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[Jimmy-T]

How far can you go when a stranger parks in your parking space? Actually, there’s two questions – what should you do and what can you do, legally?

One recent Friday night I came home to find my parking space occupied by a smug little Toyota Prius (and, yes, we’ve got your number, tree-hugger!).

Fortunately, there was a visitor car space available (huh??) so I parked there illegally and, having confirmed that the parking thief’s car wasn’t on the visitor sign-in list, went out to dinner to calm down and plot revenge.

Who had done this?  A tail-gater taking advantage of a genuine resident opening the roller door?  A naughty neighbour wrongly assuming I was away for the weekend?

A nasty one taking revenge for complaints about late night music? Or was someone teaching me a lesson for objecting the strata committee’s plan to introduce clamping for just such an event?

On the principle that you shouldn’t ascribe to malice anything that can just as easily be explained by stupidity, perhaps it just a moron who didn’t realise that the bays marked “visitor parking” were the ones set aside for … ummm … visitors.

And what could I do about it?  Complain to the concierge and get them to put a note on the windscreen?  I did, actually, but I might as well have shouted at the car – it wasn’t going to change anything.

To be clear, in most states it is illegal to tow or clamp a car without the owner’s express permission.  Call me “car park half empty” but I’m guessing that permission would not be forthcoming.

Let down a tyre or four?  Well, that could come back to bite me on the bum if I got done for criminal damage, even worse if the environmentally friendly parking thief was stupid enough to drive with flat tyres and had an accident.

And if he or she didn’t drive off because their tyres were flat, it wouldn’t solve the problem – the car would still be there.

Key the car?  That’s definitely criminal damage and, think about it, the ‘victim’ knows where you park your car.

A large, hard-to-remove sticker on the windscreen?  Yeah, OK if you have a large sticker to hand.

The ever-helpful posters on the Flat Chat website had a couple of suggestion, including one who carefully placed a house brick on the windscreen of a car that frequently took their space. The parking thief got the hint and went off to find another space to steal.

And then I remembered what residents of a block in Sydney’s Kings Cross did when weekend revellers parked in their underground garage driveway.

I’m not going to say too much except to allow you to marry these two concepts in your minds: dog poo and door handle.

Now, that would surely make the parking thief think twice before they stole a car space again. And you haven’t actually damaged the car, just altered its aesthetics.

And it would be fun to watch.  I’m thinking viral YouTube clips if you set up a web cam.

As it turned out, as with most things in strata life, the problem resolved itself.  The illegally parked car had gone by the time I got back.

But I’ve bought a webcam and there’s a doggie park nearby and ok, I admit it, I’m now hanging out for that Prius to come back.

There’s more on this on the Flat Chat forum.

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