Angry People

Last night my partner attended leaving party for a colleague, at one of the director’s houses out in the sticks. She is not an experienced driver and returning down unfamiliar, unlit country lanes in the pouring rain was quite a challenge. Returning home to our one way street, where parking is at a premium, she found that there were no spaces.

As the parking is all residents parking permits only, and we already pay a premium above our road tax, to be able to park in the road she did the same thing all the other residents in the road do at night (and sometimes during the day) and parked on the pavement.

Almost everyone who does this parks almost entirely on the pavement, leaving just 2 wheels on the road. This obviously obstructs the pavement for which we are guilty, however it is a quite road with very little through traffic. For our part, we usually park the car after using it in the evening, at around ten and move it to a space in the morning around eight. We feel that this is has minimal impact, particularly taking into account that the opposite side of the road has a clear pavement beyond the line of legitimately parked cars.

Now, here is the problem. My partner parked not in front of our house, as usual, but in front of a house a couple of doors up. It was late and my partner didn’t want to attempt reversing back up the road in the dark and the rain when she felt she had parked the car as safely as possible until the morning.

This morning at just after ten o’clock, on returning from our local shops from doing our weekly shopping, we found the following note had been placed on the windscreen:

The text of the note reads:

Your vehicle is illegally parked.

Fire engines, ambulances and other emergency vehicles could not pass. Your inconsiderate parking is putting other people’s lives at risk.

You are obstructing the path, some people are blind or disabled and may not see your vehicle.

You are obstructing someones entrance to their home.

It could be your house or flat that requires the assistance, please be more thoughtful.

Traffic wardens and police will be given your registration number if you park here again, you have been warned.

The only bit of the note which is in fact true is that the car was illegally parked.

We are very certain about the identity of the note leaver and it wasn’t even in front of their house, it was in front of their neighbours house! Now that’s real busy body interfering neighbour material.

Also, the note had ‘12 hours later’ written on the top. Yes, well we parked it at 22:00 and moved it the following morning at 10:00 - well done for the simple math! I’m pretty certain that, like us, you were asleep for most of that time - not maintaining a vigil over our parking faux pas.
What this boils down to is old folk with too much time on their hands, who unfortunately have have to watch a lot of undesirable elements move into their area, and don’t know their neighbours and so assume we are all the same - the enemey, the others.

We are out all day, and often in the evenings. Most of the houses in the street are flats and many of the residents are students so are not there for long and also often out. People with flats don’t spend time in gardens or working on the property so there is limited opportunity to get to know your neighbours in passing. In this type of area there is very little community (now the norm in most of the UK’s towns and cities).
There is what appears to be ’social housing’ down one end of the street and on more than one occasion I’ve had an sharp exchange of words with the oiks hang round in the street making it an unpleasant place. They are the high profile public face of the street.
Were it not for these assorted factors, our neighbours may know that we are both pleasant to know, professional people, who don’t deliberately set out to piss people off. This is the first time the car was parked there and my partner is goddam sure it won’t happen again. Sure, it’s as much our fault as their’s that we don’t know each other but hey, they’re the ones with all the time on their hands. As they said as part of their (anonymous) introduction:

It could be your house or flat that requires the assistance, please be more thoughtful.

Traffic wardens and police will be given your registration number if you park here again, you have been warned.

In return:

Should you require assistance, don’t ask us.

Teh interwebs will be given your personal details if you threaten us again, you have been warned.