Hostile Elders

I am in a long standing feud with my neighbor. I know I am in danger of looking like an ass, but I am going to risk it and give the details. I live in a condo that I rent. They are set up like traditional apartments but have private owners. With the condo, I have two assigned parking spaces. I keep my car in the space nearest my apartment. In my second space, which is across the street, my sister has left her jeep there because all she has is on street parking, which is a hassle.

Now my secondary space is the last one in it's row. The space borders another spot in one side, and a walkway on the other. There is one yellow line separating my space from the next. As the history goes, 2 Christmases ago, it snowed late in the day. My parents decided to crash at my place rather then trekking back to RI in the snow. This is prior to my sister using the space, so they parked there. When they pulled into the spot, there was heavy accumulation of snow so they did there best guess as to where my spot actually was.

The next morning I get up to move their car and this little old lady chases after me, yelling that I had blocked her in. She also went on to say that I had no business parking there because these were reserved private spaces.

I apologized, but also pointed out that it was snowing when we parked and we did our best to park in the space. I also corrected her on the ownership issue and said that I rarely use the space. I then wished he happy holidays and drove away.

The next incident happened a few months later. Again my parents visited. This time they made sure to leave a wide berth between cars. When they went to retrieve the car, a sign was meticulously taped to the window, indicating that her Honda Civic has wide doors and that the car was parked in a manner that didn't allow her to open her doors fully. She then pointed out that she was elderly and handicapped. I went out to examine the car and I swear to you that there was a 4 foot gap between the two cars. More than enough room to open her door fully. So I chalked it up to crankiness and went about my day.

The next incident really started the feud. My sister left the jeep there and about a week later I get a call from my landlord that the condo property management and said they received a complaint from this woman that their was an abandoned jeep in the parking lot and she wanted towed. Since it was my spot Management called my landlord and asked if the car belonged to me. My landlord called me to see if it was my car. I informed her it was and then ran over to the management office to explain that the jeep was mine and it would be there for a while. Management explained to me that of course it was fine to park the car in the spot, but the woman had been making such a fuss and insisting that a. it was too close to her spot, and b. it didn't belong to the owner of the spot that it should be towed. The manager went out, saw that there was plenty of room, but decided to make sure the vehicle was actually supposed to be there. I explained that she has been complaining to me for a while and they said, without going into detail, that they receive a lot of various complaints from her on a variety of topics. So I put it out of my mind.

A month later, a note is on my door, basically calling me unreasonable for not moving my car further away from her spot. How can I be so mean to the elderly? Now I swear the jeep can not move further away with out impeding someone using the walkway and I refuse to park on the walkway itself. So I let it go.

This week, the parking lots are going to be professionally cleaned, so we are supposed to move our cars to the street . (My condo has the most stringent parking rules I have seen. It is almost impossible to have 2 cars, because in the winter, your car needs to move at the last drop of snow following a storm so the lots can be plowed. This is fine unless I am away or say at work. Since there is a street parking ban during snow storms, this makes finding a place for the car difficult. But I digress..) I move the car as instructed. When I go to move it back that evening, my neighbor has parked with her two wheels in my spot! I know this is to make me park the jeep further away, but I still am able to park it with out going onto the walkway. I know this has pissed her off because I am sure she thought she would force my hand, but no! The elderly are no match for my parking ability or my stubbornness streak that borders on obnoxiousness!