Hi GTAM folks,
Need your help, please!
Sorry for the long post in advance. But here goes... We live in the Peel Region in a row townhouse where our driveway is connected to our neighbour’s driveway by a set of interlocking tiles that are laid in the centre of our property lines.
Our neighbours have shown complete disregard and park their SUV very close to the property centre line, so much so that when they have to access their passenger side of the SUV to get into the car, they walk over onto our driveway, step on our driveway in order to get into their SUV. They treat both the driveways as their own private driveway.
Attached here are two pictures to provide some context and reference. Pic #1 is a close-up shot showing just how close the neighbour has parked their Mercedes SUV to the property centre line. Pic #2 is a wide-shot of both our driveways taken from our street to demonstrate how much space the neighbour has on their driveway on the other side and yet chooses to park close to our driveway midline. Since they chose to park their SUV so close to the driveway midline, we have had to park our cars further away from the centre line to ensure we can get into our own cars!
On multiple occasions, we have told them that this parking behavior of theirs causes inconvenience for us to park our cars and get into our cars on our own driveway. On two separate occasions (this past winter when this becomes a major issue), both my husband and I (in-person) rang their doorbell, politely requested them to come out onto the driveway to show them how closely they had parked their car to our cars and why is it such an inconvenience to us. During both those times, the neighbour got defensive and said they would take care the next time. And then, they resumed their bad parking behavior.
Both my husband and I are very mindful every time we park our cars on our driveway to ensure we park our cars away from the property midline to ensure we don’t overstep their driveway. They have plenty of space on their driveway to park appropriately like us, but they deliberately park close to the midline and conveniently trespass on our driveway to access their vehicle. It doesn’t seem fair that we are paying mortgage for our driveway so that they can use it as and when they like and to their convenience!
We are done talking with these neighbours for now as it clearly hasn’t gotten them to change their bad parking behavior. Since the last time we reminded them nicely to park properly, they took offense (go figure, they feel offended even when they are in the wrong!) and now they have turned hostile towards us, (don’t talk or make eye contact but make aggressive glaring gestures when walking past our house on the sidewalk) and continue to deliberately park close everyday as if they are thumbing their noses at us to make a point! :-S
My husband and I were hoping to calmly resolve this issue with the neighbour via dialogue, but they have clearly closed those doors and continue with their belligerent parking behaviour. Now we want to take action to stop them from using our driveway to access their SUV when it is clearly not needed.
GTAM folks, do you think the neighbours entering on our driveway to access their SUV is considered trespassing?
Can we ask the city to issue a warning to them to not step on our driveway? Or, do we need to get a lawyer involved?
Will installing a camera and capturing them trespassing be considered evidence? Please do share your thoughts/guidance.
They have been harassing us for the past 3 years and we have avoided a tit-for-tat response by parking close to the property line as we tried to resolve the issue through dialogue. We do not want to put planters, concrete bricks and hedges as it will only aggravate the issue and not resolve it.
Thank you in advance.
Need your help, please!
Sorry for the long post in advance. But here goes... We live in the Peel Region in a row townhouse where our driveway is connected to our neighbour’s driveway by a set of interlocking tiles that are laid in the centre of our property lines.
Our neighbours have shown complete disregard and park their SUV very close to the property centre line, so much so that when they have to access their passenger side of the SUV to get into the car, they walk over onto our driveway, step on our driveway in order to get into their SUV. They treat both the driveways as their own private driveway.
Attached here are two pictures to provide some context and reference. Pic #1 is a close-up shot showing just how close the neighbour has parked their Mercedes SUV to the property centre line. Pic #2 is a wide-shot of both our driveways taken from our street to demonstrate how much space the neighbour has on their driveway on the other side and yet chooses to park close to our driveway midline. Since they chose to park their SUV so close to the driveway midline, we have had to park our cars further away from the centre line to ensure we can get into our own cars!
On multiple occasions, we have told them that this parking behavior of theirs causes inconvenience for us to park our cars and get into our cars on our own driveway. On two separate occasions (this past winter when this becomes a major issue), both my husband and I (in-person) rang their doorbell, politely requested them to come out onto the driveway to show them how closely they had parked their car to our cars and why is it such an inconvenience to us. During both those times, the neighbour got defensive and said they would take care the next time. And then, they resumed their bad parking behavior.
Both my husband and I are very mindful every time we park our cars on our driveway to ensure we park our cars away from the property midline to ensure we don’t overstep their driveway. They have plenty of space on their driveway to park appropriately like us, but they deliberately park close to the midline and conveniently trespass on our driveway to access their vehicle. It doesn’t seem fair that we are paying mortgage for our driveway so that they can use it as and when they like and to their convenience!
We are done talking with these neighbours for now as it clearly hasn’t gotten them to change their bad parking behavior. Since the last time we reminded them nicely to park properly, they took offense (go figure, they feel offended even when they are in the wrong!) and now they have turned hostile towards us, (don’t talk or make eye contact but make aggressive glaring gestures when walking past our house on the sidewalk) and continue to deliberately park close everyday as if they are thumbing their noses at us to make a point! :-S
My husband and I were hoping to calmly resolve this issue with the neighbour via dialogue, but they have clearly closed those doors and continue with their belligerent parking behaviour. Now we want to take action to stop them from using our driveway to access their SUV when it is clearly not needed.
GTAM folks, do you think the neighbours entering on our driveway to access their SUV is considered trespassing?
Can we ask the city to issue a warning to them to not step on our driveway? Or, do we need to get a lawyer involved?
Will installing a camera and capturing them trespassing be considered evidence? Please do share your thoughts/guidance.
They have been harassing us for the past 3 years and we have avoided a tit-for-tat response by parking close to the property line as we tried to resolve the issue through dialogue. We do not want to put planters, concrete bricks and hedges as it will only aggravate the issue and not resolve it.
Thank you in advance.
