Small business owner locks the adjacent daycare out of his parking lot after the manager of the daycare has his car towed for parking in theirs, causing chaos the next day when parents try to drop off their kids: 'I tell you the mayhem was well worth it'

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Nov 7, 2025 12:00 PM EST

You should never look a gift horse in the mouth or—er, gift parking spaces, I guess, in this case.

When you've been enjoying a peaceable existence with your neighbor, who has put up with and been tolerable of your disruptiveness for far too long, it would be unwise to draw an arbitrary line in the sand that you yourself have been crossing for quite some time.

Anyone who has ever lived or worked near a school, or had the misfortune of trying to drive past one during drop-off or pick-up hours, can tell you what absolute chaos it is. Tens to hundreds of parents simultaneously trying to maneuver as close to the school as possible. And when it comes to pick-ups, parents arrive anywhere as early as 30 to even 45 minutes beforehand, parking up in every available spot on adjacent streets that don't even have direct access to the school.

In this case, this small business owner shared parking spaces with a daycare, which occupied another tenancy in the building from which their business operated. Technically, they had sole rights to 24 parking spaces in front of their business, which were in a separate lot adjacent to the lot that contained the daycare's 10. This, however, did not stop the daycare from effectively monopolizing the business spaces during pickup and drop-off time, which, like a good neighbor, the business owners allowed without complaint. They were, after all, seldom using the majority of them. However, this olive branch wasn't extended both ways.

Sometimes, they would find that the hordes of parents were blocking them out of their entire parking lot when they arrived to work in the morning. One morning, they gave up and parked in the daycare's spaces, and the daycare's manager had no problem towing their vehicle almost immediately, despite the daycare's ongoing use of the business's entire parking lot. This, of course, was unacceptable and unneighborly behavior, and the simplest solution was removing the daycare's access to the spots they had been abusing.

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    A full parking lot with cars waiting to park
    via Nopparuj Lamaikul

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    "Daycare wants my office to park in our reserved spaces while they use ours too. We did."

    Been waiting for this one My partner and I own a small 8 person company that shares a building with only a daycare. Our company consists almost exclusively of higher-level professionals (a couple lawyers, CPAs, etc.), so most have their own large
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    office plus, a couple of common areas, conference rooms, a nice kitchen. All in all, it's about 3,500 sqft which is obviously a lot for 8 people, but necessary for our line of work.
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    Due to the size of the office, the lease has a parking provision which grants us exclusive rights to all 24 parking spots. This is somewhat important (to the story not our work we only need 8 + clients). Also, important is the daycare's parking lot only consisting of about 10 spots in front of the building.
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    The parents would use our lot to drop off as the daycare's lot would be mostly full with their staff's cars and even some of their staff would park in our lot. I didn't mind at all. We had over a dozen empty spots each day, and it was nice to have the (mostly) happy children around in the
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    mornings/afternoon. Until a month ago. I started coming in a bit later at the same time as daycare drop off. Our lot was crazy with parents/kids walking and parking, so I used their lot like they have done with ours for years.
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    First day, no issue. Second day, the manager saw me get out and gave me a piercing stare. A week later or so, I did it again, and my car was towed. Not a warning or word from the manager/anyone at the daycare to me or our office.
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    I went to the daycare to ask if they knew it was my car (it is a very distinctive old blue truck) and if some kind of mistake had been made. The manager came out and said it was not a mistake, and in a very rude demeaning tone her exact words were along the lines of "unfortunately we
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    can't have the liability of non-staff and parents within our lot and I'm sure the parents don't appreciate having to walk further either or an unknown adult like you in the lot" she looks me up and down and I am a totally normal
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    looking 30 year old male, I think at least. "Don't you have some reserve spots in the back? You should really park there and let us park here." With an eye-roll, she walked off.
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    I was happy I held my tongue in front of the children considering how f― king angry I was, knowing it was not the time for that conversation. A couple days later I told the manager, while we were outside the office that I wished she would have come to me
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    before towing my car and costing me $600, asked for an apology, and said since we share the backlot and the parents take up almost all of our spots in the morning and afternoon, can I park in the front lot the occasional morning the timelines align. She flatly said no- and basically gave me the same speech she gave last time, at least not commenting on my appearance this time.
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    I left things for a week, thinking it was over. Until again, I had nowhere to park one morning. Having to wait 10 minutes for parents to filter out of our lot lest my car be towed, and who do I see but the manager getting a spot in my lot before me even. I decided to comply with the manager's wishes
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    then and developed a plan. I contacted the building owner, and said (or more accurately lied) that due to compliance reasons with a state license we're applying for, we need to have a gate installed with employee/guest pass access only on our parking lot. Our company would of course cover the cost. Same day approval from landlord. Installed two weeks later.
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    I drove in early that first day after install. I tell you the mayhem was well worth it. Watching from the corner window gave me a perfect view of it all. It started with daycare staff pressing all sorts of keys on the gate to try and get in; trying to park where they have for months, years even. Then their lot filled up completely.
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    Parents started arriving. A staff member had to stand at the gate telling parents there was now no access. Their parking lot was basically congested with parents double parked taking their children in. Other parents parked a quarter mile down in another lot at the park our office overlooks. I eventually went down, to give the manager a nice little wave and walked back up to my office. She gave me a piercing stare that just made me grin ear to ear.
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    I guess she sent the owner a rather angry email about parking rights to the backlot afterwards and how it's crazy one small office gets the entire thing. Apparently, she did not know we had all of it. He said him and I may have to discuss the parking provision in the future and he also did not know the lease gave the entire back lot, but it's
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    not a big deal to him. (Not sure why he let me put the gate in) Regardless, I still have 2 years left on my lease with another option to extend an additional 5. So no plans on moving anytime soon from the office or my 24 parking spots.
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    P.S. it's an office building next to a park and residential homes. I am in no way endangering these children since they now walk through a quarter mile of grass and playground to get to daycare. There's not even a street to
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    cross from that lot. If anything I made the days of the employees and parents better in retrospect (actually not sure employees can park in the playground lot for that long).
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    Edit: finally figured out how to edit! Newer around these parts. To everyone asking me why I did not tow, two reasons: 1) most importantly, I was tired and working 12+ hour days for a few months at that point. That day she parked there was the last or second to last day of that stretch, and then I'm
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    basically 4-6 hours a day for 9 months. Towing a car was the last thing on my mind; getting into the office and finishing my work was my only goal. Then my partner suggested it when I recounted the story. 2) $600 can be a lot of money for some. I grew up fairly poor and know how devastating a towed car can mean to a family struggling month to month. Another day, I may have done it. I'm glad I didn't.
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    SkyRemarkable5982 Touché to the daycare worker! I was really hoping you towed the car when you said she got a spot in your lot before you did.
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    OP RelativeSalad 1409 My partner(business not life haha) wanted to, but I chose against it. Would rather inconvenience the manager as much as possible, even better if the owner of the daycare has to move his business simply due to a couple of conversations and a measly parking gate.
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    Coder Joe1 Time to lease them some of your parking spots for $10/day until you pay off the cost of the gate and getting your car towed.
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    OP RelativeSalad 1409 I don't care about the money. I care about the inconvenience of the manager. Unfortunately, there is great collateral damage with the parents/staff convenience too. Sacrifices must be made in this great petty war.
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    _Kramerica_ It's absolutely flabbergasting that people would rather treat a stranger like a complete piece of shit rather than just talk to them in a normal, non-aggressive/non- confrontational way. It literally costs nothing to just at minimum have 1-2 conversations and feel people out before you make a decision on how future interactions should be handled. People like that deserve every single inconvenience possible.
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    OP RelativeSalad 1409 It's shocking honestly. Happens for too often with Opposing Counsel's Clients or even Opposing Counsel who cannot remain civil, so luckily I basically deal with uncivil a-holes for a living. Easy to deal with a situation like this in normal life with nothing at risk.
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    aquainst1 Yes! "Due to liability issues involved with these parking lots, this lot can not be accessed by anyone other than staff or clients of <insert company name here>." Or something like this.
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    OP RelativeSalad 1409 May do that, but not sure how it'd look in the eyes of our clients. Would definitely raise some questions, that some would love the answer to and others would have some pause over.
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pro revenge daycare hoa neighbors school parking space small business parking lot malicious compliance parking ticket neighborhood revenge parking drama homeowner neighborhood-drama bad neighbors neighborhood-stories parking stories petty revenge terrible neighbors Bad Neighbor business parents neighbor
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