'Enjoy your tiny driveway': Heartless new neighbor tries to claim shared driveway as his own, loses and ends up with a tiny driveway

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Mar 14, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

What is it about us that makes us so bad at sharing anything? That's why things like "shared" parking are just a recipe for disaster, someone is going to find a way to make the spot theirs through either constant possession or just simply in their own mind.

This guy is just one of those people who sees the chance, the slightest opportunity, for personal gain and goes for it no matter what the ethical or moral—or even legal—consequences might be. You know, those sorts of people who drive up the shoulder or down the middle of the road during rush hour and then try to cut in. Really difficult to figure what is going through these narcissists', these sociopaths' heads, but the more they get away with it, the more they feel justified in that self-rewarding behavior. All they see is dollar signs and what they have to get out of a situation.

Of course, living next to one of these people, locked into a relationship via the unfortunate circumstance of proximity, is never going to be pleasant and you're going to find yourself constantly fending off opportunistic attempts at asserting their way across the boundary line and making other more subtle transgressions that don't do anything to keep the peace. 

This classic story of bad neighborly behavior is one for the books, with this new neighbor losing out big in his attempts to claim the driveway his house shared with the homeowners next door.

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    via Zachary Keimig

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    When my SO and I moved into our house some 20 years ago, our neighbors on one side were an elderly husband and wife who we got along with very well. Our two houses shared a driveway that ran from the street to the alley behind the houses and we each had our own parking area in the back. The driveway was set up so that about 2 feet of it was on our property with the rest on the neighbor's property. The driveway was right up against the neighbor's house and about 8 feet from ours. We all made it a
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    Sadly, the sweet neighbors did about five years ago and their house was bought by Mike, a man who regularly bought old houses to rent or resell and who clearly didn't care about anything except profit. The first time that we ever met Mike was right after a car had hit our house. (The driver had a stroke and lost control of his car while driving down our street. The front of his car was actually inside of our house.) So here we are, freaking out because a car is literally sticking out of our hous
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    We do some investigating and discover that the property line is exactly where we knew it to be and that the map Mike was using had the property line overlay off by about 2 feet. Nevertheless Mike continues to harass us and tell us that we can't use the driveway any longer because he's going to rent the place out and it would be a liability to have us driving on his property. Fine. We'd often talked about putting in our own driveway, so now was as good a time as any. Mike was quite pleased when w
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
  • 05
    The look on Mike's face when he saw where the surveyor drew our property line was absolutely priceless. The line left just barely enough room for a car to fit on his side, and he couldn't widen his driveway because it already ran right next to his house. So we used a chunk of our lawn on that side to install a nice wide driveway with river stone gravel so that it would be obvious where our driveway ended and Mike's very narrow blacktop driveway began. Mike never spoke to us again.
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    Edit to answer a few questions: Mike rented the house to a nice family with kids shortly after we put the driveway in. They bought the house from Mike last year and we get along great. I give them produce, milk, and eggs whenever I have extras and her kids are very polite. Their driveway is still wide enough to drive through, and they just park in the spaces at the back of their house, so that's not a problem for them. Edit again to remove a few details and say that Mike is not his real name. tl
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    D B
    via Alex Simpson
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    jeremyledoux We have an old lady who lives next to us. My brother and I bought our house together. We always would snow blow her drive way, help her with other chores, I even went over and fixed her toilet, her laptop, etc. My brother, when blocked in our driveway, would occasionally drive over our lawn, then out her driveway, which abutts our back yard lawn. One day we receive this rambling chicken scratch letter signed by her and two of her geriatric friends as "witnesses" to not use her prope
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    CoderJoe1 Mike never spoke to you again? Worth it.
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    Diabolicus666 Put some rocks on the property line to mark your perimeter ;-) Veterinarian Whole250 OP There's our gravel driveway, then a little fence, then our garage, so it's very clearly marked now.
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    dwntwnleroybrwn Do you get along with the renters? VeterinarianWhole250 OP Yes, and they purchased the house from Mike last year. They are a nice family and we get along great.
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    ButltSaysOnline Neighbors across the street from where I used to live had a shared driveway situation. The houses were very close together and the driveway was in between them and there was literally just enough room for a car to get in between the houses. The two houses shared this driveway with no problem for over 50 years. Then one day one of the houses changes hands and those new people decide that it is their driveway. Many arguments later one of them finally calls out a surveyor who declar
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    New people refused and then took it a step further and installed metal poles right down the middle of the driveway so that nobody could use it. This vindictive MFer not only screwed himself out of use of the driveway but now nobody could use. He had to park on the street and the three cars from the other house had to park on the street in an already tight area so the whole neighborhood was affected by his selfish decision.
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    RicottaPuffs My longtime friend rented a property with a large and beautiful home. The neighbor next door, built a fence around his orchard and used the drive through their property to access a gate he had installed 100 feet along their property line. The owner spent two years in court trying to fight this guy. There was no reason for him not to have installed his gate at the highway, which was the entrance boundary for both properties. He was trying to use the access laws to gain eight more fee
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250
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    He lost in court. He was forced to add a gate where his property met the highway and he was assessed fees for illegal and unneeded use. Those fees were paid to the landlord. In addition, that judge told him he would be fortunate not to face charges of reckless endangerment to the children who lived there. there was a lot of filmed activity. I posted this because sometimes, there is a win.
    via u/VeterinarianWhole250

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hoa neighbors neighborhood homeowner neighborhood-drama bad neighbors neighborhood-stories terrible neighbors Bad Neighbor neighbor
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