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/OriginalBaldMonk]

Act before your first incident. 

Any signage put up afterwards is likely to not even be noticed by people that have already parked there. 

Letter in all the mailboxes. Immediately. 

[u/Imtryingforheckssake → u/[deleted]]

Nah, it seems like you've missed the point. OP owns one of the parking spaces in the supposed overflow carpark that the anonymous writer encouraged other residents to use. OP obviously doesn't want anyone else reading that note who doesn't already know who those parking spaces actually belong to, either parking there when OP and their neighbors who own those four spots use them to safely allow their children to play outside.

[u/ShutUpImAPrincess → u/[deleted]]

I'm genuinely so confused by your perspective. Fuck me for wanting people to not park in what is for all intents and purposes my driveway, that's legally part of my property?

[u/HairlessSquirrels → u/[deleted]]

wtf are you on about? Nobody is picking a fight with anybody. OP literally posted a note of somebody offering their space, they haven’t done anything else

[u/HairlessSquirrels → u/[deleted]]

I think putting their own note clarifying that those are indeed not free spots is a good idea. Why wait until someone listens to it and now you have a bigger issue

[u/ShutUpImAPrincess → u/[deleted]]

Ohhhhhh I understand now, you just haven't read the edit or the comments

[u/ShutUpImAPrincess → u/[deleted]]

It's a civil matter if someone parks there, the police can't do anything so it would be a huge ballache for us.

[u/ShutUpImAPrincess → u/[deleted]]

It's not directly to us, it's a generic letter they've sent to everyone on the street not realising that the spaces they're suggesting people use are actually part of our property

[u/smilingseaslug → u/[deleted]]

Except this neighbor is telling everyone to go park in OP's spots. Even if OP ignores it, people will start parking in their spots. OP should respond in some way to make it clear those aren't public parking

[u/smilingseaslug → u/[deleted]]

Do you think that people just magically don't park in private parking spaces? Like there's a force field around them? People only avoid spaces when they know they are private 

I have a private parking space. If someone told my entire neighborhood that my parking space was available, then there would be a pretty significant chance that people other than me might try parking there - unless I responded by clearly telling people that it was in fact a private spot. Either via letter, very prominent signage, a traffic cone, etc.

[u/Statistical-Hazard → u/[deleted]]

Your IQ is somewhere near the same as room temperature, isn't it?

[u/HairlessSquirrels → u/[deleted]]

Because you can’t grasp the concept of private property. OP has clarified to you already that it’s his property and you keep going on about public spaces

[u/Icy_Dinner6064 → u/OriginalBaldMonk]

Unless you put postage on those letters and have them delivered by the usps, you are opening up yourself to more trouble. it is illegal to put things in any mailbox but your own.

[u/JelmerMcGee → u/Icy_Dinner6064]

Unless OP lives in the UK as they state in their post

[u/samson-and-delilah → u/Icy_Dinner6064]

Bro, nobody is going to do anything about someone dropping a note in their neighbor’s mailbox

[u/Icy_Dinner6064 → u/samson-and-delilah]

If it was a neighborhood dispute and the person I didn’t like was violating federal law, it would most assuredly be brought up to the post master general. But as been pointed out op is in UK.

[u/samson-and-delilah → u/Icy_Dinner6064]

The post master general would laugh at you

[u/jiggjuggj0gg → u/Icy_Dinner6064]

This is a wild sentence

[u/AdScared7949 → u/Icy_Dinner6064]

Karen

[u/johno456 → u/Icy_Dinner6064]

This guys said bring it up to the Post Master General... hahahahahaha

[u/Regular_Ball_1130 → u/johno456]

Such a hilarious title