'It would otherwise be empty...' Homeowner discovers neighbor has been parking his SUV on his driveway while he's at work, so he installs a parking bollard and gets called 'passive aggressive'

Celeste Mello • Writer and Editor

Jun 9, 2026 9:45 AM EDT

Just because a driveway is empty doesn't mean anyone who's not the owner is entitled to use it. Why do people take advantage of a neighbor's kindness? Borrowing your driveway once to your neighbor doesn't mean you gave them an open invitation to use it whenever they please. People need to ask for permission. If something doesn't belong to you, you ask the owner first. Otherwise, you're using someone else's property without consent.

It's great to have a friendly relationship with your neighbors and help each other when needed. If you're hosting relatives and your neighbor lets them use his driveway, that's really considerate, and most people would appreciate that gesture. But in today's story, this homeowner gave an inch, and his neighbors took a mile.

'It would otherwise be empty' is not a valid explanation for using someone else's property without even asking. Property rights are not based on whether something is currently being used. By that logic, any empty backyard can be considered fair game while the owner is away, and everyone knows the world doesn't work that way.

These neighbors asked once and then assumed the homeowner wouldn't mind them using his driveway every day while he was at work. The problem is that they never had an actual conversation about it. And of course, the homeowner eventually noticed what was happening. The worst part is not the lack of permission to use his property, but the lack of respect for him. Instead of asking him directly, they thought he probably wouldn't notice because he was away all day, so they kept using his driveway without talking about it.

The homeowner's solution was simple and smart. Instead of arguing, he put up a clear physical boundary that delivered the message for him. The parking bollard made his property rights impossible to ignore. Sometimes, that's the point you have to reach for people to respect your boundaries.

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This model illustrates a homeowner calling his neighbor after finding an SUV parked in his driveway.
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AITA for stopping my neighbor from using my driveway while I was at work?

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A representation of a homeowner's unused driveway next to a neighbor's crowded driveway with two parked cars.
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A homeowner waiting for his neighbor to move their car so that he can park in his own driveway, represented by a model.
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This model depicts a parking bollard used to block a neighbor's access to a homeowner's private driveway while he is away at work.
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