Imagine living in a neighborhood where you don’t have a driveway or a garage. The only place you can park is on the street. Would you be upset if someone parked in front of your house, or would you be understanding that you don’t own the street parking and it’s first come first serve?

In this story, one homeowner is really bothered by a relatively new neighbor who seems to consider the street parking in front of his house his “driveway.” He doesn’t have a driveway or a garage, and street parking is first come first serve.

The homeowner is at a loss of how to get through to this new neighbor who has actually damaged cars that are parked in front of his house.

Let’s read the whole story.

Neighbor thinks he owns parking spaces on public street

Our neighbor, let’s call him Jerry, bought the house next door about 3 years ago, while my family has lived here since 1969.

We’ve never had any problems with neighbors in all this time, and are on friendly terms with everyone, until Jerry moved in & started bothering us about parking in front of his house.

He says things like “don’t park in my driveway”, but he has no driveway. He also leaves notes on our cars saying the same thing.

He doesn’t have a driveway or garage.

Jerry sounds unhinged!

People who live on our street park wherever there’s a legal space available, and sometimes that happens to be in front of Jerry’s house.

It’s become harder to find parking spaces over the years so if you need to park, you just park wherever you can & it’s not necessarily even close to your own house, but is always in front of someone’s house because the area is densely populated.

Another neighbor believes Jerry has keyed his car, and also saw him punching it multiple times while parked in front of his house, or should I say in his imaginary driveway.

There also may be a language barrier.

We have tried talking to Jerry, but he didn’t seem to understand the concept of parking rules, and just kept sticking to his “driveway” story.

English is not his first language, he’s from Libya. We’re thinking maybe in Libya you’re not allowed to park in front of someone else’s house, I don’t know & don’t really care.

Public roadways have parking rules & laws and are area-specific and he can’t import foreign parking rules at his convenience.

What can we do? Is this legally considered harassment? How do we stop it?

This is even crazier!

Jerry’s wife is also problematic.

When another neighbor went to get her package that was mis-delivered to Jerry’s house, Jerry’s wife made her show ID, ok, but then still refused to give the package to her unless she opened it in front of her.

My neighbor was stunned, and when she asked why, Jerry’s wife said “there could be drugs in it”.

My neighbor is an innocent, and submitted to this outrageous demand just so she could get the items she ordered from a popular online merchant.

All we want is to live in peace and not worry about our cars being damaged by this lunatic, or be yelled at for parking in Jerry’s “driveway”, or have ridiculous battles for mis-delivered packages.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who is feeling guilty about having an unauthorized car towed from her assigned spot.

What awful neighbors! Let’s see if Reddit has any advice.

This person suggests getting cameras.

Here’s another vote for cameras.

This isn’t a bad suggestion.

Here’s some advice about packages.

What an awful neighbor! Although, to be fair, the neighbor simply may not understand the laws. Where he’s from, the laws may be different. The language barrier may also explain why he keeps referring to the street as his “driveway.” He may not understand the correct phrasing.

I’m not sure exactly how they can get through to the neighbor besides installing cameras and gathering evidence. If they catch him on camera damaging cars in front of his house, they really do need to call the police.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tenant who decided to stop returning his neighbor’s misplaced laundry after two years.