YOUR TURN: Is It Cool to Save a Parking Spot?
Chairs and other objects always pop up in shoveled-out spots after each snowstorm. Legally, there's no basis for it, but: is this a neighborhood rule where you live? Do you abide by the "he who dug it" code?
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Police have responded to numerous reports this week of neighbors fighting over one of the city's 'hottest' post-blizzard commodities: on-street parking.
While there's no legal basis for the practice, residents will often leave identifying markers in the parking spaces they've spent hours digging out. As the city's emergency lots closed Monday morning, though, some residents seemed to ignore the informal rule.
Readers, we wanted to ask you: is this an unspoken rule in your neighborhood? Have you ever had a parking spot marker ignored? Taken another's space in a fit of desperation?
Share your story and opinion with other readers in our comment section below.
Mike G.
8:26 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
My house has no off-street parking, but my neighbors all have large driveways. Typically, they respect that and leave me space in front of my house.
In general I don't have a problem with people saving spots that they dug out, but if you didn't dig it out and you save the spot, you're just being a jackass.
david mokal
9:55 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
I see people on my street with huge 3-4 car driveways and dont use them. I cleared out 8 spots one year with an electric shovell. I put 2 barrells to mark my spot leaving 7 more clear. Then this jerk takes my 2 barrells and throws them on a tall snowbank.He was too lazy to shovell his own. Lives on Acorn Court. Next morning Im still cleaning up he walks by in a fast pace and his druggy buddy got his hand in his coat on a gun handle. Druggy still has a permitt to carry. Why because he knows someone. The rest of my neighbors could not thank me enough but this bum continues to be an arse to all the other neighbors. This is the crap you can get into over winter parking.
coldwaterdiver
2:22 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I can see apt buildings having no off street parking, but how does a house have no off street parking? That alone is half the problem. Too many variances were given allowing buildings to be built where they shouldnt have, and allowing too many condo's conversions of multi-families. You dont own the street whether you shoveled the spot or not.
Mike G.
5:45 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
My house is a single-family house, and was built in 1920, so not sure where you're getting this "variance" bullsh_t.
Mike G.
5:46 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Also, I never said I owned the street. I'm not sure why you people get so fscking defensive about this.
Scott Scott
8:30 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
What a stupid question. Of course people shouldn't park in a spot they didn't shovel . Just like some jerks to move their car to the parking garage to park for free, then after someone busted their hump shoveling a spot this jerk parks there. Aw hell no.
david mokal
9:57 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
People who do that are LOW LIFES no respect for others.
paul surette
7:44 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I'm tellin'.....Mikey swore
Prisco Tammaro
8:32 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
I typically don't agree, but for this storm, the spots yours for at least a week.
linda
9:17 am on Monday, February 18, 2013
so the rule changes storm to storm. If you shovel two inches you can have it for two days, if you shovel 27 inches it's yours for a week?
scott mac
8:39 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
its a tough question. a person put in the sweat and muscle ache's shoveling out the spot but there is no legal basis.i have a friend who's 4 tire's got slashed because he did'nt know about the unwritten rule. can't say i agree with with vandalism but i would be pissed if someone stole my shoveled spot.
david mokal
9:58 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
Do ya think maybe Karma could happen and a meteorite storm could happen lol
James
9:13 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
Don't get upset if I end up in a spot you shoveled out. It's just the spot I shoveled out was then taken by someone else. No pun intended, but it creates a "snowball" effect. Now you have to park somewhere else, and so on. All it takes is one jerk and we all look like a-holes.
I park on the street and regularly lose my spot, but it's not MY spot. It's the street. I don't own it. Yes, I removed the snow from it so it sucks especially if I have to shovel another area to get in, but putting shit in the road to prevent someone from parking there? That's not only hazardous, it's kind of trashy.
Easy fix for this would be for the city to require people park on different sides of the street 2 days after a snow storm so that the plows can simply push the snow out of the way. For example, park on odd side before and during storm. Plow comes by and cleans up even side. Everyone moves to even side. Plow comes the next day and clears the odd side; everyone moves back to the odd side. If it costs an extra buck or two a year in taxes, why not do it? Saves backs and keeps people's junk out of the streets.
david mokal
9:29 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
All ya got to do is tell the nitwits to put the plow away from the parked cars. Our DPW guys know better its the jerks that they hire who dont know how to plow. There the ones who create the mess. When they plow with the blade turned in towards the parked cars no matter what side your on its twice the shovelling and it gets tossed on the street. Common sence they lack. Thats why I like to see the city be self sufficient no outsiders. Do all are own work.
david mokal
9:38 pm on Monday, February 11, 2013
I used to help my freind in East Boston. When we dug out we would put out an old kitchen set and sit out on the table and drink a gallon of Piasanno Red. You take someones parkin spot there and they will give you a beaten. But they all respect each others. Couches,Chairs,barrells,even an ol refridgerator in the spaces.
CALB70
10:31 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
If you dig out a space after a blizzard or big snow storm, I think you do have dibs on the space for a few days - operative word FEW. A week from now and even longer people will still be claiming ownership of their spots. In Boston they allow the claiming of spaces for about 2 days after a snowstorm then they send a trash truck out to pick up all the space savers. I think that is fair.
BAD
11:59 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I think it is just common courtesy if you shovel out a spot than it should be your space
Theron Wallis
12:44 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I appreciate plows and plow drivers during these storms. I know they have a lot of areas to plow and spend long hours doing so and I benefit from them greatly. That said, it seems every time it snows there is some amount of damage done to my property - car, yard, house - from plows plowing beyond where they should be focusing. What recourse do home owners have for these issues? Are plows insured for damage?
coldwaterdiver
2:13 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
yes, just like any driver driving a car. Of coarse the the plow driver will deny hitting you but thats a different issue.
robert wilson
12:58 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
While I agree that parking in a spot someone else spent hours digging out is maddening and one has to be a jerk to do it, the streets are public domain, you don't own the spot because you shoveled it out. My neighbors who don't have driveways and park in front of their own houses needn't worry about interlopers, we're lucky, people around here get along.
Mike G.
6:00 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I actually do agree with the notion that people don't own the street. I certainly don't. If you get along with your neighbors (meaning, if you're not a total douchebag to the people around you), they'll usually respect the fact that you have no driveway and won't take your spot. This is why it pays to be somewhat neighborly.
david mokal
1:35 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
MR T wouldnt stand for it ! " I pity the one who steals my spot" !
maldenmike
5:01 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
if you have a driveway, but expect your spot on the street to stay there, you got problems.
Eddie
5:03 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I saw a neighbor when I lived in Charlestown shovel his pick up truck out, put a folding lounge chair in the spot and go to work, he was a carpenter. About an hour before he got home someone removed the chair and parked in his spot even after being told not to, when my neighbor got home he politely explained the unwritten code of parking to which the guy told him he didnt own the street and to F#*K OFF.
My neighbor then proceeded to shovel the car in and bring out a hose and water the newly formed snowbank and the guys car down, then did this every hour for 6 hours, It took that guy about 2 weeks to get the car thawed out, KARMAS A BITCH!!!!
linda
6:30 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
People are just plain crazy. If you shovel out a spot during a storm, I agree that maybe you can expect to use it for a "few" days, but that is absolutely it. You don't own the street. If you don't buy a house or rent an apartment with parking, then you don't have parking! If I am having a party on Saturday and on Friday night I put fifty chairs up and down the street because I need parking, does that make those spaces mine!!!?? Not to mention that the furniture in the street helps to make the city even more attractive. People had furniture in the street here before the parking ban was even lifted. So now we have the plows going around furniture and leaving snow out to the middle of the street. In my neighborhood, once we have one snow storm the chair remains there long after the snow is gone! I have never been sure what the "law" is when someone shovels a spot, but I can assure you when I purchased my house, I didn't get an extra deed for the spaces in the street! People can get as pissed as they want, they don't own the street.
linda
6:47 pm on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
In Boston the rule is that 48 hours after the ban if lifted, you cannot save a parking space or leave anything in the street to hold it! The said on the news that the DPW will be around to pick up furniture! Malden should follow the same rule
Beth Chaplin
7:44 am on Wednesday, February 13, 2013
My neighbors parked on the street throughout the snowstorm, hindering plowing efforts and ignoring the ban. Now they are claiming the space that they didn't lift one finger to clear.
Mike G.
10:59 pm on Sunday, February 17, 2013
http://bostinno.com/2013/02/15/boston-police-vandalism-cars-snow/
In Boston, you can save your spot for 48 hours after a snow emergency is lifted.
linda
9:19 am on Monday, February 18, 2013
I think a more important parking problem we have here in Malden is the "parking on one side of the street". Please tell me how visitors to the City are supposed to know this law. There are no signs on the streets anywhere that says parking is prohibited. Not sure how the City gets away with this. I know people who have fought the ticket and won, but not before they had to take time off from work, etc. to go and fight it.