Is her name Karen? Then don't call her Karen. My perfectly nice wife's name is Karen, she's not obnoxious and never asks to see the manager, and I'm really sick of this shit.

What's with all the Karen stuff, arguably you're the Karen here. However you're in the right, they're a rude asshole for blocking you in. Sounds like you've got it figured out now. The goblins that inhabit this town will respect you more if they think you're a little crazy and unafraid of confrontation.

So you're the Karen instead of her. Gotcha.

V Karen energy to make a situation that wasn’t about you about you

Ur wife sounds like a Karen.

Just face it, if your name is Karen, Alexa, Cortana, Siri, or Ziggy then you'd just save yourself a lot of trouble at this point by changing your name.

Or, you can fight society forever. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Next time, just call a tow truck.

Next time just call a tow company

1. Get the driveway marking approval done.
2. Call a tow truck next time it happens.
3. ?????
4. Profit!!

It doesn't have to be what it is. Trans people could just change their gender preference, right?

You sound like what people mean when they call someone a Karen.

Yeah you're clearly a better person than I am. Congrats.

I think the real question is: did you need to get out at midnight, or were you trying to leave very early the next morning? If neither of those is true, why not deal with it at 7a or 8a the next day?

Don't get me wrong, your neighbor sounds awful and absolutely took advantage of you and your driveway. The question is whether or not you could have waited for a more reasonable hour to address it. I'd be pretty pissed if someone came to my house after midnight and asked me to move my car, if I thought it was parked (semi)legally where we had agreed it'd be OK.

Axe them to give you a spare key, or no deal. I know keys are stupid expensive, but reminder them what a parking spot costs in this awesome fucking city.

I'm not fond of the whole reducing people (people's identities, situations, etc.) to stereotypes/labels/catchwords thing. This is a bit of coping, in that the response was so over the top, never before seen, if I start by assuming a person is reasonable and civil, it's a very jarring combination, does not compute. But starting from a framing of extreme entitlement and unreasonableness makes such a response "not unexpected" and helps with the psychology, if that makes sense. My default setting absolutely is non-confrontation...otherwise, I'd not have gotten here to begin with.

Is that actually a thing? Can you get someone towed from the street in front of your driveway by a private company? I thought it had to be from private property like a lot for the private towing. Certainly the Parking people, (whatever they are called now that they're not an Authority) will not do it, it's hard to get them to issue a ticket.

Don’t call a tow truck and do call the parking authority. If you can’t get out of your driveway they will call a tow truck. Time of day and reason for moving your car is irrelevant. This is common situation for the PA

Cortana?

Literally typed axe 🤣

It is a thing anywhere. The driver verify it is indeed your property and you are the one who requested before towing. They will decline and tell you to call the cop if they are unable to verify. They don’t just tow people randomly based on phone calls.

[deleted]

Did not need to get out at midnight, did leave 6a. Neighbor had arrived after midnight, I didn't get outside quick enough so texted within minutes, called, no response. Could it have been negotiated...possibly but was moot. Any sort of agreement was in the manner of I need you to ask first, but not having enforced that regularly, both sides get sloppy.

I left it out for brevity but the backstory includes multiple instances of having had to knock and wait after no phone response, also attempting skillful maneuvers around their car and other cars, not always successfully. Times with no problem might far outnumber times with problem, I wouldn't know. It was a different day (multiple) that I happen to have asked someone else to move just a few hours prior but regardless, would not have thought of preemptively communicating my schedule for using my driveway - like hey in case you were thinking of parking here tonight, please don't. It's been a long build-up, regrettably.

You’d be upset if someone told you to move your car that you illegally parked in front of their driveway at an off hour? If you don’t like that, you should put your car where it doesn’t belong. This is 100% on the driver.

You have no obligation to be considerate. It doesn’t matter when you’re leaving or if you’re leaving at all.

Why don’t you park there instead of in ur driveway until you get the markings?

While we don't have the full story here, yes, I think I'd be upset if someone rang my doorbell after midnight to tell me to move my car. This appears to be an arrangement that has been fine in the past but OP decided tonight was the night it ends. Again, OP is free to do this, but is after midnight the best time to decide it?

With more context: your neighbor is horrible and fully at fault.

It sounds like the whole thing happened over the course of a few minutes. After midnight, at noon, who cares if the car has just been parked? It's unlikely you're waking someone up or severely inconveniencing them and you are the aggrieved party here so you have the right to get it resolved.

Also, you were leaving at 6a! I would much rather you knock on my door at 12:15a if I got in at 12a than knock on my door at 5:50a when you're trying to leave!

Sounds like OP was tired of being taken advantage of. The driver has no common courtesy, why should he receive any?

I would 100% ring their doorbell at midnight.

Yeah, with the full story (OP responded to my comment above), it's pretty obvious that the neighbor is a huge problem and owns all of the blame here. I would have done the same thing as OP.

It was more like half hour because of waiting between texts and calls, not sure if waiting or not is less worse! I get that people aren't always tied to their phones. Or as you say, make a racket later, which I've had to do before, though not so early, which is the point, that I don't want to anymore. Did not tell neighbor preemptively because I hadn't seen them doing it, clearly we aren't on regular interacting terms for me to mention it out of the blue. They changed the "arrangement" to assuming it's fine rather than ask (my silence being complicit).

I suspect that in a separate conversation at another time, they still would have gone on, though maybe less explosively, about how I should be okay with them not doing it much when it doesn't usually inconvenience me anyway - exactly the kind of reasoning that works on a pushover.

I bought the house intending to use the driveway as built (vs. using the parallel spot, which in this case was big enough but sometimes is not depending on how other people park) but definitely will consider in certain situations.

Without the driveway marking, I'm not sure the parking authority would do anything.

Either way, get the driveway marking done ASAP.

I called about someone blocking my driveway once. They never asked me about a driveway marking

But it's not my private property if it's in front of my driveway, it's the street. Amusingly, the last several times a car has been parked in front of my driveway, it's been a police cruiser! No obvious police activity anywhere to be seen, they're most likely grabbing lunch up the street.

You cannot block somebody’s private property’s driveway access. It’s the law. Why don’t you educate yourself and instead of being passive aggressive and come on here typing essays arguing. It is standard in this country to tow anybody who block access to your driveway. You can tow at owner’s expense. “But but but”. Do something or quit crying.

You cannot call a private towing company to tow someone blocking your driveway unless their vehicle is physically on your (private) property. If they're in the street, the towing company has to be engaged by PA. Source: me, I've tried calling a tow company direct because parking authority sucks.

Really? In NYC the procedure is to first have the police come and ticket the driver for blocking a driveway (which is state law). After there is a ticket on the vehicle, you can then call a tow truck to take it away and they are happy to make $$$$ and do so.

Sounds like you are afraid of confrontation. In order to get this issue solved, you need to get over that fear first. Then you mark your driveway and tow the car every time it is blocking you. Unfortunately, some people take your whole arm when you offer them a hand. I had a similar issue a while back. One of our neighbors would work on his car in MY driveway lol. The driveway has gates but i would leave it open because I was to lazy to open and close it every time i moved my car lol He would do it while i was at work so we never noticed. We only found out when my wife stopped working (due to the birth of our daughter) and caught him. I tried being nice about it but he pretty much told me to go F myself since he felt he can use it since no one was home. So after that i always shut the gate. People will walk over you if you let them.

Once they've ticketed, I think you can then call a private towing company, but at that point parking authority can also call a towing company. After the two hours it takes for them to show up and ticket, the rest of the time is somewhat of a wash. I'm not bitter....

My understanding is that in JC, if you have a legal driveway that is blocked, you can call PA to ticket the vehicle. Subsequent to that, if your vehicle is blocked in the driveway, PA will call a tow for the offending vehicle. If you're trying to get into your driveway, they won't tow.

Source: neighbors with driveways who've done this (happily I haven't had this happen with my own driveway).

This is precisely correct. You cannot call a private towing company to pull someone's car from the street even if they're blocking your driveway.

I'm not sure I understand this comment. Can you explain it to me?

See the previous comment: "you'd just save yourself a lot of trouble at this point by changing your name." To me that's as dismissive and disrespectful as telling a trans person to change their gender preference.

Gender and sexual orientation are two different things though?

Okay.

No, I'm not. I just don't get mad by little things I don't have that kind of time.