Recently I wrote about our woes with the deplorable parking situation at our apartment complex, and how the office threatened to tow my fiancée’s legally parked car. I also mentioned how some people even park in the blue-slashed no-parking area next to the handicapped spot and how I wished death upon them. Well, this weekend I got my chance to make that happen.

I left the house on Saturday to go get some groceries and spotted a car once again in the blue-slashed area. Had the weather been colder, I might have gone back upstairs for a jug of water and poured it all over their car, taking special care to fill the door locks and gas tank. But the temperature was above freezing and I had stuff to do, so I headed out. When I returned, the car was still there. This was about 4:00 in the afternoon, which meant the car had been there all night and most of the day. Seemed likely it might be there the rest of the night. Seeing an opportunity to help these asshats get what they deserved, I headed over to the office to report them. Why not? Somebody called in bad info on my fiancée, seemed only fair that I call in good info on someone actually doing something wrong.

I popped into the office which was thankfully empty and collared one of the office chair-warmers. Here’s how the conversation went:
“Hey, wanted to let you know there’s a car over at building two that’s illegally parked in the blue-slashed no-parking spot next to the handicapped zone.”
“They’re parked in the handicapped spot?”
“No, the spot next to it.”
“Well, that’s okay.”
“How is that okay? It has blue slashes painted across it. That’s universal for ‘don’t park here.’”
“Oh, that spot. I thought you meant the other spot next to the handicapped spot. Yeah, they shouldn’t park there. Do they have handicapped plates or a hang tag?”
“What difference does it make? Handicapped people can’t park there, either. No one can.”
“Oh, right. Do you happen to have their license plate number?”
“No.”
“Okay, well if you want to go back over and get that, along with the make and model of the car, then come back with that information, I’ll pass it along to our courtesy officer.”
“Yeah, but, they’re parked there right now. You can just send your courtesy officer over there. It’s pretty obvious which car they are. It’s big and metal and parked in the no-parking spot. Hard to miss.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Why not? They’re breaking the law. I’m letting you know they’re breaking the law. All you have to do is send over your pet cop and have them towed.”
“We can’t do that without their plate number.”
“He can write it down when he goes over to tow them.”
“Well, we can’t tow them.”
“You can’t–? Why can’t you tow them? They’re breaking the law. Okay? Not just your little apartment complex ‘let’s keep everyone happy’ rules, but the actual law. And you can’t tow them?”
“We can’t do anything without their plate number.”
“*sigh* Okay, say I go get their plate number. What will you do?”
“We’ll let our courtesy officer know.”
“And what will he do?”
“Run the plates.”
“That’s very threatening. And after that?”
“Place a tow warning on their car.”
“And after that happens?”
“After twenty-four hours, if the car hasn’t moved, we’ll call it in to have it towed.”
“Which will take how long?”
“Oh, probably a couple hours.”

So there you have it. I report a driver that’s breaking the law and they refuse to do anything unless I do even more leg work for them, and then their entire response is to put a scary little notice on the car (if they get around to it) that the driver will see and then ignore because he’s moving his car anyway. They couldn’t be bothered to go and check, requiring me to go get all the information for them. And then nothing was going to come of it anyway.

So I left and went home, not bothering to call back with the plate number. The car was still there, and remained through most of Sunday. It finally vanished sometime late Sunday afternoon, before the 24-hour tow warning would have expired anyway. So someone flagrantly breaks the law for three days and nothing is done about it, despite my efforts, while we obey the rules and get a warning–excuse me, courtesy notice–slapped on our car for our trouble.

Shoulda gone with the water jug idea.