What would you do if a stranger began parking in your drive? This is the situation one woman has found herself as after spotting a random using her private drive as their own personal parking space
A woman has sparked a debate over what is the best course of action to take after she discovered a stranger had parked their car on her private driveway.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Dr Barendina Smedley wrote: “How unacceptable is it to park in the drive of someone else’s house without asking? I ask because someone’s been doing this to me and I find it really odd.”
Her tweet quickly gathered momentum from horrified users, attracting almost three thousand comments and over 11,000 ‘likes’. One astonished person replied: “I can’t believe anybody would do that. Do you know where they’re going after parking? A polite note might be least confrontational.”
Explaining a little more, Dr Smedley went on: “Just to clarify, I’m not particularly bothered by this — just curious whether other people thought it was a strange thing to do. We left a polite note on the windscreen. As we don’t have a car perhaps whoever it was just thought there was no one about, which was incorrect.”
Someone else penned: “I would have left a bill for them. £10 per day – quite cheap really, especially if you live near a station. Unless of course someone else is renting out your vacant driveway on Find A Park…” Another person shared: “A mate of mine found out someone was selling his driveway on just park or some other app. The people parking there didn’t know anything about it until one day she was at home sick with her car still in the drive so they knocked to ask as they had paid to park there!!”
A third person reassured her: “Completely unacceptable. But is it possible that they think your drive is the public highway? One day I found a woman wandering round my front garden with her dog. I asked her pleasantly if she was looking for me. She responded that she didn’t realise it was private property.”
Other people suggested more extreme methods to ensure strangers didn’t park on her drive again. One user proposed hiring a skip, while others recommended adding a chain or sign to the front of the drive. And some even urged her to take down the licence plate and call in a solicitor if it happened again.
Many people saw the amusing side of things, with one man joking: “I’m sure I saw flamethrowers in the middle aisle at Aldi last week.” One couldn’t help but comment on how different things are in the UK than across the pond. They shared: “Stuff like that doesn’t happen in the US, because it would end badly.
“I find it pleasantly surprising that you don’t own a car. How do you get from place to place?” To which Dr Smedley replied: “Walking, cycling — or if it’s a long distance, a lift from a friend, or a taxi. Plenty of people in our village don’t own a car!”
Do you have a story to share? Email eve.wagstaff@reachplc.com
