Sarah doesn’t know exactly who keyed her car while it was parking near her North Burnaby home, but she has her suspicions.
She’s narrowed it down to several neighbours who have “harassed” her repeatedly during the past six months – ever since she moved into a basement suite.
“My place doesn’t offer a parking spot out back so I have to park on the street,” said Sarah, who contacted the NOW after reading my series of stories about parking wars in the city. “It’s a public street and I have nowhere else to park, but I’ve had a couple of the homeowners on the block who have harassed me over and over again if I park in front of their house. They’ve been borderline threatening. They’ve implied that I will ‘pay’ somehow if I park there again. So I got up one morning and went to my car and it had been keyed. I’m sure it was one of these neighbours because it’s been building up. I don’t know what they think I should do. I have nowhere else to park. If I go to a different block, some other homeowners will just bully me too.”
I’ve been inundated with responses to my columns. Some have claimed that my columns on this issue have been too “divisive” but that’s usually from homeowners who think they own the public street parking.
Others are on the side of the people parking on the street.
I got contacted by “Mr & Mrs Frustrated” about a senior “who says she's the one taking care of this neighbourhood, but in reality she just complains about everything and is obsessed with parking. Nobody can park in front of her house - not even her tenants. It's reserved for her guests. She once called to have them ticketed.”
Imagine calling to get your own tenants ticketed. That’s just the worst.
A homemade parking sign reads, "Parking for Residents of…” and then the address.
Sorry, but you can’t just put up your own homemade sign and tell people they can’t park there. It doesn’t work like that.
You also can’t vandalize someone’s vehicle for parking on a public street. That’s just madness.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
