[quote=“grayson”]…lots of stuff…
P.S. Buy an aluminum bat, wood breaks. Just in case…[/quote]
Yeah, those tow truck wheel things - i know what you’re talking about, sounds good.
Don’t want to put my car out on the street at all. People love to scratch it. But that is indeed a good idea. Maybe park all our scooters out there and chain them up haha. (1 kinda new, 1 old, 1 really damn old)
…and i already bought an aluminum baseball back after last Saturdays incident the wife got a small wood one too
Seriously, if you have not spoken to your neighborhood chief, then you must. Assemble clear and instructive photos to show the situation. You should also go to the county magistrate with the same pitch.
Be calm and reasonable and if you get stimied, ask how to resolve this problem. “I have to be able to get my car out. Please advise me what to do.”
[[Included in your preparation would be the information on who actually owns the road. It is not inconcievable that whoever said he owns the road actually does. Find out where such records are kept and find out yourself. I used to do this for a living so I know that these records exist and can be accessed.) Of course, owning the road does not mean that you get a free pass to be an asshole, but that’s life.]]
Of course nothing will probably come of it, but you will have done what a civilized individual would do.
Alternately, you could have a big sign made to put on your car when it is parked that says, “Please do not block my car.” At least if it is in 6-inch characters, no one can say that they didn’t see it.
I don’t know if they rent such equipment here, but if you had one of those garage jacks on wheels that lift the end of a car and then the vehicle can be pulled by the long handle of the jack. You could then just pull the car out of the way.
(Interestingly, in Bangkok everyone parks blocking everyone else, but they always leave their cars in neutral so that they can be pushed out of the way.)
Ultimately, you need simply to move.
Getting the police involved is a waste of time and energy (yours).
The idea of getting a boot to lock the wheel of the offending car is interesting except that the car would be towed, the unit broken off and you’d be out the boot and the money you spent on it (and be back to square one with the ante upped).
Couple years ago my husband and I were living in Kaohsiung, Ren wu, exactly, and driving a big white car. We parked in front of our door and the guy next door parked his little black Benz in front of his door. Then one day there was a big white streaked gash above his rear tire. This was NOT level with our bumper and not likely to have been caused by a side swipe. Indeed, ours was not the white car that hit the Benz.
However, there were several neighbors who swore to witnessing this event. The timing of the event, as estimated by the Benz owners and seconded by the “witnesses” was when we, in our car, were in town with the entire family. In fact, the entire family was staying with us beginning that night for a sort of reunion. We had plenty of witnesses that we weren’t there at the time of the incident. Because of the exra surprize family members (to our neighbors) and one of which is representitave of Taiwan to England, we were “let off the hook.” The neighbors were still very pissy about it and we later moved.
Why do you think this happened? Another neighbor a little further down owned a white car with a small streak of black on the bumper, but I’m white, and until the relatives showed up, everyone had assumed my husband was Japanese because he has long hair. So, of course, it must have been the foreigners. And, of course, it must have been first witnessed by the owners of the other white car.
Around the same time, we were driving home late at night and a guy on a scooter was weaving along in front of us when his helmet flew off. My husband ran over it and the strap got wrapped around the wheel base and locked up the front tires. It’s pitch black and I’m under the car unwinding this drunk f*ck’s helmet from our wheel base when he drives up to say that we owe him 3000 nt for ruining his helmet! We told him to go to heck. He drove off again and then as I was getting up looked back and saw that I was a foreigner. So he turned around and gave me his best English, “Fuckah you! Fuckah you!”
What’s that about? I’m white. And so are you. That’s the breaks. You have no rights here. Of course the cops sided with your neighbors. It’s happened to us lotts of times. I know it’s unfair and really crazy, but you need to move. There will not be any resolution to your problem. Like another poster, it’s about face for the owner of the road and he’s not about to lose face to a whitey.
From the looks of your place, was probably built in the mid-90’s during the tail end of the real-estate boom…Back then, it was every tea farmers wet dream in Lungtan to get their land re-zoned so they could sell off to some builders at 100,000NT per ping and retire. Most of the developers could not afford the land prices so a deal was struck between the landowner and developer…The jist of which is that the landowner gets free X-amount of houses and road rights in return for a more reasonable price on the land.
The moral of the strory is that he probably does own the road and also is friends with some of the people you’ve been having trouble with…
You are screwed.
I imagine the only reason you are not in the hospital is that the land owner himself asked his buddies to “back-off”.
Suggest you grin and bear it until your lease is up and then move. You don’t want to play around with this in Hakka-land.
Is your wife a local in Lungtan? If not, I would suggest she refrain from further outbursts before one of you gets seriously hurt. Lungtan is a VERY tight-knit community and earlier suggestions about seeing a local politician or the cops will only excacerbate a tense situation.
Also, carrying a bat will only get you killed…Remember the oneupsmanship rule for fighting in Taiwan…Whatever you pull out he’s either going to call more people or pull out something worse…Do you really want to go up against a Machete or a gun?..Your Louisville Slugger isn’t going to help you much in the morgue.
Move up on the hill, the locals seem to be less concerned about road rights, even though our neighbor complained about me parking my car in front of his garden once, and another neighbor was somewhat displeased, when I cut down his tree. (That bloody thing was encroaching on my airspace).
PM me for details, you can get something up here for NT$10k per month including management.
Cutting down a tree is stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself and be heavily fined, if not deported. Even more so if it is not your own tree (although the line is thin here). Greenery in the city is a valuable resource.
Wolfie, as a matter of fact, we are not short on trees on the hill. I don’t live in the city, we have gardens where I live. The tree thing was a joke, btw, I asked him for permission, and as it was shadowing for his living room as well, it was granted on the spot.
Doesn’t help, people just ignore it. I am recalling a similar situation in Hsinchu in the stone age, late 80s, early 90s. The offending dimwit gathered 5-10 of his ganster buddies, and the foreigner (who had been here 10-15 years and knew a lot of people) returned the favor by showing up with a dozen 200+ lb lao wai (he’d lined up a few more if the dimwit crowd upped their level of intimidation). If I recall, being outweighed and outmanned had the desired effect as I never heard of it again.
Poor guy – I wouldn’t be in your shoes for anything. You’d better not go out drinking in any local watering holes, singing in local karaoke joints, eating in the local night market, or anything like that, for the next year or few. You’re a marked man who sticks out like a sore thumb, and there’ll be plenty of neighborhood thugs itching to gain credit with Mr. Road-owner and the other local heavies you’ve crossed, or just to vent their dislike of troublesome outsiders, by finding an opportunity and creating an excuse (easily done) to duff you up or worse. So keep your head down, do your best to keep out of harm’s way, bide your time, and move away as soon as you can.
Don’t even think of doing any of the provocative things that some people here have suggested. If anyone parks in front of your driveway again, you’d better just swallow your anger and pride, look the other way, and leave it completely alone.
[quote=“Da_Bian”][quote=“panda”]Cant you call the tow truck company and have the offending car
towed away?[/quote]
tried that, no tow truck company wanted to do it[/quote]
If you want the car towed, you need to call the police. The police come and then call a towing company. They take photos in Taipei. I think this is the procedure you must follow.
If the police come when you call and get the cars towed, what do you have to lose? Keep calling and getting them towed.
Since the problem is stopping them from parking in front of your garage, why not just put up some kind of fence to block them. Sure, it may get torn down eventually, but just put it up again. It will avoid direct confrontation and any ‘tough guys’ calling you up. You could take a picture to show the police if you catch anyone trying to take it down. A simple chain link fence should do, but you’d have to rig it somehow so you could open and close it to get out yourself. If you don’t want to go through all that trouble, you could just get a few traffic cones with connectors between them. If you make it more difficult for people, they may just move on. The scooter obviously isn’t enough. Hope that helps.
Bill
What you can try to do is put your own piece of sh*t car in front of the drive way so when you need to move out you move it or when you need to come back in. YOU need to take possession of that spot. Either park some scooters or bikes in front of your drive way or consider it lost. This is what our neighbor does his Vespa(scooter). He has bicycles surrounding his vespa and has another set of bicycles to put it in the spot when he goes out on his vespa.
I didn’t realize you were doing the school-in-house thing.
Don’t you feel just a tad violated? Come to think of it, why don’t you just continue to run your school from the existing location and consider a move up our way? My wife and I run our place in Yangmei and live up on the hill. As Mr. He says, it is nice and peaceful here, without urban hassles and endless parking! Rent is cheap, and you have access both freeways in under ten minutes…
I have been living on the hill for 8 years and have good contacts with all the real-estate agents up here. I’ll be more than happy to help you in any way if you are interested…PM me for more details.
Finally, imagine having some peace and privacy in your own home…
PS: I saw in an earlier post how somebody outnumbered the chinese gang with large Lau-wai’s…You’ll be safe up here. Throw away your bats and pick up a frisbee…Relaaaaax
No, don’t feel violated running the class in-house, it’s on a total seperate floor (actually used to be an office before), we live upstairs. It’s the best place we’ve ever lived in, in Taiwan…until now…damn neighbors. :x
the wife got a small wood one too 
