It can be really annoying to see the perfect parking spot, but have someone steal it just because they want it more. Well, sometimes, those people need to be taught a lesson. People on Quora share how they got some well-earned revenge on drivers who had their cars blocked. Content has been edited for clarity.
Don’t Mess With Mom
“Long ago, back in high school, I drove a tiny Chevy Sprint. I was teased I drove a tinker toy car with a lot of questions about where the wind-up key was. Ha, ha. I had a car at 16, so who cared? It was summer and I had to make up a class, so I drove to a sibling high school to make up the course. The student parking lot was tiny, so space was a premium. Again, the jokes my car shouldn’t take up a whole space were made and laughed at. Whatever. One day, however, I came out after class and had to jet home, as I had a deal with my mom to drive errands in exchange for the car. My mother was an extreme stickler on time and knew how long it should take me to get home. I didn’t want to walk in the summer heat, so I was dutiful.
I came out to find my car not where I left it. Confused, I searched the entire lot at a run, as I had stopped to chat with someone in the next class session. At the far corner, the corner with inset poles for the motorcycles, there was my tiny car. That’s when I recognized a friend-of-a-friend’s car where my car should have been. I raced back into the building, ran over a priest who remembered me from elementary school, and busted into the guy’s classroom. Half the class was laughing until I started screaming. I yelled my mom was timing me and would take NO excuse for tardiness, and whichever idiots moved my car better move it out so that I could get home before my mother showed up. I was not going to take her wrath alone.
The class went silent. Then five guys bolted out the door to move my car. I had gone to two different catholic elementary schools and knew most of the people in two different high schools. My mom was infamous for being tiny and scary. People swore she was 10 feet tall when she was angry. No one wanted her angry at them. Meanwhile, the priest I ran over went to his office and told my mom what happened. They apparently had a good chuckle over it, and when I got home and raced to explain, she just smiled.
The next morning, she drove me to class. So humiliating for my 16-year-old self. Then she asked me which boys touched my car. When I pointed the group out, one saw me pointing. Then he noticed my mom and freaked, yelling at everyone that she was there. The lot got quiet and the group scattered. My mom smiled, rather evilly, got back in the car, and drove home. Looking back, it was worthy of the 3 Stooges, in the guys’ klutzy escape from a tiny 5′1″ woman.'”
Wondering If The Police Were Notified?
“I’ve had it happen to me occasionally when a delivery van had double-parked alongside me, but in such a situation there’s nothing you can do but wait for the driver to appear. Blowing your horn does sometimes hurry them up.
In all the instances I can recall, there’s either been an apology from the driver who’s then driven off to his next drop-off location, or an apology and a request to wait another couple of minutes whilst the driver finishes carrying in a few other items. I’ve been in a similar situation myself when I’ve had to double-park for a few minutes when I’ve had something heavy or otherwise unwieldy in the car which I’ve needed to take into a shop, so I quite understand the problem. Getting angry doesn’t solve anything in that situation, and can sometimes make it worse.
But one occasion does spring to mind when I was a passenger in a friend’s car. It was in a large market square of a small country town and the parking was at right-angles to the curb rather than the usual parallel to it, and some idiot had parked right behind my friend’s car and the one next to it, already half-blocking the perimeter road around the square. We waited a few minutes; no one came. We both went into some shops on that part of the square to ask whose car it was; no one admitted to it.
We waited for another couple of minutes and then my friend decided to take the initiative. Being a farmer, he was driving a quite old Land Rover with very large and solid galvanized steel bumpers which were directly attached to the car’s chassis. Very slowly and with the low ratio gears engaged, we just crept forward and literally pushed the front-end of the offending car sideways and out of the way, leaving it sticking out into the road running around the edge of the market square at about 45 degrees, and probably completely blocking it.
Neither of us looked, but there must have been some bodywork damage to the car, but to the Land Rover, there wasn’t even the slightest mark.
I only hope that someone notified the police of the obstruction and the offending car got towed away.”
An Interesting First Date
“I first moved to the northern Utah town of Logan when I started school. My family had been living there for a couple of years already, but I had just moved to Utah and was living with them while I figured out where I was going to stay. My family drove a big 12 passenger van, and I was hanging out with a girl who I liked, and I parked in her parking lot of her apartment complex. It was snowy and there was about an inch of ice on the ground in the parking lot. When I left her house around nine or 10 that night, I got down to the parking lot from her apartment, somebody was double-parked behind me in some sort of muscle car. I don’t remember if it was a Mustang or what, but it wasn’t in very good condition and I was pretty irritated they were behind me. For a while, I looked around to see if I could figure out what apartment the person who own the car was in, but they were just visiting like I was. Apparently, they were staying later than I wanted to, however.
Finally, I decided I had done my due diligence and been patient enough, and I decided to push the car out of the way. Since the parking lot was fairly flat and it was very icy, the girl and I together pushed the car across the icy parking lot into a corner. It didn’t have very good tread on the tires, so it was pretty easy to move. I, however, had studded snow tires on my vehicle, so I just drove out like it was nothing.
Another time, my dad paid $4000 for a brand-new 1990 Ford Festiva. It was a very base model, no-frills for a no-nonsense dad. Turns out 1k is a great price for a college car, so I bought it and drive it everywhere.
Well one time I was on a date and we went to a movie. When I got there, the parking lot was mostly full and the only place I could find to park was between two huge trucks. The college town I lived in had only a couple theaters and my friends and I were often there because there wasn’t much else in the way of places to go at night, and it just so happened they were all at a different movie that got out a few minutes before mine ended. When they got out of their movie, they were walking out into the parking lot and saw my car.
At this point, I think it’s pertinent to add most of the weight of my car was in the engine, and the engine set almost directly over the front axle. In fact, the way it was balanced enough by myself, I could lift the back end off the ground and move it a couple inches. Since my friends consist of three gigantic guys and one of their wives, it was a simple matter for them to turn it sideways in between the two trucks. They thought they were so funny, and I’d be so mad because I’d be stuck between these two huge trucks when I got out of the movie. By this time, the parking lot had emptied out significantly. When my date and I left the theater and started walking out to my car, we couldn’t actually see my car between the two trucks. So when I rounded the corner of the closer truck, we saw my car was very snuggly settled indirectly between the two trucks, with only about three inches to spare between either vehicle. My date was mortified, and I just rolled my eyes because I knew exactly who had done it.
My date asked me what we should do, and right at that moment one of the trucks drove away, leaving us with nobody directly in front of us, so I just drove out. When my friends called me later that night laughing asking me if me and my date moved the car, I played the long for a little and then I said no not really, and destroyed all their fun.”
Good Thing They Were Friends With The Security Guard
“I worked at a place where the doctors were given prime positions with covered parking near the entrance, whilst most of the rest of the staff were farther back in open parking.
The doctor who used the very first, front parking was semi-retired and usually left by 1 p.m. I arrived at work for the 2 p.m. shift and, as his parking was vacant the whole time I was on shift, I saw no reason not to park there. This was also motivated by some recent theft of vehicles and I wanted the guards to more easily keep an eye on my car as some of them were situated by the front entrance.
It was, I suppose, a bit cheeky of me, but I felt it didn’t compromise anybody, so why not? One afternoon, the inevitable happened: Dr X arrived back for a hospital meeting. And my car was offending his parking space.
The next thing there was a great commotion at the front entrance. I was busy relatively close by, but had a patient with me, so didn’t investigate.
However, the guards were friendly with me and one of them came to tip me off to move my car ASAP. I finished with my patient and went outside.
It was raining hard, but Dr X was marching around in the downpour, blood-red in the face, gesticulating wildly and yelling, with the company manager at the doctor’s side attempting to placate him.
I waved at the company manager, mouthing I would move my car. However, when I got there, Dr X had parked his brand-new Mercedes an inch from my bumper. It was impossible to move my car as there were pillars in front of it.
In amongst all of Dr. X’s remonstrations, he finally noticed who the offending trespasser was and turned his ire towards me, water dripping down his face.
I remained super-calm (I felt his reaction was unnecessarily excessive) and, simply with a sweep of my hand towards his car and my raised eyebrows, provided indisputable proof why I was unable to back my car out from his parking.
He stormed off, his clothes completely soaked through, saying I’d have to wait until he’d finished his meeting before I could go home. Little did he know, I was due to leave only at 9 p.m.
At that moment, his sweet wife arrived with an umbrella. She said it would be no problem to move the Merc. She even apologized to me, but I said there was no need, and the apology was mine — but to her and her alone!
She’d obviously not driven Dr X’s new car, so she began to press the handheld remote to open the doors. Unfortunately, the sunroof moaned its disapproval as it was forced to open and let the rain pound into the interior of the vehicle. Then she tried another button and the boot opened. Then the rear windows. I offered to assist her, but she said her husband would never allow it.
Finally, she found the correct button and opened the driver’s door. She moved the vehicle, which was decently wet inside, and I promised her I wouldn’t park in her husband’s parking again – a promise I kept, and which made the company manager inordinately happy.”
A Nice Final Memory
“Many years ago I was asked to drive my wife into town to collect some Christmas shopping. As some parcels were quite large (presents for the grandkids), I decided to take my Citroën CX estate car, although it was nearly at the end of its life and was due to be scrapped in a couple of weeks.
On arriving in town, the only place I could find to park was a temporary car park on a small piece of waste ground. All the cars were jammed in with only a narrow aisle between rows. Off we went, and two hours later arrived back and loaded the car with presents.
Just as my wife and myself were to drive out of the parking lot, a young man in a pretty beat-up old Ford turned into the aisle and stopped. I climbed out of our car and walked up to him with the intention of letting him know that if he backed up to let me out, he could then park in the empty slot.
He probably expected me to shout at him for blocking us in or something similar, for as I approached he leaned out his window and subjected me to a tirade of abuse. In amongst the swearing was the message that he didn’t care if he blocked in the whole car park. Everyone could wait until he returned, and hard luck to them. I have served in the Army and worked in Oil Fields for many years, but I have never heard such a foul mouth. I was angry that my wife had been able to hear every word.
I quietly walked back to my car, engaged gear, and rammed the idiot. As I had T boned his car at a pretty respectable speed, the side of the car crumpled, jamming both doors. He had to sit inside his wrecked car as I continued to push the vehicle clear of the aisle. As soon as there was enough space I drove past, leaving him trapped inside his wrecked car unable to get out.
I expected to be pulled over by the police all the way home, but to this day nothing has happened. The front of my CX was scratched and dented, but its last drive was more than memorable.”
How To End On A Good Note
“I was working as an editor for a large city magazine. In its heyday (which was still in progress at the time), this thing cranked tons of money for its owner. Magazines make money by selling ad space, and ad space sales, takes a special kind of talent. The top sales guy had that talent, in spades.
As you can imagine, he was kind of a wired, aggressive sort of guy: a powerhouse, one might say.
Well. One day, he and the owner got into some kind of disagreement, and the boss (cutting off his own nose to spite his face) canned the guy in the middle of their quarrel.
The magazine provided this sales director with a car, a very nice car. I believe it was a Cadillac, what we used to call a living-room on wheels. Could have been an Olds but whatever, it was a big luxury car.
So the fired ad director cleaned out his desk and called his wife to come to pick him up, which she did. Before they left, he pulled the car out of its parking spot in our lot — this lot just had room for two parallel back-to-back rows of employee vehicles. He parked the car smack in the middle of the lot, tossed the keys in, locked the doors, and slammed them shut. Away he and the wife went!
🙂 Well, of course, everyone in the magazine was now trapped in the parking lot. NONE of us could pull our cars out. It took a while for anyone to notice…but eventually, notice we did. Sales staff had to drive around the city to hustle up paying customers, and anybody who wanted to go to lunch had to drive to get there.
The boss, who was, shall we say, less than perfectly beloved by his employees, had to hire a locksmith to open the car’s doors so he could move it out of the way. He was so mad he about blew a gasket.
The rest of us? Never enjoyed a spectacle so much in our lives.”
Making It Very Obvious
“The place I used to work had two parking garages. Garage one was attached to the office building and was reserved parking only. Garage two was one city block away. That garage was for the employees who didn’t have reserved parking spaces. Both garages were closed to the public, so employees having to compete for parking with the public wasn’t a thing.
Some people who had to park in garage two got into the habit of ‘patrolling’ garage one around mid- to late-afternoon looking for empty parking spaces to park in. The logic was if a parking space was empty within a couple of hours of 5:00, the person whose space it was must have already left for the day, so the spot was ‘free.’
Well, they didn’t take into consideration there are a lot of reasons someone might not be parked in their space that late in the day, but would still be returning to the office. Maybe they had an afternoon meeting, maybe they had a doctor’s appointment, maybe they work flex time and their lunch hour is 2:00 to 3:00.
I worked flex time and was often away from the office from about 2:30 to 3:30. I got very, very tired of coming back to work and finding someone else’s car in my reserved space. It got to the point it was happening multiple times per week.
So, I printed out a bunch of ‘You’re in my space’ signs. They weren’t anything fancy, just 8 1/2 x 11 copy paper. I made the font big enough that the message filled the page. They said:
‘I don’t appreciate your parking in my reserved parking space. For future reference:
Mondays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – This is not your parking space.
Tuesdays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – This is not your parking space.
Wednesdays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – This is not your parking space.
Thursdays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – This is not your parking space.
Fridays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – This is not your parking space.
Thank you.’
I kept a big stack of the signs in my car, along with a couple of rolls of heavy-duty packing tape. When I would find someone in my parking space, I would plaster every glass surface on the car with the signs. I made sure not to let anything touch the paint or anything that could be damaged by the tape. When I say plastered, I mean plastered. Depending on the size of the car, I might put four of them on one side window; eight or twelve on the windshield; however many the rear window would hold. There was no way they would be able to drive the car without first removing all of the signs.
Irritating, but it doesn’t take that long just to rip paper signs off your car. That’s why I used packing tape and made sure to smooth every single piece of tape with my fingernail, so there were no air bubbles and no corners/borders that were loose or sticking up, no single piece of tape overlapped another. In other words, I made sure they couldn’t just rip the tape off; they would probably have to use a razor blade to remove all the tape and its residue, and it was going to eat up a significant amount of their time.
I think I had to do that three times before word got out not to mess with space #XYZ. No one ever parked in my space again.”
The Proof Was In The Pudding
“A few years back when New Jersey was hit with three huge snowstorms in like ten days our son was renting our condo from us, all the tenants and owners have assigned parking spots. His spot just happened to be on the end and next to a double spot where the dumpsters were, so when the first storm of 30 inches hit, he went out and cleared his car to get to work. When he came home and the plow company plowed the lot, they put the dumpsters in front of the piles, so people could throw garbage out.
He pulled in to go to his spot and all the freaking plowed snow was in his spot and behind the dumpsters! So he had to park two blocks away at the bank parking lot, he knew he’d be up early so he’d be gone before they open. So a couple of days later, there was more snow, the same thing with his spot, a few days later, more snow, still no spot.
So, the annual spring meeting came for the owners, my wife and I arrived with bells on. The president of the association started talking about a special assessment because the budget for snowplowing went way over what was expected. There were 26 units in the complex and they wanted 500 from each unit! Not just for snowplowing, but for snow removal, so I raised my hand and said we were not paying one dime for any special assessment.
Another owner said, ‘Why do you feel you don’t have to pay?’
So I showed him the pictures of my son’s spot, I had him take a picture every day for a month of the 20-foot-high pile of snow that was where his car would have been parked. I showed the president the photos and then I asked him if he was able to park in the lot. He said yes, then I ask everybody if anyone here was NOT able to park in the lot to please raise their hand. Not one hand went up.
Then I said to him, ‘And why snow removal? The snow was never removed, it was there until it melted!’
I looked at the president and told him, ‘You better rethink this assessment and whatever the new cost is, divide it between 25 units, because like i said, we are not paying a dime for this.’
T told them my son had to park two blocks away in a bank parking lot for a month! Not one person in here was without a spot, JUST MY SON! They lowered the assessment to $250. We never paid the assessment and since then if there is any accumulation over 10 inches, the snow is put into dump trucks and dumped at the reservoir down the street.”
How Did They Get Out?
“My elderly mom dropped by my apartment one day and parked her Taurus in the closest spot to my front door. It was covered assigned parking, with poles between the slots.
She was there ten minutes, and when she went to leave, the owner of the assigned space had parked behind her. I guess it was revenge for parking in his spot. Point taken.
The spots had numbers on them, but they weren’t the same as the apartment numbers. I couldn’t simply go knock, apologize, and ask him to let mom out.
The space on one side was empty. I got in the Taurus, spent eight minutes maneuvering back, forth and sideways, and managed to get her car out through the empty space next to it, and she left.
An hour later, I went out to walk the dog, and the car was still there… and so was the owner.
The guy was on his knees, feeling the body panels, trying to figure out how she got out without damaging his car.
I gave a cheery ‘Hi neighbor!’ and sprinted off with my hound.
Whenever mom came by after that, I gave her a Coke, collected her keys, and moved the car to visitor parking.”
No Fight Occurred
“I grew up on the outskirts of a small village in rural Suffolk, England; the lane that I lived in began with a terrace of six small houses, and we lived at no. six. The neighbors at no. five never liked us, and for 20-odd years while I lived there, I became used to nasty looks, acidic comments, and arguments about exactly where we were each allowed to park our cars. In fact, there was plenty of room for everyone’s car, but they liked to make trouble.
Eventually, I left home, and my dear old mum (sadly no longer with us) had to put up with this on her own, as she was becoming increasingly frail. Whenever I came to visit, I had to be careful about where I parked my car so as not to aggravate the situation further and give her more difficulties when I went away. On one visit, my mum had moved her car back so there was room for me to park in front of her house without encroaching on the neighbors’ space (note: in UK law, the space on a public road in front of your house does *not* belong to you, and there is no automatic right to park there – we rely on common sense and courtesy, in this case sadly lacking, as you’ll see!).
In order to make sure the neighbors had no grounds for complaint, I parked as close to my mum’s car as possible, leaving just a few inches of space between my car and hers; this meant there were heaps of room for the neighbors to park in front of their own house, and no grounds at all for any complaint.
Evidently, my consideration must have riled them; I suspect they had secretly been looking forward to a confrontation, and I had denied them the opportunity! In the morning, when I was about to leave, I discovered they had nonetheless engineered an occasion for an argument: they had parked their car so close to mine there was simply no way for me to get out without scraping either my mum’s car or the neighbors’. I braced myself for a conversation, resolved to be as polite as possible, and prepared to knock at the door and politely ask if they could move forward a little (there was no shortage of space in front of their car). If necessary I planned to explain I would hate to inadvertently scrape their car as I drove away, thinking that if nothing else, their self-interest might work in my favor!
But as I surveyed the situation, with maybe six or nine inches of space at each end of my car, I just wondered whether I might be able to maneuver my way out; I decided to give it a try. I inched forward and back for about 10 minutes, getting just a little closer to the right angle each time; the curtains twitched as the neighbors watched with glee, evidently hoping I would have to give up and confront them. I made it. I drove out of the space, round the block, and parked again *behind* mum’s car. I calmly went back into the house, and saw the neighbor come out and move his own car forward – proof, had I needed it, that he had done it purely out of spite.”
