Imagine moving into a new house, in a wonderful, calm area, and already looking forward to living here happily ever after, with nothing to spoil your carefree life... You already sensed a catch here, didn't you? Yes, there are almost always some nuances in such stories - and there are some in this one, too.
The narrator of this story had the misfortune of having a neighbor who, contrary to all rules and laws, believed that the stretch of public road opposite their house (just a street, without any driveway) should have been their special parking spot. This, of course, was not the case, but the neighbor didn't care...
More info: Reddit
This story happened around 3 decades ago, when the author of the post had the misfortune of living next to some entitled guy
Image credits: isaac1112 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
That man wrongly considered the public road in front of his house to be his exclusive parking space, for some reason
Image credits: AceRead73
Image credits: korrawinj / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Accordingly, the guy used to attack the neighbors for parking there - and the author was not an exception
Image credits: AceRead73
Image credits: user24121185 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
One day, after finding his car with a stabbed tire, the author decided to take petty revenge on the guy
Image credits: AceRead73
They bought an old car with a certificate expiring in a year, parked it on the spot in front of the neighbor's house - and simply left it there
This story, told to us by the user u/AceRead73, happened about three decades ago in the UK. Since then, as the Original Poster (OP) assumes, the rules may have changed, and this year-long petty revenge (some netizens, however, call it a full-flegded pro revenge) may well not have happened. Well, as they say, there's a time for everything...
So, the author's neighbor, for some reason, strongly believed that the section of public road opposite his house belonged to him and only him. Accordingly, he perceived any other car, except his or his wife's, parked in this space to be a personal and very offensive insult. The OP, who lived directly opposite the spot, often parked there, however.
Quarrel after quarrel, one word led to another - and one day, the author found their car with a punctured tire. It was impossible to prove anything, but they understood perfectly well that it was the neighbor. That's when the OP took action...
They bought an old Ford Fiesta for £300 (~$400), with a valid insurance and certificate from the Ministry of Transport, waited until that coveted place opposite the neighbor's house became free - and just left the car there.
The certificate expired in a year, and for the following twelve months, the neighbor had to watch the old Ford rust under his windows. The car gradually had all its tires stabbed, its windows broken, and local teenagers covered it in graffiti - but there was no legal reason to tow it away from the neighbor. Formally, the author was 100% law-abiding.
The police went to the Ford's resting place from time to time - but everything was okay with the papers, and after hearing this story, the cops invariably laughed and drove away. The day before the certificate expired, the OP called the towing company - and took the car to the dump. Yes, they spent money - but who would dare say that the pleasure they'd been receiving for a whole year was not worth it?
Image credits: Anton Dios / Freepik (not the actual photo)
"People like this neighbor, unfortunately, are encountered literally at every step," says Maria Kryvosheeva, a psychologist and NLP coach, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here. "It is interesting that the mechanism by which such a conviction in one's own rightness arises is almost always the same in different people.
"The famous French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote: 'Hell is other people,' meaning that people don't tend to associate the typical mistakes of others with themselves. That is, they believe that they have the right to do what they condemn in others. Usually, this is due to wrong parental upbringing - that is, the system is set up to reproduce itself.
"Moreover, even if such a person is shown any rule that they somehow violate, they tend not to believe it too - simply because the pattern that they are infallible is firmly ingrained in their heads. It's possible to cope with this - but to do so, one must admit their own mistakes - and for many of us this is very difficult and quite painful," Maria summarizes.
People in the comments also expressed admiration for the ingenuity of the original poster and, unfortunately, shared many of their own stories from various countries about how they had to deal with similar entitled folks. "I can't believe the number of people who think they own a space on the public road," someone concluded. By the way, have you, dear readers, ever encountered anything similar in your life?
Most commenters just cracked up over the hapless neighbor and gave their own similar stories and parking dramas
