Public Street and interaction with neighbor

[Kevin]

We don't live in an HOA, just on a public street. A few years ago, I was talking with the neighbor lady, and she mentioned they were having a party that night. I casually said, I didn't care if the guests parked in front of my house or not.

She replied rather abruptly: "Well, it is a public street."

Then, probably two years later, my wife and I remodeled our kitchen. She came over and asked me to NOT have the contractors park on the street in front of her house.

I just smiled on the inside and said I'd see what I could do.

Now, it's just an inside joke with my wife. I never said anything to the neighbor. She's sort of nice. Kind of depends upon the day.

How I would love to buy one of these and just park it in the street, "mostly" in front of my house. Plus to just drive it in parades or over to car line at school to pick up my daughter.

This one is actually for sale on Bring A Trailer. It's $17k right now.
2000 E-One 110 Aerial Fire Truck

 

[contender]

Sadly,, too often,, some people think that they have more rights to things,, all while ignoring the fact that others have rights as well.

I can appreciate your being silent when she said something about the construction workers. But I would have figured out a way to also start thinking of similar things like you've shown. Even better than a fire truck,, a retired police car. Especially if you have a place to leave it away from the house & only have it "appear" occasionally. Where I live in the country,, hiding something until needed would be easy. Not quite as easy in a town.

And I'd casually begin a process of observing whenever the neighbor had visitors park in the street in front of her house. Take pictures, record, & get license plates,, (discretely.) Build a file. THEN,,, if she ever tried that stuff again,, I'd casually & politely say something like; "Gee, why is it a public street when you need it, yet not when I need it? I mean,, you've used it often for your private purposes, so why can't I?"

 

[eveled]

Very typical of people today. I cannot stand people like that.

You did the right thing, all you can do is laugh it off.

I have a loud neighbor loud cars fireworks etc. especially late at night.

He came over my house on a Saturday morning pounding on my door because the mosquito guy was treating my yard. “Too early” It takes 20 minutes once a month.

I just laughed at him and shut the door.

None of this stuff is worth fighting over.

 

[Dave P.]

Kevin, I get your point, but I'd continue to do what you've been doing. Like getting hit by a stray raindrop, some things aren't even worth the time to think about. People like that are one more small bug on a dirty windshield, wash em off and move on.

 

[g5m]

That woul be an eyeopener, Kevin

 

[Kevin]

It is more funny than anything. Like I said, my wife and I have had many laughs about it.

Besides, last summer this lady’s husband died of Alzheimer’s. So we have to give her a break.

There are however many practical reasons for owning a fire truck. Perhaps someday my wife will understand and say “yes.”

 

[jimbo1096]

I think I would have been quite nice and said "Well, it is a public street." and smiled sweetly. Or maybe not so sweetly.

And as far as having an excuse to own a firetruck, You do have dogs, and need to take them out for a ride occasionally.

 

[eveled]

I believe if you ask any little boy if you should buy a firetruck. They’d all say yes.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

I think I would have been quite nice and said "Well, it is a public street." and smiled sweetly. Or maybe not so sweetly.

And as far as having an excuse to own a firetruck, You do have dogs, and need to take them out for a ride occasionally.

AHHHHHH yes, but then he would have to get some of those white dogs with black spots. Or are they black dogs with white spots
Yea I would have cut the neighbor some slack the first time but not a second time.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

There is a rather wide road right-of-way in front of my house. The neighbors seem to know that they do not own the right-of-way. We are considerate about parking cars there, but once in a while a truck needs to park in front of one of our houses and dam sometimes they break one of my sprinkler heads. Oh Well.

 

[Fox Mike]

One of my neighbors is a "yard freak"; her yard must be perfect at all times. We share a space between us that neither of us actually own; it is an abandoned roadway, however we both cut our sections of it. My neighbor then comes out with a blower and blows the grass trimmings/cuttings. whatever you call them from the lawn tractor. back on my side of the strip. I just laugh inwardly. If I went out and cut my lawn right now (2:50 pm Wednesday 9/1) her daughter would be cutting her lawn before the sun set. Hers must be the best. I say let her have at it.

 

[txramfan]

A few years ago the person across the street decided he should park in front of his neighbours mailbox. All day and often enough the mail wasn't getting delivered. He asked the guy to move his car and got the its a public street reply. So my neighbor parked his two pick ups so the car couldn't move.
It was funny watching the mailbox blocker getting upset when he was told its a public street. Trucks were moved and the problem was solved.

 

[blume357]

Seems we have some squirlley guy here in town who's wife was messing with a politician and the guy decided to make some kind of statement and bought an empty church and did this to it.... me thinks he was smoking just a tad too much wacky weed:



You can look up pink church in Greenville S.C. and possibly figure it out.... to say the neighbors aren't happy is an understatement.

 

[Jeepnik]

I guess I must live in a happier place. Perhaps living at the beach breeds happiness.

Most ou the homes here have single car garages. Most families have at least three cars. So folks generally put one in the garage, one in the driveway and one on the street. Now about half the homes on my side and none on the other have front facing garages. The rest are off of alleys. This provides lots of street parking. And folks have sort of adopted “their” spots. Others generally respect the “ownership”. But if someone parks in “your” spot no one has a cow.

A few years ago a new family moved in and immediately started pushing for an HOA. Among the things they wanted regulated was street parking.

Now me being me I made it very clear that I would never join an HOA and even if they formed one I wouldn’t abide by their arbitrary rules. I did discover that an HOA can’t regulate public street parking here.

Long story short, the new people lasted less than two years until they move to the land of HOA Nirvana.

As to the pink house, had they formed the HOA and regulated paint color my wife and I discussed purple with pink vertical stripes.

 

[contender]

I'm sure many of us have "neighbor stories" we can share. I've been mostly lucky in my area with my neighbors. Rarely any issues.

Where we currently live,, I own about 30 acres. My gun range is on part of it. But my house sits pretty close to one edge of the property. My adjoining property owner & I were "ok" most of the time, as his place was undeveloped & would need a lot of serious machine type of clean-up.
Well, he sold it, (thanks to his screw-ups & a murder charge where he was high on drugs & killed a man in a head on collision.)
The new owner had the equipment to do the necessary dozer, backhoe & grading work to clean it up.
The new owner,, had began working on the place & was going to put his house etc above me. He & I had met a few times & seemed like a nice guy. Well, he caught me one day & in our casual conversation,, he nervously asked me if I'd have an issue with him building a dirt bike track on his land for his son & a few others to ride on.
With a dead serious look on my face,, I replied; "A dirt track? Well, no problem as long as you don't mind gunfire!" His face fell & looked upset & startled all at once. I then quickly replied with a smile; "I've got a gun range & if you don't mind my noise,, I won't mind your noise!"
His sigh of relief was followed by a big grin & we've gotten along great. We help each other whenever needed.

Sadly,, too many people think they have authority or whatever over public property, or even worse, their neighbor's property. Heck, often they sometimes think they own a lot more than they actually do.

I've shared this before.

Decades ago,, we'd been rabbit hunting in an apple orchard. We'd parked at the corner,, (along one of the tractor roads into the orchard.) Next door was a house. When we returned from hunting,, the game warden was waiting for us. No problem, we were all legal etc. But even before he could do much,, the lady who lived in that house came out, ranting & raving,, saying; "That's them, that's them,, they are hunting on my property!"
Well the son of the orchard owner was with us. Before he could even say anything,, or even the warden could say much,, this woman went into a tirade of complaining. I asked her; "Where do you live? And how much property do you own?" She replied that she "lived in that house & owned a half an acre!" She was puffed out about what she thought was a BIG piece of property,, that little half acre.
I blew a gasket,, and said; "Lady, do you realize how little 1/2 an acre is? And that this man here,, (pointing to the owner's son) his Dad owns this orchard,, and it's almost 90 acres! That's d*** near 180 times the size of your little half acre. And we d*** well have permission to be here!"
The game warden was trying to calm me down, and a few other guys got a bit mouthy as well. The warden told her to go back to her house. She did. I tried to firmly tell that warden that he'd best explain to her that she was totally in the wrong & to leave us the heck alone. He said he would.
We followed that hunt with weekly visits to either hunt, or just shoot in that orchard,, just to let her know that SHE was way out of line.

So,, there's a good neighbor story & a bad neighbor story.

 

[TENFAN]

We don't live in an HOA, just on a public street. A few years ago, I was talking with the neighbor lady, and she mentioned they were having a party that night. I casually said, I didn't care if the guests parked in front of my house or not.

She replied rather abruptly: "Well, it is a public street."

Then, probably two years later, my wife and I remodeled our kitchen. She came over and asked me to NOT have the contractors park on the street in front of her house.

I just smiled on the inside and said I'd see what I could do.

Now, it's just an inside joke with my wife. I never said anything to the neighbor. She's sort of nice. Kind of depends upon the day.

How I would love to buy one of these and just park it in the street, "mostly" in front of my house. Plus to just drive it in parades or over to car line at school to pick up my daughter.

View attachment 6153

This one is actually for sale on Bring A Trailer. It's $17k right now.
2000 E-One 110 Aerial Fire Truck

Cool. It would make a great portable deer stand

 

[toysoldier]

There's a whole lot of stories on youtube about entitled neighbors, and how they were dealt with.

 

[Ka6otm]

I live in an HOA, a good one, sort of a benevolent dictatorship.

Anyway, got a new neighbor a year or so ago who decided they'd park in front of my house instead of parking in front of their own house or in their garage or driveway. They wanted to do this to leave room for visitors to park in front of their house and in their driveway.

Needless to say, I said no and advised them that doing so was a violation of our CC&Rs.

I guess they didn't believe me, so I filed a complaint. After a point it becomes around a $70.00/day violation so they decided to expand their driveway and park there so they'd have room for their visitors.

In the year they've lived there I've seen visitors come 3 times total.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

Yard sales and birthday parties are always a good time to see how neighbors get along with the car parking.

 

[Snake Pleskin]

I guess I must live in a happier place. Perhaps living at the beach breeds happiness.

Most ou the homes here have single car garages. Most families have at least three cars. So folks generally put one in the garage, one in the driveway and one on the street. Now about half the homes on my side and none on the other have front facing garages. The rest are off of alleys. This provides lots of street parking. And folks have sort of adopted “their” spots. Others generally respect the “ownership”. But if someone parks in “your” spot no one has a cow.

A few years ago a new family moved in and immediately started pushing for an HOA. Among the things they wanted regulated was street parking.

Now me being me I made it very clear that I would never join an HOA and even if they formed one I wouldn’t abide by their arbitrary rules. I did discover that an HOA can’t regulate public street parking here.

Long story short, the new people lasted less than two years until they move to the land of HOA Nirvana.

As to the pink house, had they formed the HOA and regulated paint color my wife and I discussed purple with pink vertical stripes.

I was President of our HOA in Troon Verde for several years. Houses could not be painted the same color within three houses of each other. All houses had to pass a color approval and an LSV Light Saturation Value etc, both by the HOA and North Scottsdale! Basically you could have any color of dirt brown,khaki you wanted, however roof tiles had to coordinate! We also lived in an ESL area Evironmentally Sensitive Lighting. No street lights, no light of any type pointing upward, all lighting had to be down lighting and approved, to preserve the desert view, no sidewalks allowed. Minimum footprint. etc? It goes on and on.