by Karen Cleveland
This is in response to a question…thought it was worth sharing.

The scenario is that my friend and her husband have a parking space at their home, but aside from the odd car rental, they don’t regularly park in the space.

Occasionally their neighbours, who they are friendly with, will park in their spot, but they always ask before.
Enter the issue….

Said neighbours are preparing for a renovation so asked my kind friend if they could park in their spot for two or three days.

Two weeks later (with no ‘do you mind if we extend your generous offer?’), they finally leave, only for some not-so-friendly other neighbours to jump in and start parking in their spot!

Classic case of assuming people taking advantage of other peoples’ good nature.

My friend shares that her street is pretty tight, so she doesn’t want to have them towed or take drastic measures. And how do you confront one neighbour, while clearly allowing the other to use the space?

Aside from buying a car, the next best thing may be to just use the space as frequently as possible to remind everyone on her street that is not a communal spot. Invite friends over to dinner. Encourage family to drop buy. Need someone to feed your cat? Pick the friend with a car. Refinish a piece of old furniture in your driveway and take all bloody fall to do it.

In this instance, she can bring the issue to a head through her actions rather than a confrontation. Failing that, a little sticky note with the contact information for Toronto’s street parking arrangements should do it. Unless they are so thick they don’t get it: in which case I’m concerned that they are operating a car.