s/o parked cars in front of your home, acceptable?

[EmilieMadison]

I think it's bizarre.

[Nonny]

I would be annoyed if it was a regular thing. It's one thing if it's an occasional party, or because they are getting their driveway re-sealed, but all the time would in me passive aggressively parking there so they'd get the hint to park in front of their own house.

[lintscreen]

I'd probably get annoyed. It is a public street and I'm not planning on parking there, but it would still annoy me.

[HoneySpider]

My next door neighbor parks in front of our house all the time and it pisses us off - they have plenty of space in front of their house, and in their driveway, but for some reason (I think to piss us off, they hate us) they park in front of our house. It's on a regular day, not when they are having guests or something.

They told us they can park there because "they pay taxes." 8-D

[kadams767]

I wouldn't care. I don't understand why people are annoyed by it.

[lys]

I would start parking in front of their house.

[mrs.spunky]

The only thing that bothers me is when my neighbor's daughter's boyfriend parks opposite our driveway and I have to be super careful pulling out so I don't hit his souped-up 1998 Civic. ::insert eyeroll here::

[Deleted]

I admit that I get annoyed when neighbors park in front of my house instead of in front of their own. But not enough to say anything about it.

[dochas]

I wouldn't say anything but I would be annoyed. I have a 98 Corolla that's starting to show it's age. I would park that in the spot in front of their house.

[rosiedozie]

I would think it was weird if they chose to park in front of my house rather than theirs, but I don't think that I would get too worked up about it.

[takeonyou]

I don't care. It's a public street. I don't like when someone parks directly behind my driveway. Our street is thin and backing out is difficult with our long vehicle.

I DO mind when these 5 biking guys use the entire length of my front lawn as a personal parking strip. They do it once or twice a week. Meet in front of my house, talk loudly at 6am, get changed into their biking gear, and throw trash on the ground. Then they come back at noon and do the same thing. So freaking rude. And no, I don't want to see your middle aged mostly naked body at 6am or when it is sweaty after 6 hours of bike riding. Ick!

[smiley]

We can't park on the street here (roads aren't wide enough) but the cops sometimes park on our front lawn (between road and side walk) and it drives me nuts! I don't want tire marks on my lawn etc even though it's the part closest to the road. It would drive me nuts if the neighbor parked in front of my house even if it is a public area and anyone can park there. The only time it would be acceptable is if there was a large gathering and the space NEEDED to be used to accommodate guests.

[mbcdefg]

We couldn't really help this back when we lived in the city. Parking was extremely tight, and people just grabbed a spot as soon as it opened.


Now that we live in the suburbs and have a driveway, we're getting this once in a while. It annoys MH but I personally don't care, especially since we only have one car right now and we park in the driveway. I doubt we'd ever say anything unless it was truly causing a disturbance.

That being said, when there was an old van parked in front of our city old house for a month without moving, and we had no idea whose it was, I called the cops and they ticketed it. Turned out to be our next-door neighbor's because it wound up in his driveway the next day. I think they had a shit-ton of people living in that house because they had at least 4 or 5 cars. Same house where their windows are still taped up from Hurricane Irene. Klassy. SO glad we got out of that dump.

[Becca]

On our street, most everyone has a single-width driveway. It is common to park one car on the street in non-winter months, to help prevent having to swap cars back and forth, people getting blocked in, etc.

If someone had guests and parked in front of our house, it wouldn't bother me. If someone regularly parked in front of our house and left the space in front of their house open, it would annoy the crap out of me.

If I was massively pregnant or had other issues that prevented me walking a good distance from my car to house, I might say something, otherwise I wouldn't. My neighbors do worse things than parking in places they are legally allowed to.

[pitterwoo]

we try not to do that and most neighbors are considerate of that as well as common courtesy. the only time it's been annoying enough to say something is when one of the people down the block parks her giant suv along the side of our house on street sweep days. not a problem except that she tends to park poorly so that then our cars don't fit. we've just asked her to move up another foot or 2 so another car can fit. sometimes she doesn't come back for the car for days which is annoying but I don't say anything.

[explorer2001]

Meh. My neighbor parks in front if my house all the time, but they have two adult couples living there. So there are 4 cars. They park in the garage and in front of their house, then in front of mine. I don't care.

Now my other neighbors that put their trash can in front of my house annoy the crap out of me. But they're douches to begin with.

[winnied]

I'd be annoyed and maybe ask nicely why they don't park in front of their house. I wouldn't mind if it was irregular.

[kadams767]

Aug 10, 2012 12:38:12 GMT -5 @jimbooo said:

Aug 10, 2012 12:33:26 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

I wouldn't care. I don't understand why people are annoyed by it.

Well this is how I was thinking. But now that we are fixing up our house really nicely, I'd hate to see a trashy car in front of it once we are done with renovations. It would be nice for people to drive by and see my beautiful landscaping.

I guess I just cannot imagine caring what other people think about seeing a junky car in front of my house.

[bronxgirl]

Maybe I need to live in suburbia to understand. At the moment, I don't get the issue.

[CloudBee]

I live in a quiet neighborhood that doesn't typically have much street parking. One of our neighbors has a college aged son. His girlfriend spends the night often, and routinely parks her car in front of our house 4-5 days/nights per week. It is SO annoying. There's no reason she can't park in front of their house. We're on a cul-de-sac, and our house is on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac. I don't understand why she parks there.

It frustrates me to no end because she pulls herself up so close to the foot of our driveway. In the dead of winter we have had difficulty navigating around her, and have asked them to move the car. You would think that would have been a good clue. Apparently not.

[formerlyak]

In my neighborhood there aren't street parking spots in front of every house. We live at the beach and the houses here are pretty close together, so it just is how it is. So you can't really get mad if someone parks in the spot nearest to your house, because it's kind of first-come, first-served for parking.

That said, we have one neighbor who no one likes and one of our beefs with him is that he rents rooms in his house out, so there are like 4 guys in there. There is plenty of room to park in his driveway (it is the biggest driveway on the street), but they all insist on parking on the streets -- all 4 of their cars -- and none of them park in their driveway. This means if anyone else on the block has a guest or a need to park on the street, we have to park blocks away.

[dexteroni]

If cars are parked all along the street, I don't care whose car is in front of my house. But if cars in the street isn't the norm, it would annoy me to see one car parked directly in front of my house all the time. Cars aren't allowed to park on our side of the street, so this isn't a problem for us. And we rarely have to move our cars off our own property (garage / driveway). But when we do, we park them in front of our neighbors' houses across the street, because we have no other choice - we can't park them in front of our house. No one has expressed annoyance, but I think we've done it maybe 5 times in the 9 years we've lived here, so it's hardly enough to even think about.

[CloudBee]

Aug 10, 2012 12:33:26 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

I wouldn't care. I don't understand why people are annoyed by it.

Our neighborhood is generally pretty quiet. It's beyond annoying to have the sensors on our lights go on and off late at night because someone is getting in/out of their car at the edge of our lawn. Our dog goes crazy assuming that someone has arrived at our house, and the car doors make it sound like someone is in our driveway.

When we need to cut our lawn, it's almost impossible to get the patch alongisde their car because they are parked so snugly against it. Same goes for shoveling the walkway.

When there's no need for it... it is very rude.

[liveintheville]

Not right now but drunky girl next door leaves bitchy notes on cars if she thinks they didn't park well, meaning there's not room for her.

In the winter there's a whole new set of unofficial parking rules. If you shoveled the spot in front and place a chair/cone/trashcan/shovel/anything there and someone takes it, it's on.

[keweenawlove]

Our neighbors do this all the time and it really annoys me, mainly because the way the park makes it really hard for me to back out of my driveway. The house across the street only has 1 parking spot and 4 cars so they take up half the cul-de-sac.

[catbus]

I find it annoying, because the one person who regularly does this is our neighbors' son, who drives a giant truck. When he parks in front of our house, it's difficult to see around the truck if we need to pull out of our driveway while he's there.
But overall? No, it doesn't bother me because it's a public street. As long as no one's blocking our driveway, I don't care.
I do get annoyed by people parking the wrong way on our street, since there are pretty much always spaces available on both sides, so I assume the person is being extremely lazy. Walk the 15' across the street, or drive down to the end, go around the roundabout, and park on the other side, facing the right way. Parking on the wrong side is illegal for a reason, even though it's never actually enforced.

[dr.girlfriend]

My neighbors do this, and it's a little irritating. They have five cars, so even if two are in their driveway the other three are in the street, sometimes smack dab in front of our house. We only have a one-car driveway so DH always has to park in the street, and you'd think they at least would have the good manners to avoid his "regular" spot, but no dice. These neighbors are odd and a little aggressive anyway, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they do it just to be irritating.

Luckily our house is on a little hill so we don't look right out the window at their car or whatever, but still. Bleargh.

[luvmagoldn]

We had to talk to our neighbor about this. She has a renter who parked directly in front of our house when there was plenty of space closer to her house.

We did not get off to a good start though - day 2 we were in the house she came over to say we needed to cut down a tree in the side yard because it was going to ruin her foundation. When I asked if she had spoken to the previous owners about it she said no, they hadn't lived there long enough. They lived in the house for 2 years! And you come hassle me on day 2? WTF? Anyway, things just went down hill as the years went by so H got really pissed about her renter.

She no longer parks in front of our house.

[birdmom]

We don't have street parking, we live on a more rural road, but this is one thing that irrationally irks me. I've lived places where people park in front of other people's houses, and it drives me nuts. Be courteous to your neighbors!

[315bride]

This topic comes up every once in a while on the boards. I honestly do not understand what's annoying about it. If it's a public street, there's no justification for staking claim on the X number of feet in front of your home. If it's a private street, that's another story.