AITAH for not asking my niece to not park in my neighbor’s handicap spot?

In a neighborhood with limited parking, a woman has her niece, who has a handicap, babysitting for her. While the niece has the right to park in a designated handicap spot, her choice to park in a neighbor’s handicap spot, who has been inconsiderate with parking rules, infuriates the neighbor.

Despite her niece’s amusement at the situation, the woman struggles with her own feelings about the neighbor’s parking habits and whether she should intervene.

‘AITAH for not asking my niece to not park in my neighbor’s handicap spot?’

On my street no one has a driveway or garage. So it’s all just street parking. Generally everyone is good about just parking in front of their own houses. The unwritten rule is if you have a second car or have guests you should park down the road where there is a large public parking lot with plenty of parking spots.

There’s has been an issue with the new neighbors that moved in. They have two cars. One is the dad’s. One is his teenage son’s. The dad has a handicap so he got the city to turn the spot in front of his house turned into handicap spot. This isn’t a problem.

The son (who for some reason has a car and a truck) will park wherever he wants in front of whoever’s house. Several of us had gone to talk to his dad about it and ask if he could ask his son to be more courteous about the parking situation given that his son is young and able bodied and has two vehicles.

He basically blew everyone off and said his son can park wherever the f*ck he wants. So all the rest of us have just dealt with it and wrote them off as inconsiderate.
Now unrelated to this I have my niece coming over to babysit. I’ve for the the past few years paid her to babysit my kids during the summer.

My niece also has a handicap. Given the parking situation, which was never an issue before, we had planned for her to stop her car in front of my house and get out and I would go and park her car in the parking lot before I left for work.

My niece however decided on Monday morning to instead park in my neighbors handicapped spot. She had checked with the city (I have since doubled checked) and they do not specifically register street handicap spots to anyone particular person.

It has been confirmed that as long as she has a sticker or placard (which she does) she can park there.My neighbor is furious about it since by the time he gets home from work my niece is still in his spot as I don’t get home until much later than him.

He has demanded I tell my niece to stop parking in the spot and yesterday tried having her car towed to no avail. My niece finds the whole thing hilarious and doesn’t think we should have to make the extra effort to park if he won’t get his son to.

I’m guessing it’s probably petty and possibly morally problematic, but I agree with her and I’m finding it hard to find any empathy with my neighbor. If he got his son to park his vehicles in the parking lot down the road I would ask my niece to not park in his spot anymore.

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

snazzisarah says:

This is what happens when you are an e*titled d*ck to people. They ain’t going out of their way to help you out. It amazes me that this simple concept escapes so many people.Action, meet consequences. They can be a b*tch!

libananahammock says:

Because they’ve probably been able to b*lly everyone around them for so long that when they finally get someone who won’t take it they can’t handle it.

ThomasElric says:

I am going to assume that the handicapped neighbor has always gotten away with this awful behavior because of his disability. Well, it’s about time he and his e*titled son are put in their place.

Since, he doesn’t care if his son parks in front of someone else’s house, then why should OP even care if his niece has parked in that ahol’s “handicap spot”??

britainknee says:

I also can’t stand a ‘don’t treat me different because of my disability except for when it benefits me’, dude sounds like a giant d*uche, he should have found a more practical place to live, with a driveway of his own or assigned spaces or something if it really was a huge issue for him.

Fyrefly1981 says:

Consequences and karma.

This situation illustrates the complexities of community living and the clash of personal rights versus neighborly consideration. How can they navigate this tension while maintaining harmony in the neighborhood? What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!