WWYD - Opportunist dinged my car parking next 2 me

[Opti]

WWYD?

Just recently someone moved out of our particular apartment building leaving an assigned parking spot temporarily vacant a resident car. While there are open spots in the front of the complex there are only a couple on this side of the complex and opportunists have already been parking in it.



Now, if these people could actually park OK and not chip paint off my car or put mysterious blue paint triangles into my door I might not care. However, they are making my neighbor with the big ass White two door whose left white paint scars up and down my passenger door look like a piker in just three days. I parked slightly over into the other spot which wouldn't give them room to park IF my other neighbor's car was already in his spot. It isn't. So crappy econo car who apparently slammed the passenger door into my car creating a
blue triangle about an inch or so each side is back.

I just put a note on their car requesting they do not park there if they aren't capable of not denting the cars that belong there. I doubt it will matter because only an ahole would park somewhere they are obviously not wanted. So what next? Should I actively straddle both spots until we get a new resident? Last night a big ass commercial truck parked there and I have paint chipped out of the lower part of the driver side door to match the blue triangle. WTE? Most people here only drive themselves to work so what's with the smashing into
my car?

I want to beat them senseless so please come up with something more reasonable because if I let air out of their tires they'll probably realize it was me. (I'm not willing to chip paint off my car just to chip paint off theirs so slamming my door into their vehicles is out. I could
perhaps invite a friend with an old truck...)

[Deleted]

You call your insurance, file a claim & provide them the dingers license plate #. They'll chase them down for payment.

[Bluerobin]

Buy an ice pick and use it on two of their tires. Two flats are a pain, with only one spare.

[Opti]

I did talk to them as they parked into the other person's spot instead of choosing not to park there. He says he didn't ding my car but I am not so sure I believe him. Hopefully he will be more aware of what he does as he takes cleaning equipment out of his trunk when he comes home and perhaps he banged that into my car and forgot.

I'll see. If he can not ding my car he will be better than the big truck, Ford F-250 size, that was crammed in there the night before. Unfortunately while it probably would cost more than $500 to fix correctly I doubt my insurance would be willing to help.

Unfortunately for me some of the buildings are internal to the complex so those with two cars are constantly looking for other close spots so they don't have to walk too much. Someone will probably move in Oct 1st or shortly thereafter but it would have been nice to be able to park over to keep my longtime neighbor from adding white paint scars to my passenger side and temporarily not have anyone on my driver's side. Talk about entitlement behavior... This is something I wouldn't expect people to do in the Midwest since it is an assigned space that goes to an apartment. Obviously things are different in NJ especially with the NYC influence.

[tskeeter]

so what's with the smashing into my car?

Maybe here's your answer ....

I parked slightly over into the other spot

I'm not condoning malicious damage to another person's car, but how you park and where you choose to park (yes, I know in this case you have an assigned parking spot. I'm talking in more general terms.) has a lot of impact on how fast you collect door dings and other damage. I avoid parking next to vehicles that look as if they were thrown toward a parking spot. You know, parked at an angle, off center, etc. Poorly parked cars often don't leave adequate room to open and close doors. And the sloppy parking demonstrates a general lack of care. I avoid parking next to cars that appear to have kids for passengers. We all know kids and doors or about kids pushing shopping carts. And I avoid parking next to behemoth trucks, suv's, etc. that fill parking spaces from stripe to stripe. They are so big that they don't have enough room to open the doors in a normal size parking spot, so you're likely to get clipped. I also avoid parking next to cars that look like they haven't been washed during the current decade. If those people care that little about their car, I don't really think they are going to care enough about my car to avoid dinging it.

[swamp]

apparently tskeeter will never park next to me.

[tskeeter]

Sept 21, 2012 10:27:49 GMT -5 swamp said:

apparently tskeeter will never park next to me.

Nope, I'm not parking closer to you than Buffalo.

But I have lots of space, out here in the north 40. And my Doc says the two mile hike to the door is good for my blood pressure. Well, it's certainly better for my blood pressure than a big ding in the middle of the driver's door or a broken tail light lens.

[zibazinski]

My kids laugh because I park my POS between two fancy cars-all the time. No door dings! I figure if they spend more on their cars that I did on my first house, they're not going to door ding me.

[susanb]

Opti, I might put a strategically placed surveillance sign by the parking area, but management would probably remove it right away.

Really, this stinks. I know you are a car gal. I am not a car gal, but the car people I know take it hard when their car gets dinged.

[8 Bit WWBG]

I. Hate. Bad. Parkers.

Sadly, there is not much you can do without exposing yourself to much more serious damage. Sure you could pull one of the cool pranks people always talk about (super glue a note, vaseline on the handle, spray paint offensive words, slash tires, key it) but its not the right way to handle the situation. Plus, THAT would be the one time the parker was innocent, and caught you in the act, and you'd end up paying much more.

And unfortunately, the proliferation of these blasted gigantic buses makes it worse. Yes, some trucks are legitimate work vehicles. I doubt those are the ones parked in a commuter train lot though. If there is one upside to expensive gas, its less of those things around.

I agree that if your insurance won't get involved (which they probably won't unless you actually catch someone in the act or can prove via paint) and/or some other power won't get involved (HOAs can be very helpful about this), then you are stuck.

[reader79]

I say straddle the line between your spot and the unassigned spot. Maybe even at an angle.

[Deleted]

The first thing you should do when you buy a new car is to hit it with a hammer. That way you have to be stressed about your first ding.

[wvugurl26]

Sept 21, 2012 12:46:07 GMT -5 8 Bit WWBG said:

I. Hate. Bad. Parkers.

Sadly, there is not much you can do without exposing yourself to much more serious damage. Sure you could pull one of the cool pranks people always talk about (super glue a note, vaseline on the handle, spray paint offensive words, slash tires, key it) but its not the right way to handle the situation. Plus, THAT would be the one time the parker was innocent, and caught you in the act, and you'd end up paying much more.

And unfortunately, the proliferation of these blasted gigantic buses makes it worse. Yes, some trucks are legitimate work vehicles. I doubt those are the ones parked in a commuter train lot though. If there is one upside to expensive gas, its less of those things around.

I agree that if your insurance won't get involved (which they probably won't unless you actually catch someone in the act or can prove via paint) and/or some other power won't get involved (HOAs can be very helpful about this), then you are stuck.

Some people truly suck at parking. And then every lot in the Baltimore/DC area has smaller than normal parking spots so we can cram a few more cars in. I've been in a lot of states no one else has spots like that. It doesn't help the problem of shitty drivers.

[Opti]

Sept 21, 2012 11:15:04 GMT -5 susanb said:

Opti, I might put a strategically placed surveillance sign by the parking area, but management would probably remove it right away.

Really, this stinks. I know you are a car gal. I am not a car gal, but the car people I know take it hard when their car gets dinged.

It has a bunch of paint chips so some people don't realize like you said each one pains me. (I really need to find where I put that touch up paint and use it now that its warm enough and not too hot.)

Tskeeter, you probably missed the fact that I didn't park into the other spot until the time following the day/night I got dinged by this car(IMO). In most parking lots I park far away and by nicer cars and those who appear to know how to park and get in and out of their cars without slamming doors. All my dings are from being in this lot or when I was commuting on Hwy 78 at the same time the big garbage trucks did their runs. My one small crack in the windshield
is from that time. (I was renting a room and I got more damage to the hood of my car in that year than I did the entire 7 years prior.)

[MarleyKeezy78]

I know where you're coming from, when we lived in an apt. the neighbors across the hall used to have their friends park in our assigned, covered, apt. numbered spot all the time Then they would be all, what, they can't park there, when they were told about assigned parking when they moved in ( please be considerate of people around you) Many others used to park there too and we had to call the office for tow stickers many times, I mean really you can't figure out you don't live there and the covered spaces are numbered Hope the neighbors who park next to us and can't open a door with out bashing the hell our of our car doesn't come home and scratch that pretty little truck Oh wait, I totally hoped that happened

[tskeeter]

Tskeeter, you probably missed the fact that I didn't park into the other spot until the time following the day/night I got dinged by this car(IMO).

You're right, Optimist, I didn't get that from the way you wrote your original description. However, I think any time you're crowding or straddling the parking spot markings, you're setting yourself up for the possibility of some parking lot damage.