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Space-saver etiquette question
By adamg on Fri, 01/30/2015 - 8:30pm
Caroline Cruise of Dorchester asks:
What's the parking etiquette here: someone parked right on top of my space saver. Beach chair is trapped under their car.
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Comments
I suggest
a box cutter to the tires..
(I AM KIDDING, FOLKS!!!)
I was going to say the say thing
However, im not joking! Or look for you next entitled dog walker who allows their dog to shit on your snow pile. Take a plastic bag, pickup said shit up and stuff it under the door handle.
To add insult to injury, add a small not that says "Don't be such a shitty neighbor".
That's the same note I leave
That's the same note I leave on my shitty neighbors' space savers.
You can only slash my tires...
...if you have the sack to stand there and take credit for it when I show up. And then promptly be arrested for malicious destruction of private property. You won't.
I believe a chair space-saver
I believe a chair space-saver entitles you to call the perpetrator a douche. Had they parked on your bicycle I understand you'd have been allowed to murder them.
Depends. What part of
Depends. What part of Dorchester? It's a large neighborhood so the rules vary.
Simple. Go park in an empty
Simple. Go park in an empty spot where someone else put a space saver. Then that person will have to park where someone else put a space saver. Then THAT person will have to park in a free spot with a space saver and so on and then we can END THIS DAMN NONSENSE AND JUST PARK IN EMPTY SPOTS LIKE CIVILIZED PEOPLE SHARING PUBLIC PROPERTY.
anon is right!
It has been snowing for hundreds of years and people have shoveled out spaces since there were cars. All of a sudden, entitled people believe they have some magical property right because they dug out a car.
Just goes to show you how entitled our society has become. You have no property rights to a public space! You want your own space? Then buy one. That's how society works.
It used to be people shoveled out their spaces for the common good. You dug out your space and came home and parked in a space someone else dug out. And so on and so on.
But the ME generation thinks they have some claim to a space? Big deal - you shoveled it. Was some magical deed given to you?
It's not new. It's been
It's not new. It's been happening here for as long as I can remember. I'm over 40.
But the neighborhoods are changing and pressure on
resident parking is ratcheting up. In Southie, for instance, a lot of three-family homes are being converted to condos with many more car-driving residents. You might have had three to six vehicles for such a building before the current wave of gentrification and new development; now you have nine to 12. In the South End, more prosperous residents might be parking two or three personal vehicles per capita on the street. This suggests to me that there needs to be some kind of cap on resident permits per address; I've heard that the current limit is six per individual, but I'm uncertain of that fact.
True
but what's happening is we have a lot of 'entitled' people, most of them from non-urban areas or cities with less population density compared to the Boston area (many American cities are like big suburbs compared to Boston) and they aren't used to co-operation with neighbors and strangers. Many also aren't used to not having a driveway to park, or dealing with heavy snow fall in a congested city with nowhere to put that snow (back in the day, snow was dumped in the harbor, due to regulations this can no longer be done).
And as someone else pointed out, there are a lot more vehicles on the streets today, and more per home and apartment. And many of these vehicles are big, like SUVs with high profiles.
One more time
Then I'm done explaining this. There's a forecast of snow coming for the area overnight. Everyone parks their vehicles somewhere, go to bed, wake up and sees a bunch of snow. You spend over an hour shoveling out or maybe not shoveling out your car and leave. What's wrong with parking in the same spot you were in? Why do some people feel like they are should park in a different spot?
Because
There are 1000 spots for 2000 cars. If you start saving spaces then there are like 500 spots for those cars. Don't like it - a) rent/buy a spot as recommended above or b) Zipcar/Uber/cab/T/Bike/walk/crawl or call in sick.
One more time....
What about the people who didn't get an on-street space the night before the storm, and so parked in a garage, and so didn't have a space to shovel out? When do you think it's ok for them to start parking on the public streets again?
Yes
It all evens out.
"Civilized people"
Your belief in the civility of people is fascinating. Can you bring some of these civilized people to my neighborhood so that I may try out this system you propose?
Point of Information
Does it make any difference whether you put the chair there after you dug out your car or dropped it there after you found an "abandoned" space?
Bob's rules
Perhaps that should be retitled "Point of Personal Privilege"?
More informally
Point of WTF?
It should matter;
If you dug the spot yourself, you deserve to keep it for a couple days. Punk kids ruined it for everyone by dropping chairs in abandoned spots, then fighting over them.
Space Saving Is Illegal And Rude
You deserve nothing special for unburying your car.
Nope. You shovel the spot so
Nope. You shovel the spot so you can remove your car. Once you move it, you forfeit the spot.
Caroline, You've Come To The Right Place For Advice About That
Worse than you thought
Not only is your space gone, you'll have to sit directly on the sand until they go to work in the morning.
SOL
both your space and beach chair are history. Perhaps use a larger space saver?
I suggest a refrigerator or
I suggest a refrigerator or something else equally impossible to move.
Maybe a car?
Maybe a car?
There's only one fool proof space saver
Your car!
yes
if said chair is now under the car then they didn't see it. Chairs are not recommended for your undercarriage. I have used space savers but only for an hour or so. Go to an appt or the store. It seems excessive to waste an open parking spot all day while you are at work. And it is Saturday, so it has been a couple of days (to quote the mayor) so the tolerance for space saving is over. We have trash in Dot today, I wonder if they will pick up any savers. I avoid moving my car when there is snow. I only cleaned off my car to be ready if there was an emergency. And my neighbors have been pretty great for this storm. two people pitched in with blowers when they saw me shoveling.
Status quo
Write a super passive aggressive note and leave it on their windshield.
Take a picture and post it to reddit saying "can you believe this guy?" or something like that if you want more of a reward.
You littered the street
Once you put a chair out on a public street, it isn't yours anymore.
I've never done this, but...
A few years back, during the January of nonstop snow, I dug out a space (I wasn't going to use) and the new neighbor, who did a little bit, parked his car and stuck a saver in the place when he was gone.
One Sunday I saw it. A car with Florida plates comes by, the driver moves the saver, and parks. The occupants of the car walk up the street a bit, get into another car that pulls out, with that driver leaving a saver in her spot before taking off.
Chagrined by the whole thing, and feeling ownership of the stolen space (I spent a few hours on it, it was completely clear of snow), I plotted my revenge. My best thought involved car wash soap and a bit of water for the windows (note, it was 25 out). Technically, you don't damage the car, but you get the point across.
Imagine if it was my space, but my car was in the driveway. 5 hours later the interloper was gone and an hour after that the neighbor came home.
Petty and childish...
Please grow up.
Says the guy who doesn't shovel a car out
Here's the short. Someone knew about the tradition, keeps the tradition, but when it comes to the 2 hours someone else put into the space, the tradition somehow didn't apply (in my example)
Some say slash the tires. Is my option really that bad. It sends a strong message without being destructive.
"Traditions" need to give way to changing circumstances
Back when there were enough spaces to go around, saving a space you had shoveled out made a certain amount of sense. You used to not need a license to fish for cod in the Atlantic, either. And it used to be fine to graze your livestock on Boston Common.
You and I are coming from different places
I was going to respond to something you just wrote above, but I think I can stick it here.
You're seemingly coming from the South End, emergency artery point of view, while I'm coming from the 2 and 3 family side street point of view. In my world, usually there is little trouble getting a space, while in your world it's a problem year round.
I was just out driving (for the first time in over a week) in Roslindale and Mattapan. On side streets, cars are parked by the curb in spaces they shoveled out. On Corinth Street, Morton Street, and Cummins Highway the roads are either narrowed or, if you want to take the perspective, the bike lanes are gone. Why? The city has the plow drivers make a path, not clear the streets. And judging by the snow banks at intersections, that might not be the worst option.
This is not a commons issue in a lot of the city. It's a civility issue. When I parked on the street in my stretch of single family homes before I moved to where I am now, I never put anything out, and my snow removal standards are strict. The Missus had an issue when the neighbor saved the space I shoveled, but I didn't care. But who puts a car in a saved space while saving their own space?! That frosted me.
Gloucester fishermen respected cod stocks. The Japanese and Spanish came in and mucked things up. Lobstermen mark their territory, even though they don't own the water. The stocks are strong. Do you know what they do when peope put traps in THEIR space?
Lobstermen mark their
Translation: Lobstermen use strong-arm tactics to claim exclusive access to something that is not theirs. Those who do this are morally on a par with the Mafia.
Revisionist history
That's not borne out by the facts. Cod stocks have been declining for around 100 years.
Okay
Why are we glutted with lobster, while cod is on it's way out?
Are you going to say it has nothing to do with the tactics of the former (don't take what I've worked on) versus the tactics of the latter (the sea is not the property of individuals)?
Different historical markets
Cod can be dried into a high-protein food that can be shipped and stored without refrigeration, resulting in the north atlantic cod fishery having fed much of the world for several centuries: it was exploited and exploited hard. Lobster, until recently, was a trash fish, and disdained as "poor people's food." Until the advent of mechanical refrigeration, it was impossible to ship lobster more than a very short distance from where it was caught.
Close, but not quite
Once the cod quota was instituted, fishermen moved on to other species, all of which have seen their stocks subsequently collapse. Of course, Kurlansky (if you haven't read his books, do, they're great) also says that humanity's love affair with seals, the natural predator for cod, is to blame.
At the end of the day, keeping fishing basically a free for all lead to things like trawling that collapsed the stocks. Meanwhile, what I will euphemistically call self-regulation by lobstermen has kept stocks in check.
But here's my thing, the parking issues you face exist year round. Liberal approaches to parking permits means that a big demand chases a small supply. Out my way (and I will include most of Dorchester as "my way") the issue of shoveling can be seen as akin to intellectual property. The space shoveler has essentially made an improvement by moving the snow someplace else (hopefully a yard, probably a pile behind or in front of the car, though sadly sometimes in the middle of the street), which in my mind, and the mind of a lot of Bostonians, entitles the shoveler to the equivalent of a patent. And yes, patents to expire.
"Ownership" of lobster fishing territory
If the lobster fishermen want to have exclusive rights to territory, then that's a possible approach, too: it's not at all inconceivable to have designated territories that are for the exclusive use of one permittee. But then let's do it the way we do property rights on land: you don't claim real estate by simply moving onto it and threatening with violence anyone else who encroaches on what you have claimed... we have an entire system to record ownership of land and to adjudicate property disputes and punish trespassers. "Baddest motherfucker gets all the cookies" is a crappy way to allocate resources.
lobster permits
> you don't claim real estate by simply moving onto it and threatening with violence anyone else who encroaches on what you have claimed
That's exactly how it used to work though.
Property rights on water are just a few hundred years behind those on land.
And space saver people are equally regressed.
Space savers only exist in
Space savers only exist in your imagination.
Shovel out an empty space and
Shovel out an empty space and put your car in it. *put all the snow on top of the bad guy's car!*
Ps learned this one in Salem.
"empty space"
"Empty space"
hahahaha
If there were empty spaces, then none of this would be an issue, would it?
Hmmm. A beach umbrella to go with the chair?
Sticking up through a window? Some sand on the car for yet more summery beach feeling?
I would never do any of that to a car. They are sacred, after all.
Ask Marty Walsh
Our mayor is apparently comfortable with an extra-legal system that tolerates vandalism and physical violence: street-level vigilante justice. God help him when one of those punches kills somebody. It is only a matter of time.
King Solomon says:
They are as entitled to the chair as you are to the space.
Interpret that whichever way works for you
racoon or coyote
Trap a racoon or coyote in the fall. Train them to obey you. Use as space saver in winter;) release in spring!
Space saving robot
Might as well mechanize! Guards the space, shovels anymore that comes down, distributes de-icer, and moves to the side when not needed.
Good for them...
Caroline, your behavior is entitled and bratty.
funny
what seems entitled and bratty to me is that you keep adding comments without adding anything to the discussion. we get it, you judge us. this is an online forum. I am expressing ideas and opinions that may seem wrong or silly to others. people discuss petty things with me of their own free will. Clearly we are making you uncomfortable with our low morals. please feel free to take a rest (or keep making pathetic judgey pronouncements)
Get something bigger than a folding beach chair
And something with a color that contrasts with the snow. A couple of years ago I had a white plastic chair out and someone backed into it and broke it. I don't think they saw it against the backdrop of the snow. So now I use my big blue recycling container and it works just fine.
Its over 48 hours after the
Its over 48 hours after the snow emergency, so you should have removed your now illegal space saver.
You move on
And learn to live with the fact that you don't own public property, regardless of whether you shoveled it out or not. You do that for the same reason I don't put up barriers on the sidewalk I shoveled out in front of my building restricting its use to only myself and the tenants of the building.
Using space savers is selfish
Using space savers is selfish. If there is a snowstorm and your car is parked outside, you will need to dig it out eventually. But it does not mean that you automatically own that space or your lazy. I can always pay somebody to dig my car out because im lazy and i have the money hire someone instead. These people who claim that they own these spaces are delusional and have a false sense of entitlement. Blame the city for not doing a better job ploughing the street efficiently, if they are, then there should this should not be a problem.
If you cant find parking then go to another block for parking. Some people prefer not to do this because theyre lazy and they just wan to park right infront of their house and not walk a few more steps. You see this in the mall parking lot, youll see cars hovering the spaces near the mall entrance , when there's still empty spaces thats maybe a few meters away.
BTW, I depend on street parking but I refuse to yield to this uncivilized and inconsiderate behavior.
So
Would it be better for people to just not dig their cars out at all and wait until the thaw before they drive again? I mean, that would guarantee that they would have a place for their car until this whole thing blows over.
Solution For Too Many Cars
It would be better for people to not have a car.
Too many cars
Is a 12 month a year problem in parts of Boston.
I'll leave it to others to explain why people need cars. I'll admit I don't need a car, but parking has never been an issue for me.