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Finding a parking spot near your home can be frustrating enough without a neighbor appointing himself the unofficial head of street parking enforcement.

One apartment resident has lived in the same building for 12 years and regularly uses the back entrance because it’s more convenient for their three children and disabled father. Although their official address is on the front road, the rear entrance opens onto another street, where they’ve parked for years.

Recently, a neighboring property was renovated and rented out, forcing the family to give up a small parking area they discovered wasn’t actually theirs. They moved their vehicles to the public street instead, figuring that was exactly what public parking was for.

Unfortunately, their new neighbor apparently disagrees. Since the family started parking there, he’s allegedly been putting trash bins in parking spaces, insisting they don’t live on his street and generally making an already inconvenient parking situation considerably worse.

But when he took up two spaces and the resident’s father asked him to move, the disagreement escalated into a shouting match. Apparently, somebody forgot to tell this neighbor that the road doesn’t come with his lease.

Neighbor Thinks He Owns the Public Road

I’ve lived in this apartment for 12 years. We technically live on the front road, but we live on the third floor and have a back exit to the back road via a catwalk.

I have three kids and my dad is disabled so we mostly only use the back entrance as it’s easier and more convenient. The front entrance to our apartment has metered parking spots, and the parking lot only has one spot for us to park, and we have three vehicles between the adults in the house.

The back street just had public on street parking, and that’s what we’ve been using for some time now.

All makes sense.

We used to have a small little parking area in the back, but that was because the house on the other side was unoccupied.

They recently renovated and rented it out, and we found out the parking we were using was part of their property, so since then we’ve been parking on the street.

One of the cars we have has handicap plates, and there’s a designated handicap spot, and then room for two more cars behind it between our houses.

Hmmmm…

Well ever since we started parking on the street, he has been awful. Putting his trash bins in parking spots or directly behind my car where I can’t even see them and I’ve backed into them before by accident.

He keeps claiming “You don’t live on this street you can’t park here” despite the fact that this is the only entrance we’ve used for TWELVE YEARS.

He thinks he’s some unofficial parking attendant and today he parked directly in the middle of the two spots behind the handicap spot and my dad went to go ask him to move and he screamed at my dad that we don’t live on this street and we aren’t allowed to park on this PUBLIC road, all because we don’t live on the street.

Can we say “entitled”?

I don’t even know what to do or how to get him to realize that it doesn’t matter if I lived on this street or in a different state, public parking is public parking for a reason. It’s available to the ENTIRE public lmao

His apartment also only has one off street parking spot and idk how the dictate who gets it but he normally parks right after their drive way so it would go our other neighbors parking lot, the handicap spot, two regular on street parking spots, their driveway, and then more on street parking and that’s where he normally parks because it’s literally IN FRONT of their apartment.

Sorry if this was long this has just been brewing for so long now and he’s such an awful person.

The neighbor’s central argument doesn’t hold much water. Public on-street parking generally isn’t reserved exclusively for people whose official addresses are on that particular road, although local permit requirements, posted restrictions and designated accessible spaces can affect who is allowed to park where.

If the family’s vehicles are legally parked, the fact that their apartment technically faces another street doesn’t automatically give this neighbor authority to send them elsewhere.

His frustration over limited parking may be understandable. After all, his building also has only one off-street space, and sharing a busy street with several other households probably isn’t anyone’s ideal arrangement. But putting trash bins in public parking spots and shouting at a disabled neighbor aren’t constructive ways to address the problem.

The family should document the incidents, photograph any obstructions and check with their local parking authority about the applicable rules. If the neighbor is deliberately blocking spaces or creating a safety hazard, reporting specific incidents may be more productive than continuing to argue with him.

It’s also worth distinguishing between inconsiderate parking and illegal parking. Taking up two spaces may be irritating, but whether authorities can intervene depends on local regulations.

Ultimately, the neighbor doesn’t have to enjoy sharing the street. He just has to recognize that he isn’t the only person entitled to use it.

This person says to rat him out.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a sister who held up her end of a college savings bargain only to be ripped off by her scheming older sibling.

This person agrees.

And this person has some jokes.

He may live on the street, but apparently nobody told him that doesn’t mean he owns the street.