Holiday hassle when it comes to caravan storage

We need your help to solve a long-running debate.

Picture the scene... We’re trying to go on holiday. We have the caravan hooked up and everything on the road outside our house, ready to go. I’m inside, grabbing some last-minute items and my husband Vic’s checking everything’s hooked up properly.

However, just as we should be driving off for a relaxing holiday, our neighbour decides to start complaining again about the caravan being parked on the drive.

“I thought we had an agreement that you’d put this into storage.”

“We put it away for the winter. Now we’re using it,” replies Vic.

“You know it’s against the deeds?” the neighbour adds, crossly. “It’s been there for a month!” 

Vic walks off, and comes to tell me that the neighbour’s on the warpath again.
 

What's the problem?

Our caravan has actually been there for two weeks, three days, and 17 hours, since we returned from the Southern Motorcaravan Show. And before that it was at my parents’ house for 10 days. I don’t react well to being wrongly accused.

We’ve bent over backwards to be accommodating to our moany neighbours. When they keep complaining, I figure that we might as well have just left the caravan on the drive all winter and saved ourselves a few bob and a shedload of inconvenience.

Instead, we’ve spent hundreds of pounds rehoming it, so that our lovely neighbours can gaze at an empty drive.
 

Over the summer, my parents agree to take the caravan for a couple of weeks every month. This means it’s available locally when we need it, without upsetting our neighbours. So, combined with our regular outings, it’s absent from our drive 80% of the year (either in storage, with parents, or on holiday).

Our neighbours are being asked to show some tolerance for the remaining 20% of the year. This seems reasonable to me, but they don’t like it one bit.
 

It's all kicking off...

I go outside to put him straight: “It’s been there for two weeks and three days.”

“It’s been there for at least a month,” he repeats. I’m angry now: “That’s bullsh*t!”

“Pardon!?” He looks horrified.

“It’s been there two weeks and three days,” I explain. “And I have the photographs to prove it!” I do.

However, he backtracks to his original point: “Well, it’s against the deeds.”

“Your hedge is against the deeds,” I counter. “Their business [opposite our house] is against the deeds. Most of the people on this estate breach the deeds.”

His response is somewhat unexpected: “It’s OK for me to breach the deeds, because my hedge is natural”. His self-righteousness is truly incredible.

I’m fed up now, “Why can’t you live and let live? Don’t you have anything better to do than look at our drive?” Apparently not.

At some point I tell him to, “get a life,” at which point he tells me he doesn’t want to talk to me any more. Suits me.
 

-- Read our guide to caravan storage --

Our other neighbours bought a fold-down caravan so it could fit in the garage, but it’s a faff to put it up and down in the rain. And they, too, get violent glances across the road if it stays on the drive too long.

They argue that it’s not a caravan, but a trailer, so it doesn’t breach the deeds. We consider making our point by graffitiing our garage door, parking an ugly van on the drive, letting a wild flower meadow grow on the lawn, hanging the washing out front, and/or inviting our friends to dump their boat on our drive.

All of this complies with the deeds. We could just park the caravan on the road outside our house as that complies with the deeds, too, but we feel it’s a security risk.

Despite the temptation to rebel, we’ll continue to do our best to placate the neighbours, and hope, in return, they can show us some tolerance this year.

So we’ll put it to the vote… Who do you think is right? Vote here…
 

We need your help! Whose side are you on? https://t.co/Ugm8GBkB6Z

— Caravan Magazine (@Caravanmagazine) June 16, 2016

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