Car Parked In Front Of My House For Days: [ Here’s What You Should Do ]

It’s common for everyone to face the problem of someone else parking in your space, and it’s infuriating when it happens to be right in front of your house.

It is okay if the individual has parked momentarily in front of your house, but nothing is more irritating than having their vehicle parked at the same spot for days. Yes, it’s a common sight in the United States where someone would park their vehicle in front of others’ houses for days.

According to a survey, almost 25-30% of Americans undergo this issue frequently. If you too belong to this category, you might seek solutions for the same. Right?

While there isn’t much you can do in this regard, below, you will find certain working solutions personally tried by me. Additionally, I’ll answer your other queries on the subject. So, let’s start.

A car parked in front of my house for days: what should you do?

If you notice a car parked in front of your house for days, you can do the following for either of the two solutions: get the car off from your house or find its owner. For this, here are some ways.

Talk with your neighbor.

Someone rightly said that neighbors are not less than detectives. They usually keep a close watch on the entire neighborhood, its people, and every other thing. So, if you don’t know who parked their car in front of your house, ask your neighbors.

Provide them with the required information, sit over a cup of coffee, and I bet you will get the name. This method is also necessary before proceeding to the next method.

Call the cops

If the car is at the same spot for days now and no one has cared even to wash its dust off, there are two common possibilities – the car is a stolen one, or the person doesn’t want it anymore.

In either case, you are the one who is or will suffer. Hence, it’s better to call the cops in that case.

However, as I said earlier, you should first communicate with your neighbors or people you believe might own that car. If nothing concrete comes out through this, you should immediately seek assistance from the cops.

There is a 72-hours parking ordinance in the US which states that vehicles parked at the same spot in public for over 72-hours fall in the abandoned category. In this case, the police will either help you locate its owner or tow away the car from your premises as a solution.

Be it any case, taking help from the cops is the best way out in such situations.

Get the car towed away

Yes, you can do this too! If you are facing lots of trouble due to the indefinite blockage caused by the car for days now, instead of calling the cops, you can also get the car towed away on your own.

Remember that this suggestion is for only those who can’t devote much time to this matter by involving the cops. Thus, call the towing department, convey them all the details, and they will tow away the car from your location. You can then put a note covering all this if the car’s owner suddenly shows up and knows what’s going on with their car.

These are the few things you can do if someone has parked in front of your house for days.

Note: You can wait for a few more days to see if someone turns up to claim that car. It’s a common tactic and may work in your case too.

Is it okay to park in front of someone’s house?

Parking in front of someone’s house is both okay and against it depending upon the situation. For example, it highly depends on the nature of the individual.

If the individual is kind-hearted, they won’t be rude if you park in front of their house for long. In other cases, it might not be the case.

Another thing to remember here is that as long as you have momentarily parked your car at a spot that too with the owner’s permission, it’s completely fine.

If there is no sign reading “don’t park in front of the gate/house,” ” parking is not allowed for outsiders,” or something like that, you can proceed and park your car, and this will again be considered okay.

In a nutshell, parking in front of someone’s house is okay if you have permission for the same and the owner isn’t facing movement issues due to the same.

Can I stop someone parking outside my house?

Here are a few things to understand this in a better way. First, if you live in a residential place with multiple houses nearby, the road outside your house isn’t your private property. Thus, anyone can park on the road, i.e., outside your house, as long as it’s not obstructing the house’s entry.

However, if you have special permission from the local authority that enables you to stop people from parking outside your house, you can do so.

If it is a private road outside your house that you own, you can deter people from parking outside your house. If someone parks their car on private property, legal action or police complaint is inevitable.

Thus, you may or may not stop someone from parking outside your house depending upon whether the space outside your house is public or private.

How long until we consider a vehicle to be parked?

There is a minute yet significant difference between stopping a vehicle and parking the same. Stopping a vehicle means you stopped the vehicle from loading or unloading things. In the case of stopping, no time is taken into account while differentiating it from parking.

So, if you have stopped your vehicle for loading/unloading goods, your car will fall in the category of being “stopped,” even if it’s over an hour of doing so.

On the other hand, “parking” a vehicle means stopping the vehicle for longer than necessary. For example, if you’ve stopped your vehicle on the roadside and you’re attending a call from inside, you’ve parked your car and not stopped it. Even if it’s for merely 5 minutes, the car will fall in the category of “being parked” and not “being stopped.”

So, this is the minute difference between stopping and parking to understand how long until a vehicle is considered parked.

Conclusion

Nothing is more infuriating than finding someone’s car parked in your parking space located just outside your house. While momentarily parking isn’t an issue, cars parked for days are something a thing of concern.

According to the United States parking laws, any car parked for over 72-hours at the same spot falls in the category of “abandoned.”

Now, to deal with such cars, although there is nothing much you can do, you can surely work out a few things like communicating with your neighbors regarding the abandoned car, calling the cops, or simply getting the car towed away. Still, it would help to stay mindful of such types of parking outside your house to avoid the situation worsening later.