When a neighbor does something annoying or even illegal, it’s nice if the neighbors can discuss the situation rationally and reach a solution without getting the police involved.

Unfortunately, that’s often not the case, like in today’s story where a lady blocked the sidewalk in front of her house with her car and refused to move the car further into her driveway.

The neighbors threaten to call the police, and she still doesn’t care.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Woman blocks her sidewalk with a car, asks us to call the police.

My neighbor blocked the sidewalk with her car during the last two snowstorms.

This meant (1) so she claims, she didn’t have to shovel a path from her car to her house and instead was able to step directly on her shoveled sidewalk (which she pays someone to shovel) and could then walk to her front door and…

(2) she didn’t need to shovel the sidewalk that her car blocked because no snow landed there and…

(3) she didn’t shovel the sidewalk between her car and the edge of her property — about two feet — because once people have to walk around her car in the street, who cares about the last couple of feet?

She shoveled the sidewalk until her the driver’s side of the car, but not the passenger’s side.

He didn’t want his kids to have to walk in the street around the neighbor’s car.

So my wife politely knocked on her door, explained that forcing our kids to walk around her car meant they walked in the street and that wasn’t safe.

Therefore could she please drive her car fully into her driveway, as required by law?

The law doesn’t permit someone to block a sidewalk.

We didn’t want to make this into a big deal, but as neighbors asked if she could be a normal human.

The neighbor lady made excuses about why she needed to park where she was parking.

The woman said no, then claimed it wasn’t safe for her to pull the way into her driveway because that would force her to step in snow.

My wife said if that was a concern she should shovel a path on her grass from her driveway to her front door.

The woman then claimed she is not feeling well.

My wife pointed out that she did this two months ago during the last snow storm and that she goes to work daily.

If she really was sick she’d be stuck in the house.

Additionally, not feeling well doesn’t preclude a person from parking in their own driveway or walking in snow.

He called the police.

My wife said she would call the police (non emergency line).

The neighbor says “go ahead” and she’d get a doctor’s note.

So we did.

The police said they would drive over.

We didn’t see whether the police chatted with her or not.

Either way, she got a ticket for blocking the sidewalk.

The neighbor now pulls her car closer to her house.

She did shovel the two feet of sidewalk.

I suspect the police did speak to her and reminded her that not shoveling a sidewalk is a fine from the building department, not the police.

If we were willing to call the police, we’d probably call the building department too.

(We had planned on it, but they were closed on the weekend when this happened.)

She now pulled further up, still partially blocking the sidewalk, but at least we don’t need to walk around in the street.

Of course, if she does this again, we won’t be asking her politely to move the car and will call the police instead.

Not that entertaining, but ask us to call the police, happy to.

It’s too bad it took the police for the neighbor to obey the law and stop blocking the whole sidewalk with her car.

She probably wishes she had just listened to the neighbors.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

This reader suggests intentionally getting into an accident.

Another reader suggests going through the car.

Perhaps the other neighbors would like to help get revenge.

Water would be another revenge strategy.

This reader shared the sidewalk rules in the winter in Iowa.

If the neighbor lady doesn’t like shoveling snow, she should hire someone to do it for her.

That’s what most people would do.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.