For months, every time I visit my friend in a rather nice neighborhood, I’ve seen this car on an empty street with a basketball hoop in the trunk. I mean that the hoop is mounted in the trunk with the trunk lid removed, and it’s standing vertically at regulation height.

Yesterday, I finally asked my friend the story.

A local dad put up a basketball hoop on the street (it’s an undeveloped dead-end street), so his kids could shoot some hoops — safely, since there was zero traffic on this road. At the end of the dead-end street is a fence bordering a trailer park. The man in the trailer on the other side of the fence reported the hoop, and the police had to get the dad to take it down.

Annoyed that this guy was preventing his kids from playing basketball, the dad bought a car for a few hundred dollars and had the shop down the road weld the basketball hoop into the trunk. There aren’t any parking rules for that street except that a vehicle can’t remain in one place for more than fourteen days. So, every fourteen days, the dad moves the car to the other side of the street. The car still runs — barely — and there’s a mechanic/gas station across the street if he needs one.

Many folks in the neighborhood now come to shoot hoops nightly. The police have left a handful of towing notices on the car, but they have since stopped responding to complaints about its presence. So, it seems the basketball car is here to stay!

In the area of the city where I live, there are some row houses and a couple of big house blocks. Some of the row houses have their own private parking spots directly in front of their house entrances but obviously separated from the street/public area.

For all the rest of the people living in the big apartment complexes, there are some parking lanes as well as some turnouts. They’re all directly connected to the street and pedestrian walk, so they are public.

I have this particular neighbor who lives in the building next to mine, I think on the sixth floor. I know him from some owner’s meetings as these two buildings belong together and he owns an apartment in that building. He is somewhere in his fifties, and I don’t know what work he does, but he is at home most of the time. His car is a dark blue metallic Audi A6 which he rarely drives. Most of the time, his car is standing in the turnout parking spot directly connected to the pedestrian walk closest to the entrances of our buildings.

Last Saturday, an old friend of mine came by to help me move out our old living room furniture and bring up the new ones. Some of the old stuff was still in great shape, so my friend wanted to keep some of that. No problem, take what you want.

When he came, the parking spot closest to the entrance was free. Great, no need to carry the stuff far. We were happy. We took the stuff [Friend] wanted to keep to his car and went back inside and started to work on the new furniture.

After like four hours, we were done, and we wanted to quickly grab something to eat before [Friend] drove home; the installation had taken longer than we’d expected.

We went outside to find a “friendly” note behind the windscreen of [Friend]’s car and a blue metallic Audi A6 parked behind [Friend]’s car, about two inches away and half on the street as this was a turnout parking spot directly connected to the street.

Note: “TO THE IDIOT WHO BLOCKS MY SPOT: RING MY BELL AT HOUSE 25, SIXTH FLOOR. NEXT TIME, I WILL HAVE YOUR CAR TOWED! YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE MY SPOT!”

Friend: “Is this guy serious? This is public parking.”

So, we went and rang the guy’s bell. It took some time for him to answer.

Friend: “You parked behind my car. Please move yours; I want to drive home.”

Neighbor: “About time! Wait; I will come!”

He came down already shaking his arms at us, and he immediately started yelling.

Neighbor: “YOU CAN’T PARK IN MY SPOT! NEVER PARK HERE AGAIN OR YOUR CAR IS GONE!”

Friend: “That is actually a public parking spot; anyone can park there.”

Neighbor: “No! This is my spot. I always use that spot. Everyone knows that is my spot!”

Friend: “That does not make it yours.”

Neighbor: “Yes, it does! I always use it, so by customary right, it belongs to me!“

Me: “Man, this is city property. Using it often does not make it yours.”

Neighbor: “This is my spot! Everyone knows that. Only I park here. Park here again and I will have your car towed.”

Friend: “Good luck with that. In a public parking spot, parked perfectly within the lines… while your car is actually parked half on the street and blocking traffic, so actually, your car is going to be towed.”

Ooooh, he did not like that. He made a move like he wanted to throw a punch but decided otherwise; due to his screaming, there were a couple of people watching the scene.

He got into his car and moved it to the side, making some rude gestures toward us.

After that, he started to place a box in the parking spot when he left.

Now, as the weather is getting better, I enjoy sitting on my balcony having a beer, reading my comics, and looking down on that exact street and parking area. The best part of my day now is watching [Neighbor], who screamed at me in public for ten minutes because he does not want others to park in a public spot, drive out, stop on the road without warning lights, and get out of his car to illegally block a public parking spot with a box.

I smile and wait and finish my beer. Then, I go down and remove his box and leave a note on the parking spot reading, “Welcome! Have a nice day. Please stay as long as you like.”

I can’t wait until my bell rings and he screams at me again.

My brother, sister, and I moved our mom into a low-income housing unit. Because my siblings live in other towns, it is up to me to look after Mom. The units are all ground level with individual entrances. In the center of the U-shaped complex is the manager’s office building. Each unit has a mailbox attached to the wall next to the entry door.

At one point, my mom was put into a hospital for several days to check and regulate her meds. She wound up staying for three weeks.

While she was gone, I intended to go every couple of days to check what little mail she might receive. The third day after she was admitted, I went for her mail and there wasn’t any. Not to worry. I waited a couple more days and, again, no mail. Then, I decided to go the next day and check because I suspected something was up since the daily newspaper was never there on the stoop.

I went to the manager’s office to see if he knew something about her mail and newspapers.

Manager: “The lady next door has been picking up her mail and paper. She said her rotten son was not paying any attention.”

Me: “You tell her to leave the mail alone and bring back all she has taken.”

A couple of days went by. I went to check again, and guess what? No mail and paper.

I decided to put a stop to this another way.

The next day, the manager stopped me at Mom’s door.

Manager: “What did you tell your mother’s neighbor? She’s scared to death.”

I saw that Mom’s mailbox was full of all the past mail. I grabbed it and handed the manager a postcard I’d sent my mom.

Me: “Here’s what I did.”

Postcard: “Anyone besides my mother who reads this postcard is in violation of Federal Postal Regulations and I will file a complaint with the Postmaster and have charges filed.”

Manager: “Nice. I’d have never thought of that.”

After that, the mail and newspaper were always there every day that I went to pick them up.

Back in the 1980s, I bought an old secondhand Skoda. At the time, they were very unfashionable and the butt of many, many jokes. But they were cheap, tough, and reliable.

My neighbour across the road bought a Mercedes at around the same time and thought he was the bee’s knees. He crowed about how expensive and exclusive his car was, all the executive options it had, and what a shame it was that I was stuck with just a Skoda. We both left for work at about the same time every morning, and he constantly sneered at my ugly, cheap car. He would jump in his smart shiny Merc and rev the engine, asking me, “Hear that? Doesn’t it sound good?” while my valiant little Skoda chugged away. 

Then, winter arrived, and the temperature overnight dropped way below freezing for the first time. At 6:00 am, I went out, started my car, and started scraping ice off the windows. My neighbour came out and laughed at me.

Neighbour: “I bet you wish your car had heated seats like mine!”

He got in his car. I had the glorious opportunity to listen to his car completely fail to start, over and over. He kept turning the key, and there was just that whirring noise of the car failing to start over and over until the battery started to fade, too. All the time, his face was getting redder and redder and angrier and angrier. Finally, he got out, slammed the door, and stamped back into his house.

This happened three mornings in a row. He wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t even catch my eye as I got my car going and drove off. I even gave him a cheery wave.

He had to buy some electric thing that ran from the house under the bonnet. I’m not sure what, maybe an engine warmer or something — I’m not remotely technical. I waved to him every day from my cheap, ugly, super-reliable Skoda.

My neighbors have three boys, all under the age of seven. In my first encounter with the mom, she promptly told me (not asked) that her kids wander. I naively thought that meant there might be the odd rogue ball episode or something so didn’t protest at the time. Oh, boy, was I wrong.

Our yards are unfenced, and we share a driveway. My yard, back deck, front garden, and even the inside of my house were seen as an extension of their space. The boys would even have sword fight tournaments on my back deck, off my kitchen. Their parents would literally do nothing. I was put in a position many times to ask for more privacy as it was affecting my work and a general sense of well-being as I am a very private person. It took some pushing, but finally, things got a bit better. But they still “wandered” — however, to a level I was not willing to cause drama over.

This past early winter, I decided to put in security cameras. I live alone in a not-so-great area and I wanted some peace of mind. I also wanted to document encroachment in case it got bad again. In that time, the cameras have picked up a lot of encroachment from kids, but I did not raise the issue, because the relationship with parents is peaceful, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Fast forward to yesterday. My camera picks up a clip of the middle kid peering into my window with a pair of binoculars.

I send the clip to the parents, explaining that one of my cameras picked it up and that I am not comfortable with this behaviour. It is inappropriate and an invasion of my privacy. They send a note back saying he was only trying to see if I was home so he could say hello. Then, they insist on knowing more about my security cameras, what they can see, and if they pick up the kids playing in their yard. I explain that they don’t as they only pick up motion in my yard. But, if the kids are in my yard — which they are… a lot — they are recorded.

The parents are insisting I take the cameras down.

The lesson is: entitled parents raise entitled children. I am frightened to see what kind of adults these kids will turn into. Who knows if I will be here long enough to find out?

I would love a fence, but I live in an area where wood is twice the price, and tradespeople are taking bribes for bookings. It’s not really possible right now, but someday. The neighbors are not only entitled but also deadbeats, so I’d be paying for it on my own. I did the one thing I had control of and that’s installing cameras.

Related:
Some Parents Are Way Too Comfortable Leaving Their Kids With Strangers, Part 2
Some Parents Are Way Too Comfortable Leaving Their Kids With Strangers