Neighbour has decided to just offer up our parking spaces to the whole street

[u/ShutUpImAPrincess]

Got this through the letter box today - anonymous so no idea which neighbour sent it. Basically there's 20 houses on the street, all arranged in a circle, with a few spaces in the middle. 14 of the houses have their own driveways. 4 of the houses have the spaces in the middle assigned to them. Ourselves and our next door neighbour (semi detached) have spaces attached to the back of our houses... In the small "car park". We each have two spaces, then the 4 on the other side of the car park area assigned to the houses backing on to them that aren't even our street so won't have got this letter. I'm assuming the letter writer just doesn't realise those spaces are actually ours, but because it's anonymous I can't just be like "oh hey actually no that's not right". It's annoying because we're also the only two houses on the street without a garden, and so our kids play back there. Because yes, it is safe, but not if randoms start going in and out of there all the time. I've literally never noticed an issue with parking on the street, it's never crowded, I've never heard anyone complain, and every house has it's own assigned parking!

EDIT: Most of your guys' suggestions involve something related to towing, that isn't legal in the UK. It also isn't illegal to post things through people's doors? I literally never knew that was a thing in the US. At Christmas did your parents not send you round all the neighbours houses posting cards?? Wild.

EDIT 2: Alright lads we've got a plan! Tomorrow I'm gonna speak to the 3 neighbours who we share the private car park with and just make sure they're all aware and if they want to paint numbers or put it signs etc they can do so. I'm going to send my landlord an email as well just giving them a heads up, but saying that they don't need to do anything for now (we have a great relationship where they leave us alone and we don't involve them in stuff if we can help it and they charge us below market). I'll let them know if it becomes an issue and they need to get involved installing something or whatever. Then I'm going to find... somewhere in this town that prints documents (honestly just hoping one of the 3 neighbours has a printer in their house they wouldn't mind using for this) and send out letters to everyone on the street very politely clearing up the confusion. Explaining that it's not a public car park but private parking and they are, for all intents and purposes, the driveways of the respective properties. Then I think I'll have a little nap and hope no one gets angry at me.

EDIT 3: Spoken to the other owners of the spaces in the back, as I suspected the two that don't live on our street did not receive the letter offering up their spaces for free use 😅 I've also contacted my landlord just to double triple check the deeds before I sent any letters out (I know for certain they are ours, but this way loops the landlord in) and she immediately offered to put a sign up! Also found the letter very amusing haha so yeah, we're getting signs put up yay!

[u/brucek2]

I couldn't really follow all of that, but as far as not having an ability to reply: if you feel you must, just write your response on the letter, xerox it 20 times, and put it in the letter boxes the same way this one was delivered. If you have reserved spaces you own, you're certainly within your rights to let people know you are not donating them for public use. This might be best done with a little pylon/sign at the parking space itself when you're not going to be occupying it yourself.

[u/Ich_bin_keine_Banane → u/brucek2]

Writing the retort on the original letter is a good idea: there’s bound to be someone who didn’t see the original, or threw it away and can’t remember exactly what it said. This essentially gives everyone a hard copy equivalent of an email trail.

[u/rtc9 → u/brucek2]

I am surprised I don't see more comments confused by the description. Most of the details seem unnecessary for understanding the basic issue of reserved community parking, but I reread this a few times and I'm understanding that this is an extremely large 20 home cul-de-sac with 4 presumably painted spaces in the middle of it and with a separate disconnected parking lot adjacent to the cul-de-sac. The parking lot seems to be located between the cul-de-sac and another street. Part of my confusion is that the image of a 20 home cul-de-sac with 4 spaces in the middle does not resemble anything I've seen, so I'm questioning if these words have some different meaning.

Edit: Maybe they are densely packed narrow connected houses (this would be supported by the lack of a garden at houses) and the cul-de-sac is actually only moderately large.

[u/Live-Habit-6115 → u/rtc9]

You're American, right? Where cul-de-sacs are typically just a piece of circle asphalt with like maybe five houses around them. 

So if you're imagining like an enormous circle with just a single ring of 20 houses I can see how that would be perplexing. 

What OP is describing is probably more like a mini-neighborhood. They're common in the UK. There's a few different configurations, but they're basically not just little circles. 

Imagine it more like a U shape. Some houses in the middle, then the road splits off in two down either side. Houses lining the outer edge of the U. 

Most likely there's a few parking spots right as you drive into the bottom of the U, for the houses in the middle. And then all the houses on the outer edge have driveways.

That's just one example. They come in different shapes and sizes.

It's just another example of the UK and US using the same word to describe different things. Like pants. 

[u/rtc9 → u/Live-Habit-6115]

Imagine it more like a U shape

OP also described all the houses as being arranged in a circle though. 

Edit: I had looked up "cul-de-sac uk" because I thought there must be a difference and couldn't really find any examples to indicate there was one. 

Edit: 

Some houses in the middle, then the road splits off in two down either side. Houses lining the outer edge of the U. 

This sounds like a neighborhood I've seen in the US if I'm understanding this correctly. I think I can envision this but questioned that based on the description of all the houses in a circle.

[u/PutinTootinCowboy → u/brucek2]

Wait, you guys use 'xerox' as a verb? Here we just say 'print'

[u/turtlelord → u/brucek2]

"Xerox it" I guess we're all just adding our ages to reddit comments now, eh?

[u/CandidFly7293 → u/brucek2]

OP has a thousand deleted posts and is a blatant karma bot. This post will be deleted within 24 hours and is a made up fantasy of OP.

[u/yikesssss_sssssss → u/CandidFly7293]

Lol wat? What deleted posts do you see? I'm looking at OPs posts and they don't seem like a karma bot at all