Woman Can’t Stand Neighbors Blocking The Garages, Comes Up With Unique Ways To Make Them Stop
Interview With Author
Cities are great for many reasons, but the ease of finding a good parking spot for free is rarely one of them. Still, if you live there, spending a little extra to park your car safely and close to home is wise.
But not everybody is willing to pay. As this Redditor shared, some people will ignore every sign and park where they’re not supposed to until you do something about it. When her neighbors kept blocking her car and laughing at her complaints, she decided to take matters into her own hands using cheese, snow, and fake parking tickets. Scroll down to read the full story!
More info: Reddit
Some people feel entitled to park their car wherever they want and refuse to change their behavior until they face the consequences
Image credits: Tungsten Rising (not the actual photo)
A woman rented a garage spot under her building and had her driveway constantly blocked by the cars belonging to the people living above her
Image credits: Andra C Taylor Jr (not the actual photo)
When she didn’t receive help from her landlord, she resorted to throwing expired cheese down on the cars below
Image credits: Tom Dick (not the actual photo)
The cheese tactic was ignored, so the woman and her garage buddies shoveled in one of the cars with snow
Image credits: peachfruitscato
The offenders dealt with the snow and continued parking where they wanted, so the woman started placing fake parking tickets, which finally got them scared away
The story took place a couple of years ago. The OP lived in an apartment off campus and rented one of the three garage spots while studying. The layout near the garage spots was made so that if any car were parked there, all of the garage spots would be blocked.
There were clear signs around that parking there was not allowed, but some people in the poster’s building didn’t seem to care and parked there anyway. She tried to confront them but was only met with laughs, which irritated her even more.
The landlord didn’t respond to the complaints either, so the three garage renters banded together and decided to take action. First, the woman started dropping slices of expired cheese on the cars whenever there was one standing in the driveway for too long.
When that method didn’t bring much change, the woman and her buddies decided to use their shovels and barricaded one of the illegally parked cars in the snow. Then, they hid their instruments and, for a little while, watched the owners struggle to clear their vehicles.
Unfortunately, the message was ignored nonetheless. So, the OP came up with a solution. She designed and ordered parking tickets and placed them on the illegally parked cars. While she could not legally fine them, the tickets seemed real enough to scare most offenders away.
The story amused the commenters, but most agreed that this was excessive and that many other solutions could’ve made this much faster and easier. The poster admitted that, at the time, she wasn’t aware they could just call the authorities and get the cars towed, but she had fun doing what she did either way.
Image credits: Samuel Regan-Asante (not the actual photo)
Just like the commenters said, the situation could’ve most likely been dealt with in an easier and more efficient way. But in that scenario, we wouldn’t have gotten a chance to read about OP’s endeavors, and where would the fun be in that?
Since the story was so amusing, we wanted to get more details, so Bored Panda reached out to peachfruitscato, who loved our interest in the story and was glad to answer our questions.
We asked the author what inspired her to share her incident with the Petty Revenge community, to which she answered that she was encouraged by the positive feedback from the people she told the story to in person. “I was worried that the people I did it to would eventually see the post, but at the end of the day, it’s not like I really did anything wrong, and they totally deserved it!”
The OP was surprised by the amount of reactions her post received and the number of people who thought that the methods she chose for this situation were excessive. “People took it way too seriously. I was just a college kid messing with other college kids,” explained the author, saying that people probably overestimated how little extra effort most of their actions took.
The woman added that, at the time, she and her garage buddies weren’t sure if they could get the offenders’ cars towed, as the driveway did come with their building. But on the other hand, the suggestions people had for the poster amused her. “I definitely wouldn’t personally do most of those, seeing as many of them are actually illegal, but I loved the creativity and support for the cause!”
When asked about her approach to the situation, the OP answered that not getting an answer from the landlord wasn’t unusual, as the building was managed by a property company and not a single person. And even though a good while later she did receive some help from the landlord, at first, she had to take matters into her own hands. “My goal was to inconvenience them as much as possible without actually causing any damage or doing anything illegal.”
Besides cheese, snow, and fake parking tickets, the poster also tried using ketchup, which didn’t work because she couldn’t risk getting close enough. “I had to water it down for it to work though, which made it too watery for it to really show on the car, so I scrapped that idea,” said the woman, explaining her idea of putting the ketchup into a squirt gun.
For anyone dealing with anything similar, the OP recommended trying to handle it through legitimate ways first. But if that bears no results, the next best thing is to get as malicious as you legally can. “I was very careful to pick methods that were annoying to others but that I couldn’t get in legal trouble for,” added the author, encouraging others to be careful doing something like this.
In the end, we all deal with our problems how we best see fit. Some of these methods might really make us delve into pettiness and seem excessive to some, but who’s to say you can’t have fun along the way, too? After all, when you think about it, “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time,” just like Marthe Troly-Curtin wrote.
What did you think about this story? How would you have acted in this kind of situation? Share your thoughts below!
The commenters were amused by the story but thought that the poster’s solutions were a bit excessive
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How disappointing. I was hoping for some serious revenge, not melted cheese and fake tickets.
Or just phone a towing company. They know whether it's legal or not and will sort it if legal.
Load More Replies...
We had a similar problem when I lived in an apartment building in Rome. It got so bad that once we poured paint stripper on the roof and hood of a repeat offender. Fortunately, he had managed to block an entire wing of apartments' parking spaces, so everyone could claim ignorance. This was the early 80s, so no camera and a brand of paint stripper that is no longer legal in most of the world. It made the paint bubble up, but he never parked there again.
Purely coincidental but have you ever seen what boiling water does to a windshield? I mean if you were to make a coffee and trip with the window open, who knows where the coffee would land?
This was when I lived in an apartment. I had a detached garage and would have to walk up stairs from the parking lot (around 10 steps) from a pretty steep grassy hill to get to the sidewalk. A car started parking in front of the stairs, all the way up so there was no access to my apartment. I left a note. Nothing. I told apartments. Nothing. I would have to go down stairs, step onto the hood and climb down. Going up I'd throw all my c**p onto hood, climb up and step onto steps. I got off work one night after 2 am and surprise! they did it again. By now I was done. I was also in college, so I got notebook paper and Elmer's glue. Covered the entire windshield with glue and thin notebook paper. This worked. They either didn't park in that spot or left ample room to get down stairs. I know it wasn't nice, but I could have done worse and I was sooo frustrated.
The cheese (or any kind of canned fish) works better in the air intakes (usually by now just below the windscreen and the trunk), they'll have to sell the car for parts not to realize any income from the air ducts, fans, or internal upholstery. But I would insist on making a perfect copy of a ticket, a prepaid card qrcode account, and a pay immediately/50%off rate.
I would throw some birdseed on their cars. Little birdie poop all over their windshields.
How disappointing. I was hoping for some serious revenge, not melted cheese and fake tickets.
Or just phone a towing company. They know whether it's legal or not and will sort it if legal.
Load More Replies... We had a similar problem when I lived in an apartment building in Rome. It got so bad that once we poured paint stripper on the roof and hood of a repeat offender. Fortunately, he had managed to block an entire wing of apartments' parking spaces, so everyone could claim ignorance. This was the early 80s, so no camera and a brand of paint stripper that is no longer legal in most of the world. It made the paint bubble up, but he never parked there again.
Purely coincidental but have you ever seen what boiling water does to a windshield? I mean if you were to make a coffee and trip with the window open, who knows where the coffee would land?
This was when I lived in an apartment. I had a detached garage and would have to walk up stairs from the parking lot (around 10 steps) from a pretty steep grassy hill to get to the sidewalk. A car started parking in front of the stairs, all the way up so there was no access to my apartment. I left a note. Nothing. I told apartments. Nothing. I would have to go down stairs, step onto the hood and climb down. Going up I'd throw all my c**p onto hood, climb up and step onto steps. I got off work one night after 2 am and surprise! they did it again. By now I was done. I was also in college, so I got notebook paper and Elmer's glue. Covered the entire windshield with glue and thin notebook paper. This worked. They either didn't park in that spot or left ample room to get down stairs. I know it wasn't nice, but I could have done worse and I was sooo frustrated.
The cheese (or any kind of canned fish) works better in the air intakes (usually by now just below the windscreen and the trunk), they'll have to sell the car for parts not to realize any income from the air ducts, fans, or internal upholstery. But I would insist on making a perfect copy of a ticket, a prepaid card qrcode account, and a pay immediately/50%off rate.
I would throw some birdseed on their cars. Little birdie poop all over their windshields.
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