Tralfaz

Tag: parking

  • Apartment Living: Parking hell

    Unlike most posts, this isn't about our apartment, but instead the duplexes across the street. Last night was a 3 round doosy of a fight. All the 4 letter words were dragged out.

    The situation:

    Across the street are duplexes. Two unit "houses", with two garages. One garage for each unit.

    All of these garages are converted into illegal apartments. No way would the city code office permit these.

    Thus a duplex is really a faux quadplex. Each house has four families living there, with 4 (or 6 or 8) automobiles. And no garage parking. So all these cars cram into the concrete pad.

    The start of the fight:

    The quadplex across the street, the same one with the parties that happen any day ending in "Y" takes up almost all of the concrete pad. They even have a "classic" car under a cover that is permanently parked there, as well as a boat on the street.

    The tenant on one of the far side units of the illegal quadplex often has his car boxed in. He has torn out his undercarriage going over the curb to get in and out. He, rightly in my opinion, believes that he shouldn't be this inconvenienced.

    Last night the simmering pot boiled over. Fuck you's, motherfuckers, bitches, whores, and a lot of other colorful language started flying around 7:00 PM. Lasting until almost 8, we thought "Phew, it is done". Not so. Started again at 9:00, and I just gave up.

    Yep, life never gets boring.

  • Apartment Living – Competitive Parking

    Apartment Living – Competitive Parking

    Life in a moderate density apartment complex is fun, and I mean that in the most positive way. The property management team does try to be fair, particularly around “parking“.

    Each unit has one assigned space. There is a “permit” (a mirror hangar) that looks impossible to counterfeit. And even if you could, the spaces are assigned, so each permit is numbered. We have one.

    Of course, most units have people living with more than one vehicle in them, so the quandary is where to park.

    There is no formal guest parking. No open slots in the lots to fight over. Cool, I guess. So it is on the street.

    Sidebar: Clearly the people in San Jose never fucking learnt to parallel park, or they just suck at it. Or both.

    During the day, it usually isn’t too bad, there are enough openings to get a decent spot. Starting around 6:00PM, it becomes brutal. Not enough linear feet + people who can’t park to save their lives = chaos. Some people leave acres of room before and after their car, and some insist upon jamming in close up. There are typically about 7 – 9 car spaces wasted by morons parking.

    After 10:00PM, you are definitely going to have to go well int o the neighborhoods to find free space.

    It doesn’t help that across the street are a series of duplexes virtually all with three garage spaces (split, 2 for one “master” unit, and 1 for the “rental”) that have been converted to additional rentals. That means that the small yards they have are now parking, and a lot of overflow into the street. Sigh.

    Street cleaning day is the 1st Friday of the month, and it does mostly empty the streets. For a few hours anyways. Then the chaos returns.

    The Office has a few reserved spots, and  there are 5 employee parking spots in the main lot. Of course, when the office is open, the residents do honor these reserved spots.  Until the office manager leaves, then BAM they are all filled. Strangely, the employee spots don’t get used (my theory is that we do have an on-premise maintenance person, and he is likely to call the towing company.)

    There is hope though. There are a number of “extra” spaces that can be “rented” for $35 a month. Alas, they are all taken, and we are on the waiting list for one of them when it frees up, and our turn rolls around.