What do you do when people park in your assigned spot?

I'm just at my wits' end. We have assigned parking spaces at our apartment building. Unluckily for us, ours is handy to the steps that lead up to the main door.

Lately there's been a BMW parking there often. Sometimes when I come home in the cold and with heavy groceries, I have left a note saying "hey, it's cold and groceries are heavy! Please don't park here, park in your assigned spot!"

Four times in the last 24 hours, someone has been in our spot when we come home, laden with whatever.

My boyfriend cringes and thinks it's horribly anti-social to leave a note. He actually thinks we shouldn't leave a note at all, least someone do something to OUR car.

Am I crazy? I have been as inventive to leave a note on the inside of the outer door, saying "hey, if your car is missing, it's been towed, here's the number of the towing company - Merry Christmas!" and then leave a note on the windshield of the car, saying "Hey, towing company guy, this is the one to tow! Thank you!"
without ever actually having contact with a towing company. There's a sign in the parking lot that says "you will be towed if you park in someone else's space", but when I asked the landlord about it, he said that's just a bullshit warning - he doesn't have any arrangement with a towing company at all.

Get a couple of cinder blocks. I'd have said put a couple of crappy chairs in the space, which is, sort of famously, what Chicagoans do, and it works but it looks, well, crappy. But nobody wants to get out of their car to move a thing from an available parking spot. I'd say talk to the person who owns the car, but if the note's not working, I'm thinking talking won't either.

The management at the apartments where I live want to know of any problems there may be with other residents. They prefer to take the action and not have the resident approach another about a problem. I actually like it this way because I really do not like confrontation. Hopefully you have proactive management like we do here. Good luck.

Except that the landlord apparently isn't much interested. Or that's what I gathered from Marsha's comment.

I second the chair idea. Dont know how it would here in KY, but up there you would never think about moving somebodys chair. Another idea would be to double park behind that guy if possible.

[Robin Garr]

It's not an easy situation, Marsha, and I'm doing all I can to resist drawing the obvious conclusion about Beemer drivers.

It really does seem to me, though, that the best of a set of poor options would be

(1) Leaning on the landlord to intervene, or

(2) Discuss this with the Beemer driver directly, keeping things as non-confrontational as possible.

I'm not sure about the legalities, but I suspect that you might be opening yourself up to liability (auto theft?) if you had a tow-truck company come and haul him off yourself, although that approach could be sorely tempting. On the other hand, the warning being posted, the landlord could probably place that call even if he doesn't actually have a contract.

It sounds like a crappy situation all around. What a jerk. I like the idea of placing cinderblocks in the spot. It would suck to move, but really, maybe he'd get the hint if he uhm, ran over one in his BMW and screwed it up, or if he had to actually put forth some effort in order to steal your spot. Anyone know what the legal implications might be, if one were to put up cinderblocks in their assigned spot, and some jerk ran over one with his car?

The cinder blocks might be problematic, actually, and I thought of that later, insofar as if the guy ran over one he might feel compelled to sue somebody. The chairs would be more benign. But I'm actually liking the idea of just parking behind him. If, as the landlord said, there's no towing agreement with anybody, then Marsha wouldn't be towed either and it might finally get the offending parker to park somewhere else.

my wife has a form note that she prints out each time someone parks in our spot, in the note she states that she has copied down their tag numbers and will have them towed if it happens again, its pretty effective because no one has ever duplicated.

you can call any towing company just about and they will come and tow the car away, and the car owner will have to pay the towing company charges. I would also lean on the landlord, to make an arrangement with a towing company.

He sounds like an egotistical jerk with an inadequacy issue. Maybe you should point at him and giggle next time you see him.

Do you have an icepick?

Marsha,

There's a possibility that the car belongs to a visitor ( new boyfriend?) of a tenant, so they don't have an assigned spot. No excuse, but may be theirs.

I'm all for Colleen's cinderbock idea : acts as both a detourant and gets the point across. I can't think of any reason they could sue if they were stupid enough to drive over them- It's your assigned space after all. If necessary, paint them bright red or yellow.

Parking behind him is an excellent idea ( with a phone number so he/she can reach you to move your car- when you are able ) But I'm guessing there may not be room to do that and not block other drivers.

I also like the note threatening to tow, but the above may be a little more "neighbor friendly".

Deb

You know, I hope I don't come off sounding like a total shrew, here - if there were empty apartments in our building I would just park in one of those slots, but there aren't any empty apartments. As for parking behind the offending car - that's a public alleyway so that won't do. And yes, I'm totally willing to believe it's just someone that VISITS someone else in the building, but then they should park on the street (which is down a long set of concrete stairs with no handrail, but since visitors won't be carrying groceries or laundry, that's where they should park!).

It's all a function of us (due to our apartment number) just coincidentally having the PRIMO parking spot, right by the sidewalk that leads directly to the front door. To add insult to injury, inevitably if I leave a note on a windshield, I will find it crumpled up and thrown to the ground, so then I also have to pick it up and throw it away.

Okay, maybe I AM a shrew.

Marsha,

I've got a guy from out of town who can take care of the problem for you...and he just happens to owe me a favor.

Marsha,

I've got a guy from out of town who can take care of the problem for you...and he just happens to owe me a favor.

LOL - Steve, I don't want anyone KILLED, for Pete's sake.

































*call me*