! This may be a little much.
Here’s a great point!
He definitely deserved that!
Next time, he’ll probably be more careful where he parks his bike.
If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.