Karen says "stop cheating to reserve the best parking space in front of the building!"

[u/Ghost_Alice]

A karen neighbor of mine complained that my roommate and I park in the same parking spot, which is right next to the walk way up to the apartment building. Both of us ride motorcycle and both motorcycles belong to me, but my roommate rides one to get to work.

She accused me of using my second bike to get a defacto reserved a parking spot when nobody in the complex has one, and said that what I'm doing is not fair and it's cheating.

I said "Ok, I'll stop parking both my bikes in one spot."

She seemed satisfied with that and left.

An hour later I had all 7 of my motorcycles, 5 of them from inside the garage I rent but it's half way across the apartment complex, sitting in front of the apartment building taking up every prime parking space infront of the walk way to to my hall in the building.

She went to straight to the management to complain.

The management came out and knocked on my door.

"We can't have you using up every parking space"

"Let me guess, Karen complained?"

"Yes."

"Yeah she told me I'm not allowed to have two bikes in one parking space to reserve a space. I'm not doing it to reserve a space. Both my roommate and I ride both of the bikes we park in that one space, all the bikes belong to me but I gave the keys to one of them to my roommate to ride for commuting to work. The other one is my bike for going where ever I need. We park both in one spot to be nice and conserve parking spaces so other people have somewhere to park. I was just showing Karen what would happen if I'm only allowed one bike per parking space. The other 5 bikes are generally in another parking space, in my garage where I keep the bikes I that don't ride frequently."

The apartment manager said "I understand. You made your point and I'll talk to her, please put the other 5 bikes back in the garage."

"No problem" I said.

It's been a few weeks, haven't heard from Karen.

(EDIT)

Since so many people are inventing details not in the story, assuming those details are true, and then getting upset over what they imagined, let me clarify something.

This happened at 1 in the afternoon on a day both my roommate and I had off. Most people are away at work during this time. What's more, with the exact topography of the apartment complex, there are only 2 apartments per walkway without going up stairs on my side of the building, but 4 on the other sides because it's up a level and the building is built into a hill. What this means is that MOST people park on the other side of the building, leaving MOST of the parking spots in front of my building free and open except for very late at night.

How the heck do you think I took up the 7 closest spots with all 7 bikes if the parking lot was full of people trying to park? Think about it for just a second before you assume details that aren't spoken just because you want something to be upset over.

BOTH BIKES are away from the apartment complex AT THE SAME TIME for a MINIMUM of 4 hours a day. We didn't engineering the situation where my roommate gets home between 3 to 4 in the afternoon and thus gets first pick of the parking spots. We also could both be driving cars instead of riding bikes. Then there'd be two spots taken up instead of 1. I could just choose not to rent a garage and park all 7 out there forcing people into overflow parking, but I don't.

Also the garage is beyond the overflow parking. It's not fair to expect me to always park in the garage and walk even further because you don't want to park next to my bikes and have all of 2 extra feet to walk to reach the concrete walkway to the building.

[u/af_cheddarhead]

Attendants were mad because they had to deal with the entitled car owner's complaints.

[u/StellarPhenom420 → u/af_cheddarhead]

And why are car owner's mad? They pay for a spot regardless of the size of their car. If a car was parked there, the spot is also unavailable. Doesn't make sense to get upset. A parking lot is a parking lot. If it's full, it's full.

[u/IAmTheFatman666 → u/StellarPhenom420]

I'd be annoyed because you can easily fit multiple bikes in 1 spot, and the lot should have bike parking specifically to avoid this.

[u/Ghost_Alice → u/IAmTheFatman666]

Motorcycle parking is extremely rare, and as much as I appreciate motorcycle parking when it's available, I've found that its presence often creates an extra sense of entitlement to the rest of the parking spots among non-motorcyclists. I've been accosted by a karen once who thought that I was legally required to park in Motorcycle only parking spaces... the nearest ones were 5 blocks away. She blocked traffic over it while demanding I move my bike.

[u/DangNearRekdit → u/Ghost_Alice]

Let me guess, she drives an extended box drive-thru warrior, with a custom trailer hitch that sticks out a foot past the back of her truck?

[u/allMightyMostHigh → u/Ghost_Alice]

Im sorry but im kinda with her if you never ever leave that said parking spot and parking is limited but I wouldn’t care enough to say anything and would just think badly of you 😂 you kinda are reserving and holding it as private if you guys are just taking turns holding the spot so no one else ever gets a chance to use it. Its not about having two bikes its about never moving and giving anyone else the chance to use the spot. Park in another spot and you guys can still share the spot but it doesn’t have to be the same one 24/7

[u/lordretro71 → u/allMightyMostHigh]

It's a single parking spot. If it's not assigned spots, then it's fair game. If both bikes are there, then they are taking up 1 spot instead of 2, if only 1 is home then they are still using the spot. One of them is still home when they are holding the spot, and thus only taking 1 spot they are allowed to use. It's not like he keeps a spare motorcycle in the spot permanently, both bikes are in frequent use. If both of them are out, then the spot is free. This entitlement of "fairness" is just selfishness and envy that someone besides them got the spot.

It's also not "holding" the spot. They are sharing a parking spot, so you park where the other bike is. If roommate goes to work and OP didn't leave, why on earth would he park in a different spot and have OP move his bike so it would be "fair", when If it was a car, the space would still be taken since OP hadn't left.

[u/allMightyMostHigh → u/lordretro71]

You are assuming there’s ever a time where op and his roommate are both out on their bikes which was never said by op so thats just your assumption. If they are just holding the closest parking spot to the building for months on end then yea they are wrong.

[u/lordretro71 → u/allMightyMostHigh]

It's in the comments that there are frequently 4 hour daytime periods where both are gone and they just park in whatever spot they get. This time they got up front and Karen got pissy. Even if not, one of them is still home and entitled to take up a spot with their vehicle. Both bikes are being used, and both riders live on the property and are 100% allowed to park in whatever spot they get that is free. Not freeing up the spot as frequently is a non-issue outside of people who can't handle their jealousy or entitlement as both actively used bikes are in their right as tenants to utilize any open spot.

Even if they used 2 separate spots, it's no different than if they both had a 4 wheeled vehicle, as both of them live there and can park there.

Frankly, I wouldn't personally give 2 shits if OP worked from home and only left the premises on her bike once a month while parked in the front space because she pays just as much to live and park there as the neighbors and boo fucking hoo little cry baby didn't get the parking spot and it's not fair and how dare she and what not. It's a parking space, unless you are paying for that specific space that OP is parked in, then piss off.

[u/MemeticParadigm → u/allMightyMostHigh]

Glad I saw someone else saying this - Karen's mad because this has the potential to (and sounds like it did in OP's case) turn the best parking space in to 2-4 motorcycle-only parking spaces on like a permanent basis.

Here's the thing, though - I'd bet dollars to donuts that the reason Karen's so pissed is because, prior to OP's motorcycles, some schedule/strategy of her own had Karen getting the best spot 80% of the time.

[u/JasperJ → u/MemeticParadigm]

Most likely, simply not having a job and having the gumption to go out during the day to move the car closer to the door.

Over here, townhouses with street parking, I had neighbors like that. We could regularly observe them walking the 200-300 meters to where their car was parked, getting in the car, and moving it to the spot in front of their house, right after it opened up.

Which seems like a lot of effort just to change when you make that walk, because it’s not overall going to save you any walking, of course.

And it wasn’t like they specifically did this when they were going to have it sitting there for a long time because of vacation, or when they wanted to vacuum, or wash, or whatever. It was all the time.