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We own a townhouse in a complex of eight, each with a double garage. Effectively there are four houses each side of the driveway; we are the third on the right.
Several of the occupiers park their cars on the common property, but for the two at the top of the driveway this does not cause any issues to any other residents, and the one at the bottom of the driveway also doesn’t cause any problems as there’s plenty of room to get past.
The resident directly opposite us, however, is another story. They park their large 4×4 in such a way that it is very difficult for us to get the car into our garage, and 9 times out of 10 they either are not home or don’t answer the door when we go and ask them to move it.
When they do answer, it’s usually the wife and she can’t move the 4×4 as it’s her husband’s, it’s a manual, and she can’t drive a manual.
We have asked and asked and asked them not to park there and all they say is “council doesn’t say we can’t park here” and today she suggested that we ask the police what they think. They use their garage for storage (her car is permanently parked in one of the visitor spots, but that’s another issue) and refuse to park on the street because they think their cars will get damaged.
She didn’t believe my husband when he told her that my car lives on the street (my husband’s scuba gear and our bikes take up the second spot in our garage) and said that he was lying and that we only have one car, she’s never seen me drive (funny that – my car is always on the street!).
There’s also a language barrier – the husband doesn’t speak English at all so his wife has to translate for him, and her English isn’t spectacular either.
We’ve pointed out that they are in breach of strata bylaws but they don’t seem to care. I suspect they’ll change their tune when they start getting fined, but the issue is that we don’t want to cause problems for the other residents whose parking isn’t causing an issue.
I know we need to talk to our strata manager, but what is the likelihood of them taking action against one resident but not another? So fed up with this issue but don’t want to cause fights with the neighbours that we get along with.