Drivers finding a place to park at a public parking lot is like winning the jackpot.
One entitled driver who didn't understand the concept of "first come, first served" had a hissy fit and was compelled to pen a very angry letter to reprimand a driver for parking in one of the few available spots at a public parking area.
A Redditor shared a photo of the hand-written complaint found on their parked car, which read:
"This is a public car park. You have taken parking spaces for two weeks."
"This is not fair on residents whom rely on this car park. The council have been informed!"
superhove/Reddit
The note—which was posted on the UK-based subReddit, "CasualUK"—was juxtaposed with the brilliant response by the car owner, the Original Poster (OP), in which they set the record straight first by commiserating on a frustrating situation.
Their response read:
"To the writer of this note, firstly, I would like to thank you for the vigour with which you are defending residents' right to park in this public car park."
"I have not taken parking spaces for two weeks, as you claim, but actually two years with this vehicle and six years if we're including my previous vehicle."
"I agree that it is annoying when there aren't any spaces left in this car park, however that is the nature of a public car park and it's something we all have to live with.
The OP continued:
"For at least three nights last week I had to park on [road name]."
"While I appreciate your opinion, I will be continuing to use this car park, where spaces permit, for the foreseeable future."
"I would have thought that my house being 200ft away from this car park qualified me as a resident.
"If you'd like to discuss this in more detail, I would welcome the opportunity to hear what the council's response was to being informed that a car has parked in a public car park."
The situation was all-too-familiar to a handful of Redditors on the thread.
"Reminds me of the time someone left a note on my flatmates car, adamant that the parking was residents only and that he should use the public car park two streets down... Except the car park two streets down is actually private, it's not residents only parking, and well, even if it was he bloody lives there."
"Lived there like 3 years at this point with the same car." – IAM_THE_LIZARD_QUEEN
"The road I live on has limited parking spaces for residents. Most houses don't have a driveway and have to make do with a shared car park."
"One house in the estate has enough space to park four vehicles, so of COURSE the owner has a boat, two work vans, a camper, his personal runaround car and has just put in a planning application to build a new house on his property without any allocated parking."
"He sees no issue with talking up spaces which are needed by single car households and has been known to leave snotty notes on cars taking up 'his' spaces."
"Surprisingly enough he is relatively openly referred to as a c*nt." – Available-Anxiety280
Another wrote:
"My neighbour does this and I don't know why!! I live in a row of mainsonettes, in a village, so parking isn't a huge issue. BUT the downstairs flats have a driveway big enough for at least 2, maybe three if you're clever about it."
"The upstairs park theirs on the road/ verge outside. But the diagonal downstairs for some reason, (despite even clearing their drive last summer) still park their car on the verge."
"Apart from meaning there's less space (if anyone has visitors etc) I just don't get why someone would prefer to park on the highway next to other parked cars/ and blocking the path?! When they have a perfectly good and safe massive driveway?!?!"
"The mind boggles." – Lishmi
"Reminds me of this old bloke I used to live next door to. Would get up every morning at 7am to move his car from his drive to the front of his house only to move it back again at around 11pm, I assume when he went to bed."
"We lived in a house split into two flats with no drive and the couple downstairs had a car too. Unfortunately for him however, three days a week I got home from work at 6am, used to love winding him up by parking in front of his house."
"Even if he did wake me up banging on the door sometimes, shouting that he needed me to move my car. Was totally worth it." – RegularJay114
"I once got a letter for parking on the street outside someone's house, it was on a public road where I was legally permitted to park, I wasn't blocking access or anything."
"I've never seen such vitriol in a simple note about how they should be the only person allowed to park on a public road outside their house."
"It was written on a print out, something about how unjust some other petty and regularity occurring situation was and how to complain about it. Like watchdog on steroids for mundane and perfectly acceptable situations."
"In the end he won, I didn't park there again, life's too short to get into conflict with people who get that angry over small things. They'll have more time and inclination to make my life a misery than I can be bothered with."
"But in a typically British way i'm still a little annoyed about it 20 years later!" – hello__monkey
The good news is, the OP's vehicle did not suffer any vandalism.
Hopefully, whoever that resident of the area was got the hint that unless the vacant spot is marked with their name, a public parking spot is intended for, well, the public.