Car park under our windows

tln111

Hi, I wonder if anyone could advise on the following:

Few months ago I bought a flat for my teenage daughter and myself to live in. Our newly built block of 4 flats shares a car park with a neighbouring building, which consists of several offices. The landlord/owner of the neigbouring building is a successful estate agents firm. Our building's share of the car park is tiny. The problem, which became obvious only after we moved in, is that as the car park has no signage or barriers, general public believes it to be a public car park, and as we are right in the centre of a very busy area, with lots of shops, bars, cafes, etc nearby we have a lot of people, often drunken or high and very noisy, park right under our windows/ next to our entrance door at all hours. It is a nightmare at the weekends, there is litter everywhere, etc. The landlord next door is not bothered and does not wish to spend any money on barriers/signs. For some reason, he also would not let us erect signage in his part of the car park (which is nearly all of it) or parking posts at the entrances. The council can't help as it is a private car park. My landlord does not wish to interefer as he had problems with the next door owners before and I can't afford a solicitor.

Is there anything at all I can do? Thank you in advance.

PasturesNew

Oh that's a shame.

the only thing you can do is speak with all your neighbours and see if they can get together to at least mark out your collective spaces and put a sign up. Apart from that, there's nothing you can do.... so you could try faking something.

e.g. when you put up your sign, what about a big "CCTV CAMERA AREA" sign and a fake camera on your wall?

If the owner of the rest of the spaces doesn't care what's going on then you can't make him do anything. The only other thing is to phone in to the police every time (EVERY) time there is anti-social behaviour outside. If you do this their crime stats go up and they're keen (hopefully) to put it on their patrol route to see if they can stop it.

The only way is to let these passing/parking people think that it is a private car park, they are on CCTV and something bad might happen if they park or are anti-social.

tln111

Thanks for the quick response.
Actually, we have just installed signs on our wall and the situation has improved to some extent, but only slightly. There was a period of 2-3 days over one weekend when I called the police every night because of antisocial behaviour in the car park, but it just made me feel quite awful, I don't think I can carry on doing it for very long.

I was thinking about either going to court as a self-rep and asking for permission for us to install signage/posts at the entrances/inside the rest of the car park or just putting few signs up without anyone's permission at my own expense. Am I being silly here?

happypig

Buy a fake clamp and clamp your own car - that'll put the beggars off parking there!

nollag2006

Two suggested options:

The nice one:
Put a polite note under the windscreen of offending vehicles asking them not to park on your property. Should work for some folk

The naughty one:

Next time you see someone parking there illegally, sprinkle some breadcrumbs from your bedroom window onto the cars below.

I'm sure your local feathered friends would soon encourage them to park elsewhere

chickmug

A friend of mine some years ago put stickers on the offending cars screens saying it was a private parking spot. He used the strongest glue that would taken days to get off and he enjoyed watching people scraping for a very long time. He got away with it as he was 6'6" and 18 stone and had a battered face from playing rugby.

nollag2006

The risk there is that the boys in blue could do you for criminal damage, irrespective of your height and weight. Breadcrumbs are a much better idea

PasturesNew

I think the issue here is that if it is town centre pub visitors then anybody parking is likely to be a one off. It will be somebody different every time. So a note under the windscreen doesn't stop the next and next and next ones parking there.

I might in your case invest in one of those parking posts. I'd paint my flat number on the tarmac. I'd put up a couple of signs.

RHemmings

Go to your local dodgy car clampers. Ask them how much kickback you'll get for each clamped car if they were to "manage" your private parking area. Then go back and tell your neighbours how much money they could make if the contracted with the clampers. It's plausible that your disinterested neighbours may become more interested if there's money in it.

tln111

Thanks. I've tried all of the above but people who park here are not the same people every night. So I would have to spend every night of the rest of my life here engaging in the above activities.

My question is more about whether I have any rights as a home owner for a peaceful life in my own home and whether the court may allow me to erect some signs next to our building, even though it would be in the neighbour's part of the car park. The signs would not hurt anybody but should improve our situation to some extent. The next door landlord actually told me he was going to erect signage about clamping all unauthorized vehicles, he just never bothered to actually do it, so who will lose if I do it for him?

tln111

Oh, I did not know owners could actually make money from using clamping services on their land. Or is it only if the clamping service is a dodgy one?