Neighbor Continuously Parked in Front of my House
 

Looking for opinions...

I live at the and of a circular cul-de-sac. A couple of the homes (like mine) have space for a front yard and sidewalk. A couple of the others have a pie shaped front yard and no space to park a vehicle in front of their home.

One of my next door neighbors has been parking their car in front of my house for the last couple of years and has never asked if it was okay to do so. I believe he feels it's alright because a fellow neighbor with multiple cars - and no front yard - parks one of their cars in front of their next door neighbor's house. That neighbor's drive way is already full with no room for additional vehicles, this is understandable.

My neighbor has two driveways, one a is a two car width and the other has a single car width. Yet, their driveways are empty and rarely used for parking their own cars. Now said neighbor is parking a second car in front of my house. This same neighbor also has a non running truck parked in front of the neighbor on their opposite side (that house is empty and is currently unoccupied - awaiting sale and new owners).

So, basically three cars in the street and none of them parked in the empty driveways.

This is a nice neighborhood yet the cars in front of my house (forgive me for sounding like a snob) are not well kept. One leaves oil spots on the pavement.

I've been meaning to say something for a while and now this second car pisses me off. A friend said to see if I can get a collective opinion before I go off half-cocked.

What's the best way to approach this? They're otherwise okay neighbors.

Sorry for the long post.

Give em an inch...
Sounds like this should've been addressed several years ago.
Why would they not park in their own driveway?

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Neighborhood etiquette went away years ago. You can politely discuss this and see what the reaction is. Don't be surprised if the neighbor is clueless and what's more, gets pissed off at you for bringing it up. After the fact, anything you do or cause to be done will come right back to you.

The oil drops are one leverage you can use by reporting to whatever environmental hazard enforcement you have available. The 3 day parking rule is in effect in many places.

We have a similar problem with all the 'boarders' living in the ADU's the city has allowed to be built recently. Between the two houses across the street there are probably 14 cars among them. And no one uses their garage to put cars in either.
We recently got new pavement on our street and one of the neighbors cars was leaving oil stains on the asphalt. I told the owner that I'd be coming after him for any decrease in property value due to his car messing up the pavement if/when I go to sell my house.
Who wants to buy a house on a nice street that has oil all over the parking in front?
Needless to say, no one cares around here and my guests can rarely park in front of our house when they come to visit because of all the cars now.
Thankfully I don't have to look at the neighbors right next door. Their yard looks like a used car lot most days, they don't use their garage and only one of their boarders gets to park in their driveway. The other is usually in front of my house.

Just a point, but where I live, the street is legally fair game and anyone can park on the street in front of my house within the time limit or snow restrictions.

I would think most towns are like that, so just because it is in front of your house has no bearing on who can park there, so your only real solution would be to ask politely or park your car there before they can.

Doing a little delayed research on the subject -

It seems neighborhood streets are considered public property and one can park in front of your house if I'm reading the rule correctly.

However, a non running car is considered inoperable and can't be parked on the street long term. Nor can one have leaking fluids as that can also be considered inoperable.

Different towns have different rules but usually it is completely legal to park anywhere on a public street that is not marked "no parking". It is also usually legal to park in front of your house every day unfortunately. Check your local street parking ordinances for specifics first before proceeding. Cars that are not running, derelict, or slobber oil all over the street are usually exceptions and can be cited.

I would know the local laws first before proceeding but *might* leave a dear neighbor note on the car and ask him to kindly park the heap somewhere other than in front of your house every day as a courtesy to you. Then he will have your neighborly gratitude. If the problem persists, use the city ordinances and rat him out to the Popo. He will certainly know who did it and may retaliate but slobbering oil all over the street is no bueno.

We had a guy in the neighborhood who had several derelict vehicles on the street and neighbors got together and had him cited. The cars are gone so either he sold them or put them in a storage yard. He owns an appliance repair biz and often derelict washers or ranges would be on his driveway for months. Those are gone too. Sometimes the city needs to be involved to prevent blight.

Best of luck!

Write down what you want to say. Repeat it a few times. Edit. Repeat. Think of possible responses. Edit. Practice with responses in mind. Knock on door. Say script. Probably done as long as you are prepared for possible responses.

I live in a similar culdesac. I feel your pain.

I hate confrontations for the most part, so most of my solutions are passive aggressive. like keeping my old truck and camping out in front with it. hahha...

my 96 year old neighbor doesnt even have a car and she will cane-walk her ass right over there and badger them..hahah...scary. nobody parks in front of her place out of fear.

sucks, bottom line, it is only etiquette and politeness governing here, you have no other grounds. so maybe and adult conversation and a tray of cookies?

If it's a public street they're well within their rights to park there and have no responsibility to ask. That's the legal answer. The right answer is, the neighbor should ask if it's okay. That's what a good neighbor would do. My son bought a house last year. The neighbors across the street parked in front of the house even though there is enough room for them to park their cars on their side of the street. It seems they don't understand how to use reverse in their vehicles. Anyhow, we were remodeling his home and their vehicle was parked right in the middle of the space in front of his house... so we parked their car in. After that I started asking them if they'd move their car when I needed to park out front with my trailer. The neighbor said "it's a public street you know?" I said, remember that when my trailers are parked in front of your house and my truck is parked in front of my son's. My son didn't want to cause any trouble and asked me not to park my trailers in front of their house. I didn't. They still park in front of his house. I could have fixed the problem. I did decide to pressure wash his sidewalk while their car was parked in front of his house. That nice black mold that grows on concrete ended up all over the side of their car.

Everyone hates HOAs until you get a neighbor like this one.

They have the means to store on their own property..but chose not to. Instead you are now affected. Kind of a clueless move to say the least. I would take a few cookies over and try to catch more flies with honey. Maybe one spouse doesn't like it either. It's a small thing, and they are legally able to, but you'll find out who they are after starting a nice conversation. Most people don't seek out unneeded negativity. Maybe he thinks you don't care either way or something. Maybe he starts griping about the other neighbor and you just made a friend.

Getting the local constables involved is a big step down imo.
Then 3hr parking zones, Buying permits to park in front of your own house. etc Everybody loses.

Or. Friday night Pelican party?
https://www.pelicanparts.com/More_Info/PEL3768SCH02A.htm?pn=PEL-3768SCH02A&bc=c&SVSVSI=
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1766854878.jpg

Of course streets are public unless they are governed by an HOA or actually privately owned as in a gated development. Gated is the case for my wife's daughter and even they have trouble now and then.

As I said, neighborhood politeness is dead. Being as it is now instead of times past, you might as well regard your neighbors for who they are. If they are thoughtless dirt bags then that's what you get. Consider them just that and live life as it has become.

Cities are the sewers of the world. Some stink more than others. Just look at many members here that have a few acres and see that they don't have as many problems. I live in a city mainly for my own convenience. I behave like I live way far out in the country.

I do have some consideration when making noise. Building some cars from frame up has resulted in me making a lot of noise at times. I try my best to do this when there are a lot of planes overhead (200 flights a day right over the house), when gardeners are blowing dirt everywhere, and maybe when the 3 different trash trucks are out in the alley. The city is a noisy sewer, I just try to stink a little less.

But the neighbors are oblivious. I'm just happy I don't have to carry a gun while outside (yet).

(edit) Google AI blurb:
Long Beach Airport (LGB) sees roughly 1,000+ total daily operations, with around 58 commercial flights (41 minimum + extras) plus many more general aviation (private/flight school) flights, making it very busy for general aviation despite commercial caps, leading to high overall traffic daily, averaging over 1,000 operations/day as of late 2023.

Publicly dedicated street is one thing-public property subject to ordinances, privately maintained HOA street or condo property another, subject to their rules.
Most towns have ordinances about unregistered/inop vehicles parked in public rights of way setting time limits. Whether you chose to reach out to authorities is up to how roasted you feel.
Edit-Zeke beat me to it as I was typing, so mostly reduntant

collective opinion or nothing

This is the correct answer. And I have about 10 cars + an RV that I could park in front of their house. Hell, if someone wants to be a big enough AH, I'll pay some bum to park his RV in front of their house and take a dump on their lawn every morning. :)

FWIW, I have exactly one car on the street and it's a Mini on a street with apartments and tight street parking. No one has an expectation of parking in front of their building, we're happy to be anywhere on the block. When I want to drive that car, I pull my other one out of the garage and switch them.

If people are nice, I'm Prince Charming. If they want to be a prick, I'll show them how it's done. Show them the deficiencies in their technique.

Fun story:
A family friend had a small bayside beach bungalow on the Balboa peninsula near The Wedge. It was probably built in 1950 and was still an original 1 story with huge 3 story renovations being built all around them. Across the street is a public beach access to the bay side with a children's beach and small pier. During mornings and evenings they had an amazing view from their front picture window and could watch the boats coming and going but during peak hours the beach park attracted a lot of cars who parked in front of his house completely blocking their idyllic view.

He got to know the city workers while often out walking and saw them painting a red curb downtown one day. He casually ask them what paint they used that would hold up in the harsh beach environment and they showed him a can. He then went out and bought a can of this red paint and after dark one night went out, taped off his curb and painted it red to keep the flat landers from blocking his view. It worked like a charm and forever after the city workers maintained this red curb, repainting as necessary every few years. Idyllic view preserved!

He is gone now but I think the little beach bungalow is still an original one story with an amazing view of the bay from the living room window. Miracles do happen.

Another possible solution that some have use to keep vagrants away from their property: Change out all of the parkway sprinkler heads from 180* to 360* and make sure that parkway gets well irrigated 2x per day, every day, all year. He will get the message and move on.

Wow, sorry to hear about Long Beach. I knew that it wasn't the greatest place but what I've seen of it wasn't that bad. I live in a crowded but trendy neighborhood and it's nothing like you describe. Not a sewer and no need to carry a gun, at least not for 28 years.

After a couple of years (?) this inconsiderate jerk assumes that you are OK with it since you haven't said anything.
Park in his driveway and leave a polite note on your windshield to have them call you so you can talk.

A few years back, one of my new neighbors started parking his cars in front of my house.

That changed when I parked my long box extended cab 3/4 ton truck directly in front of his place for a few days. Message received, no further conversation was required.

There is a 'pecking order' across the street in which certain cars are always parked in certain places in the driveway and on the street directly in front of the house. The 'other' cars in the household are left to their own devises of finding parking spots.
Because of the way my neighbor next door parks, when the across the street ones park in front of my house, they invariably end up taking two spaces. This happens because they don't want to be accused of 'blocking' my next door neighbor in.
There have been times when I'm tempted to park my car in such a way that a lesson would be taught, but my wife doesn't want me causing waves.

LB was rated the 5th poorest city in CA at one time for cities with a population >100,000 behind places like Fresno and Oakland. Apparently these figures have been obscured from public record as I don't see that particular metric anymore.

Here are some stats that you can interpret anyway you wish.

With the overwhelming lack of native residents (meaning born here (in Long Beach) at any time in the last 10,00 years (that would include Tongva descendants), it is easy to see why there are no traces of neighborly behavior left. Hell, at one point in history the city population voluntarily coughed up extra tax money to further the development of the port.

Even I found that to be pretty pro-city as nothing like that has ever occurred in my 80+ years of living here.

I'm getting older.

I have learned a conversation is the best jumping off point.

This is one of those, you make the world you want to live in threads. do you live in your own world being mad at/resenting the guy or plotting his demise or just have a well-planned discussion. Vash's cookies are a great idea for an opener.

Some people are jerks, some people are oblivious, some people are just inconsiderate but everyone should be given a chance to do the right thing. Goes without saying that if they fall short of taking on that gift, most bets are off. But best to start off thinking they will.

Thanks for all the replies.

The elderly owner of the home is a fairly nice guy (probably close to 90), it's his live-in son and his girlfriend that are parking in the street. Sort of ne'er do wells.

The dolly is a nice idea but I'm on a hill and the car would roll away...

Being on a hill, the son mentioned above had his truck slide on ice and take out my mailbox one winter. I came out to find my mail box knocked over with no explanation. WTF? It wasn't until his dad told me (and apologized) that his son's truck had slid on the ice and took out my mailbox that I knew what had happened. While it was an accident, if that were me I would have immediately told my neighbor what had just occurred.

I have a feeling when the father dies the son will inherit the home.

The options are: 1) Do nothing. 2) Do something. 2a) do something that is potentially confrontational 2b) do something that isn't confrontational.

I really like the red paint story above. I also like the black mold pressure wash overspray above. I had a professor at UO that said something about "benevolent sabotage." Except it wasn't benevolent. The example was putting an open face peanut butter and jelly sandwich into a bed when the parent makes a bed for a child after asking repeatedly. In other words, some sort of consequence.

So the answer I would look for is to change the scenario so that parking their car in front of your home is less pleasant. I don't know how to do this without making YOUR home less pleasant. Things like nasty grease on road, roofing nails, and similar nuisances will also serve to annoy you.

I guess as a last resort, there is the Tanya Harding pivot. Meaning, I grew up on the East Side of Portland. It isn't always pretty or upper class. Tanya is from my 'hood more or less. I used to have people I knew that could break a kneecap or similar unsavory type activity. Not anymore. But perhaps you do? Slide them $100 and tell them how much you don't like a certain car in your neighborhood?

Keep us posted. This is a tough one.

The dolly thing was a joke, don't do that seriously. But they do look handy. Coulda used that a few times.

Once long ago the movers ran over my mailbox. Probably damaged their truck and stoned kids got fired. Company promised to fix it a couple times. Ended up putting in something much stronger in a better location so it was probably karma talking.

Don't stew too long over it. You're more important than that. Just mention it nicely and go from there.

Back at my old bachelor pad house, it was a 950 sq foot house as were most of the houses in the "Sky View" neighborhood. Mine still had a garage, as that was a major reason I was willing to buy it. Most of the neighborhood had converted their garages to living areas.

I had many different friends come to visit, and I liked to have them park in front of my house as it was easy for them. My next door neighbors had a family of four drivers, so four cars and a garage full of $100 worth of crap. They could get two cars in their driveway, but two were on the street.

I know the street is public, but it did not make me happy. One of my friends was a used car dealer, and he had an old beat up Impala four door that just barely ran. He brought it over, and parked it in my driveway and gave me the keys. When the spot in front of my neighbor's house was open, I moved the Impala to that spot, and left it for weeks.

It is illegal to park on the grass in front of a house, but they did that for a while until the police issued some tickets. After a month they asked me about that car. I said I could not park it in front of my house, and one of your family was always in front of my house.

They moved their car, and I parked the Impala there, making sure the tires never went flat. I would drive it around the block, and park back in the same spot so it was obvious it was a working car. After a couple more months, they poured a wider driveway to be able to get four cars parked there. I gave back the Impala.

^^^Master!!!

Go over, ask nicely, see what happens. If that doesn’t fix the problem then come back and we’ll help you develop plan B.:D

I really want an old PU ratty as hell to park around to make my point. The real reason I never did this is because of insurance. Don't say Haggarty or the like because USAA does not allow it if you carry an umbrella. The do have their own classic car ins but the costs are almost the same as full boat.

Let's not start an ins rant. I was only commenting.

Milt, you can’t do super cheap liability insurance on a beater?

Well, I went over and talked to my neighbor. He was 50/50ish receptive (I was as friendly and diplomatic as I could be).

He stated that the non running truck (parked in front of the house on the other side) will be sold in the near future. Not sure how long that will really be. His minivan that's newly showed up in front of my house will be moved back to his driveway. He stated the leaking Honda will probably still be parked in the street - in front of my house. I emphasized a couple of times that I was not happy about the oil stains and could he do something about it (I, like many here, couldn't put up with my car leaving oil stains and would have crawled under the car a long time ago and addressed it). He kinda blew off the leaks.

I didn't bring up the fact that the city considers the oil leaks an environmental issue and it could be towed for that alone. I want to maintain a reasonably good relationship with my neighbors so I'll leave that be for now. If things were to get ugly I could save that for ammo in the future. I don't want to go there.

It remains to be seen if any of this really happens...

They say you can't choose your neighbors. Contrasting all that is my neighbor on my other side who is an absolute prince. Nicest guy in the whole world and we get along famously.

Is it a private road or a public highway?

The latter he can park where he wants, your feelz are irrelevant…

It's a public street. True, there's not much I can do about him parking there. He can and should do something about the leaking vehicle.

People are crappy humans when they have three empty driveway spaces and choose to park three cars on the street.

Good work Kurt,

You were decent to them and because of that, there is a good chance they will try to accommodate your wishes.

I always say you can be nice to people as many times as you like and get mean if needed, but it doesn’t work in reverse! Once mean, you rarely get a second chance.

I think many people like parking in the street, because it is a quick in and out, no backing in or out, just hop in and drive away.

I would be calling the oil spill in if it is there in 5 days.

You were nice and polite.

Within 24 hour period the car must move on the street. Like go to work and come bck and park in front of your house. Legal.

Wounded/dead soldier. Nope.

You city people have WAY different problems than me…

Did you do something to pizz them off? I ask because I considered parking a 5hitbox in front of my brother’s azzhat neighbor’s house a few years ago. As long as the plates are current and in moves every 3? days, they can’t do anything about it.

I would give it a few days to see how things actually pan out. If it were me I’d be seriously annoyed if the guy has spots in his driveway but parks a POS in front of my house. There’s no excuse for that.