We like our new neighbourhood. We have already met more of our neighbours here than we did in a year up in Raheny (more of a statement about the layout of our previous estate, and that our house was a bit tucked away, than about Raheny).

Every encounter we’ve had in our new place has been great. People have been really friendly.

Well, as least until Liz parked our car in the wrong spot. Now, by wrong I don’t mean illegal. It was a perfectly legal place for her to park. There are no signs, no yellow lines, nothing at all that would indicate that you are not allowed to park your vehicle where she parked it.

The reason Liz actually parked in this space was because most of the parking on the street was taken. Except for this one spot. So she parked there…that makes sense, right?

Well, the next day she goes to the car and sees this note on the driver’s side window:

If you can’t read that it says, “Park outside where you live in the Mews.”

So okay, we don’t live on the street we had been parking on. We live on the Mews off of the street where we’ve been parking (still not illegal). Our trash/recycle/compost bins are in front of our house, and since the old bins haven’t been picked up yet, there wasn’t space for our car.

Now when Liz first saw the sign, she was a bit freaked out. “How does the person who put the sign on our car, know where we live?” was one thought.” “I didn’t know I couldn’t park on the street,” was another. And I’m guessing the next one was, “Did they really need that much tape?”

Of course, when you move into a new place, you don’t want to do something that makes your neighbours angry.

Well, Liz doesn’t like to make people angry…my first thought was, “I know where I’ll be parking from now on.” I wanted to…but I didn’t…I eventually figured that irritating my neighbours probably isn’t a very loving thing to do.

Well, it turns out that not parking there was a good idea.

In talking to people who’ve lived in the neighbourhood, there is a reason that one parking spot is always available.

The woman who lives there is in her 60s or 70s and does not own a car. It turns out that she also has a long history of writing notes to people who leave their cars in front of her house.

It also appears that a sign taped to your window is one of her friendly warnings. From what we’ve been told, she has allegedly done the following to cars parked in the wrong place:
– Keyed a car
– Poured water in an open window of a car
– Krazy glued a note to a car window (I guess she ran out of tape.)

So, if you are coming to visit us in Clontarf, let us know…we’ll make sure you know where not to park.