![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ranty rant
Jan. 5th, 2008 02:38 pmAt the risk of offending half my friends list, I'm going to rant about something that drives me insane about Minnesotans. Or maybe it's just Saint Paulites, since I've only actually run into this issue there. Or maybe it does actually extend beyond Minnesotans, and I just have never realized it.
There is a certain entitlement that homeowners seem to feel about the curb parking in front of their houses. I first encountered this 4 or 5 years ago, way back when Rogers and I dated and he was living in a little apartment by the railroad tracks. His was the only apartment building (iirc) on a mostly residential street plopped down in the midst of an otherwise industrial area of Saint Paul. There was a small parking lot in back, but they didn't have any visitor parking designated, so I habitually parked on the street. I did, for convenience sake, try to park in front of his building. But sometimes the street was really parked up, so I would have to park in front of one of the houses. On more than one occasion, and from more than one house, I found little notes on my car asking me to not park in front of their house. I can understand the desire to not have someone block the paved/shovelled walkways to the street, I can understand being miffed if someone takes a spot you shovelled out before the plows have come through, and I am sympathetic to polite requests to move a car to make room for something like a moving van that will be there on a limited basis. I make every reasonable effort not to block the walkway from the street to the sidewalk, but on a plowed and public street I consider any open parking space on the street fair game (particularly when the street is already pretty parked up). At the time, I thought maybe it was just Rogers' neighbors, and forgot about it.
( Which brings us to my very long rant about my parents' neighbor, don't feel obligated to read it.. )
There is a certain entitlement that homeowners seem to feel about the curb parking in front of their houses. I first encountered this 4 or 5 years ago, way back when Rogers and I dated and he was living in a little apartment by the railroad tracks. His was the only apartment building (iirc) on a mostly residential street plopped down in the midst of an otherwise industrial area of Saint Paul. There was a small parking lot in back, but they didn't have any visitor parking designated, so I habitually parked on the street. I did, for convenience sake, try to park in front of his building. But sometimes the street was really parked up, so I would have to park in front of one of the houses. On more than one occasion, and from more than one house, I found little notes on my car asking me to not park in front of their house. I can understand the desire to not have someone block the paved/shovelled walkways to the street, I can understand being miffed if someone takes a spot you shovelled out before the plows have come through, and I am sympathetic to polite requests to move a car to make room for something like a moving van that will be there on a limited basis. I make every reasonable effort not to block the walkway from the street to the sidewalk, but on a plowed and public street I consider any open parking space on the street fair game (particularly when the street is already pretty parked up). At the time, I thought maybe it was just Rogers' neighbors, and forgot about it.
( Which brings us to my very long rant about my parents' neighbor, don't feel obligated to read it.. )
