Parking on other people's lawns and / or obstructing traffic

Sinshroud

New member
Hi guys, I'm not exactly where the right place to post this is, but for about the past 2 years now we have been having serious problems with people parking on our front garden lawns.

We live in a fairly residential area in Table View with 2 big office buildings right next door. The problem is that the one office building catered very little parking for their staff. There is a tiny underground parking lot for top-management and then space for like 8 cars outside on their property.

They need much more parking though, and every day about 4-8 of their staff park on our front lawns. If they not parking on our lawns then they double park in the road (on both sides) so that barely one can can even get through at a time, let alone two.

1) There is a pre-school creche about 2 houses down and the road corners are very tight. Almost every day I see incidents that VERY close become accidents because you can't see around the corners due to cars parking right on the edge. It's putting these children, their family and my family in danger on a daily basis.

2) The cars parking on our grass EVERY day, 9-5 is killing our grass. We have given up trying to get it look nice because it's just turning into brown dry grass with a lot of sand.

3) Our garden services can't cut our front lawn grass, and it's very frustrating. Our garden services don't always come on the same day so we can't say to the people don't park on our grass on Wednesdays because otherwise we can't have our grass cut.

4) We can barely get in and out of our front drive way. My mother works from home and frequently has people coming to pick up products or drop stuff off. It's extremely dangerous reversing out of the drive way because the cars on either side block your view completely and it's also a very busy road so cars are moving quickly.

First we tried leaving notes on the cars windshields. Starting from subtle things like if they parked on the road instead of on our grass we would say "Thanks very much for not parking on our grass this time, much appreciated". We have tried the straight out "Don't park on our grass, it's dangerous and we can't cut our lawn". We have tried going out and talking to them and asking them not to park there. We have tried emailing the owner of the offices next door and he keeps saying that he has asked his staff not to park on our grass.

I want to know is this kind of thing illegal? Can we complain to the municipality or the police about it? I'm so tempted to go put spikes or something in the grass so their tyres burst when driving over the grass to park, but I don't want to endanger pedestrians walking by.
 
Maybe try planting poles, or putting big rocks along the edge of the grass so that they can't park there, and then maybe tip of the traffic dept that there are a lot of potential parking tickets to be given?
 
Technically that area belongs to the municipality afaik, so legally you're pretty much out of luck.

Get a bunch of thin iron rebar sticks, buy some of that red & white tape (hardware store). Stick the rebar into the ground & cordon it off. Not sure its 100% legal (road hazard) but it'll work. If you think you'll get into trouble get some top soil & throw that onto the ground...that'll act as a legit excuse. Plus you can always plead ignorance (Actually legally you can't but nobody knows that ;)).

The creche thing happens here too. I've learned to give those moms in 4x4 lots of space...they reverse into the road blindly.

What pisses me off more is the local garden service that parks 100% on the road...in a blind corner. Forcing everyone to drive around a blind corner on the wrong side of the road. One of these days they'll find out that tires are no match for carbon fiber arrows....
 
I had those white concrete cones planted at my office (they come in different sizes and shapes but you get the idea) - which worked immediately.
At home I got the municipality to paint red lines around certain parts of the road, because we also had a company whose staff parked wherever they pleased. I just told them that the cars obstructing my view and they were there within a week.
 
as far as i know you can report them to the traffic department as the cars are obstructing the road and making it hazardous.

i can also not see why you cannot place poles or rocks on the edge as lots of ppl do it here and it works well.
 
Here are some photos I took quickly of it too:

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It's the office block to the left that the staff belong to.
 
Plant a big rock garden.

The problem with putting rocks or poles etc, is they will then just park in the road more than they currently do (quite often they park half on/half off our pavement on the road on BOTH sides of the road at the same time, and make it even more dangerous for people driving past.

It's also not always the same people. Sometimes we speak to them and they never park there again but then the next guy looking for parking will take that empty spot on the grass.
 
The problem with putting rocks or poles etc, is they will then just park in the road more than they currently do (quite often they park half on/half off our pavement on the road on BOTH sides of the road at the same time, and make it even more dangerous for people driving past.

It's also not always the same people. Sometimes we speak to them and they never park there again but then the next guy looking for parking will take that empty spot on the grass.
ja well get them of your lawn first... then when they park in the road the Metro can go do their thing and fine them for parking in a non-parking area
 
Invest in some wheel clamps :D Could become quite profitable :)
On a more serious note, the Rock garden idea should work, it's done all over JHB outside complex's where the lawn is technically Municipality grounds.
 
Hi guys, I'm not exactly where the right place to post this is, but for about the past 2 years now we have been having serious problems with people parking on our front garden lawns.

We live in a fairly residential area in Table View with 2 big office buildings right next door. The problem is that the one office building catered very little parking for their staff. There is a tiny underground parking lot for top-management and then space for like 8 cars outside on their property.

They need much more parking though, and every day about 4-8 of their staff park on our front lawns. If they not parking on our lawns then they double park in the road (on both sides) so that barely one can can even get through at a time, let alone two.

1) There is a pre-school creche about 2 houses down and the road corners are very tight. Almost every day I see incidents that VERY close become accidents because you can't see around the corners due to cars parking right on the edge. It's putting these children, their family and my family in danger on a daily basis.

2) The cars parking on our grass EVERY day, 9-5 is killing our grass. We have given up trying to get it look nice because it's just turning into brown dry grass with a lot of sand.

3) Our garden services can't cut our front lawn grass, and it's very frustrating. Our garden services don't always come on the same day so we can't say to the people don't park on our grass on Wednesdays because otherwise we can't have our grass cut.

4) We can barely get in and out of our front drive way. My mother works from home and frequently has people coming to pick up products or drop stuff off. It's extremely dangerous reversing out of the drive way because the cars on either side block your view completely and it's also a very busy road so cars are moving quickly.

First we tried leaving notes on the cars windshields. Starting from subtle things like if they parked on the road instead of on our grass we would say "Thanks very much for not parking on our grass this time, much appreciated". We have tried the straight out "Don't park on our grass, it's dangerous and we can't cut our lawn". We have tried going out and talking to them and asking them not to park there. We have tried emailing the owner of the offices next door and he keeps saying that he has asked his staff not to park on our grass.

I want to know is this kind of thing illegal? Can we complain to the municipality or the police about it? I'm so tempted to go put spikes or something in the grass so their tyres burst when driving over the grass to park, but I don't want to endanger pedestrians walking by.

We use to have the exact same problems too until we complained to the neighbours about their friends on our lawn. Since then our grass has grown nicely. They also had a habit of parking in front or accross from our garage blocking the door so couldn't turn in etc.

So if you know which place the people are visiting tell the people who they visiting to tell them to park somewhere else or you may fine or tow them away at their expense.

Dont do anything drastic, go the calm, cool and collected route without spiking tires, scraping paint etc.

Currently we got neighbours who speed up the road at 80 - 100km/h where my cats normally stroll and wish I could catch them before they vanish to complain.

Luckily my current cats have had no problems, but one of my cats 2 years ago got hit by a car in same street yet they never contacted me to apologise, although I am tempted to put a speed limit sign for 30-40 or children/animals at play sign up.

You could put a towaway sign or no parking sign in front of your lawn somewhere :D
 
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Get the municipality involved, also double check if it is zoned correctly commercial zones should have sufficient areas to park and it's not up to you to sort it out it's up to the offices that are the issue.
 
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