My Neighbor Bought Every Parking Spot, So I Built My Own Lot

I moved into a new complex, only to find that my neighbor had already spent two million dollars buying out every parking space in the whole place.

If you wanted to park, your only option was to rent one of his spaces for five thousand dollars a month.

I decided it wasn't worth it, so I just parked on the empty lot outside the complex for the time being.

The next morning, I found my neighbor slapping a ticket on my car,

and when he saw me, he actually smiled and taunted me:

"Don't want to rent from me? Then you can pay five hundred bucks a day in tickets. We'll see who outlasts who!"

Then he turned around and went to ticket the other residents' cars too.

Watching the residents pile up complaints in the group chat, I posted a message:

"I did the math. Renting his spaces isn't nearly as worth it as all of us pooling money to build our own parking lot."

"Anyone want in?"

Watching everyone jump in one after another, I smiled.

Now we'd see who outlasted who.

"What gives you the right to put a ticket on my car?"

I clutched the five-hundred-dollar ticket and stared coldly at my neighbor.

Lucius Armstrong, still holding a whole stack of identical tickets, answered without a care.

"What gives me the right?"

He let out a snort and looked me up and down.

"The fact that I moonlight with the traffic enforcement unit, and the fact that your junk car is parked where it shouldn't be."

I forced down the anger rising in my chest and argued with him.

"This is the empty lot outside the complex. There's no no-parking sign, and it doesn't block traffic."

"You're a part-timer. What authority do you have to write tickets on your own?"

Lucius straightened up and walked over to stand in front of me.

His eyes were full of contempt.

"Caroline Swanson, there are no white lines marking a space here, which means you can't park here."

"Every ticket I write is perfectly legitimate and by the book."

He reached out and flicked the paper in my hand.

"If you want to weasel out of it and not pay, that's fine too."

"But let me warn you, once these parking violations stack up past a certain point, they get posted publicly and put on record."

"By then your name will be right up there on the traffic enforcement unit's website."

"And if that embarrassment reaches your workplace, that wouldn't look too good, now would it?"

I gritted my teeth and glared at his smug face.

By now a few residents from the complex had gathered around.

They looked at the ticket in my hand, every one of them wearing the expression of someone who was furious but didn't dare say a word.

Alison Ball, a resident I knew fairly well, squeezed out of the crowd and tugged at my sleeve.

"Caroline, let it go. This guy's someone we can't afford to cross."

She lowered her voice, her tone heavy with helplessness.

"Everyone parks outside, and he's been going car to car all morning slapping on tickets. He's already done more than a dozen."

I turned my head and looked at the same white slips on a few windshields not far off.

The anger in me shot straight up.

This wasn't a parking penalty at all. This was extortion, plain and simple, just dressed up as something else.

Lucius watched my darkening face and only grinned wider.

"What? Think five hundred's too steep?"

"If it's too steep, then come rent one of my spaces. Five grand a month, and I guarantee you park nice and easy."

"And if you can't even scrape together five grand, then sell the car now and take the bus."

I clenched my fists, feeling powerless inside.

Reason told me there was nothing to gain from getting physical with him right now.

If I really ended up on a public record over something this petty, it would only invite trouble I didn't need.

I drew in a deep breath, forced the anger back down, folded the ticket, and stuffed it into my pocket.

"Fine. I'll pay the five hundred."

Lucius turned away, smug all over his face, and walked toward the next car parked at the curb.

Watching his arrogant back, I could barely breathe.

I opened the residents' group chat.

The messages were flying by nonstop.

"Has Lucius Armstrong lost his mind? Five grand a month, he might as well just rob us!"

"I parked at the curb today and got hit with five hundred too. There's no living like this."

The next day, I found a public parking spot with white lines painted on it and parked there.

But by evening, I found yet another new ticket on my car.

I grabbed that fresh ticket and planted myself right in Lucius's path.

"I parked in a public space with white lines. What gives you the right to ticket me anyway?"

He'd been humming a little tune, about to head upstairs.

When he saw the ticket in my hand, he stopped.

There wasn't the slightest surprise on his face.

"Caroline Swanson, is your memory a little bad?"

He pointed toward the street outside the complex.

"Didn't I tell you yesterday? Don't rent my spaces, and you pay a fine every single day."

I fought down the urge to throw the ticket in his face.

"Today I drove two streets over on purpose."

"I parked in a public space, inside the white lines the city marked out."

"That's not your turf, and it's not illegal parking. So what gives you the right to ticket me?"

Lucius let out a sneer and handed the seafood he was carrying to the two lackeys behind him.

Slow and deliberate, he fished a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"On account of that space being mine too."

He unfolded the paper and held it right up in front of me.

"Take a good look. See what this is."

I frowned and looked.

It was a document stamped with a red seal.

Right there in plain print it said that every public parking space within ten miles outside the complex

was now contracted and managed exclusively by Haven Property Management.

And the name signed below as the responsible party was Lucius Armstrong.

"Get it now?"

He tucked the document away, smug.

"Every public space for ten miles around is contracted to me now."

"You parked on my turf and didn't pay rent. Fining you five hundred is me going easy on you."

I stared at him, and the whole thing struck me as beyond absurd.

"Public parking is a government resource. How could it possibly be contracted out to you personally?"

"That document of yours has to be forged!"

Lucius's face darkened, his eyes turning cold and vicious.

"Watch what you eat, but watch your mouth even more."

"Black ink on white paper, red official seal. You dare call that fake?"

He leaned in close and warned me.

"If I catch your car on my turf again tomorrow, five hundred dollars won't be enough to make it go away."

The anger inside me had piled all the way to the top.

Back home, I sat on the couch and pulled out the calculator.

Parking outside the complex, five hundred a day in tickets, came to fifteen thousand a month.

Renting one of his spaces was five thousand a month.

It was extortion, plain and simple, an operation to fleece every resident in the complex.

Even if I could afford the five thousand, I refused to be bullied into swallowing that kind of injustice.

Alison messaged me on WhatsApp.

"Caroline, did you get ticketed again today?"

"I just saw Lucius prowling around out there, tagging a bunch more cars."

I tapped out a reply on the screen.

"I did. He says every space for ten miles around is contracted to him."

Alison sent an angry sticker.

"There's no living like this. There's nowhere left to park a car."

I looked at the screen, disappointment and anger tangled together inside me.

I'd thought moving into a new complex would mean a stable, settled place to live.

I never imagined I'd run into a local strongman like this, someone who wouldn't listen to reason.

The next day, I went to the complex's property management to file a complaint.

"You sold every parking space in the complex to one person. Do you people really think that's reasonable?"

I stood at the desk in the management office, staring coldly at the property manager in front of me, Clark Perry.

Clark brushed me off. "Miss Swanson, you can't put it like that."

"The parking spaces are the developer's assets. If they want to sell them off as a package, that's not something property management can control."

I slapped my hand down on the desk.

"Can't control it?"

"Then why didn't you give any advance notice in the residents' group chat?"

"Why not even a grace period to buy in? Why transfer them all over at once?"

A mocking smile crept across Clark's face.

"Miss Swanson, Mr. Armstrong has deep pockets and quick hands. He grabbed them first. That's his skill."

"You were slow, you didn't grab any, and now you come here to make a scene. Is that reasonable?"

I looked at the smug, self-righteous set of his face, and inside I let out a cold laugh.

"Fine. Free market, buying and selling. I'll grant you that."

"But what about all the public parking spaces for miles outside the complex?"

"What gives him the right to wave around some document nobody can even prove is real, and collect fines off everyone?"

Clark Perry's expression flickered, but he pulled himself back together fast.

"Anything outside the complex is the traffic enforcement unit's business, and the city's. What's the point of coming to management about it?"

"If you feel that hard done by, go file a police report."

He waved a hand at me, the gesture of a man showing a guest out.

"That's enough, Miss Swanson. I'm a busy man. If there's nothing else, you'd best head back."

I held his gaze a few seconds, then turned and walked out of the management office.

Back home, I opened the residents' group chat.

The thing had completely blown up.

"This property management is obviously in on it with Lucius Armstrong!"

"I asked around today. Manager Clark Perry, the property manager, is actually Lucius Armstrong's own uncle!"

"No wonder he's so brazen. He's got someone backing him."

Alison Ball posted a long message in the chat.

"Everyone, listen up. I just had someone look into this."

"This Lucius Armstrong is a repeat offender!"

"He pulled the exact same thing over at Fairmont Court next door. Bought up every single parking space the same way."

"Same rent too, five grand a month. Had that whole complex miserable."

"Complaining did no good either, because the head of Fairmont Court's property management is the same uncle, Clark Perry!"

Reading that, the last of my confusion cleared.

So it was relatives working the con together. No wonder they dared to hog everything this openly.

They'd set their minds on fleecing us residents for every dollar we had.

I scrolled through the messages, each one furious and each one helpless.

Everyone was complaining, everyone was pointing fingers, but no one could put forward an actual solution.

And since Lucius and the property people weren't in this chat, everyone spoke freely.

I posted a message.

"Everyone hold on, let me run some numbers for you."

The chat went quiet in an instant.

"If we rent his spaces at five grand a month, that's sixty grand a year."

"Every cent of that is him fleecing us on purpose."

"I did the math. If we pool our money and build a new parking lot nearby,"

"split among all of us, the cost per person works out even cheaper than buying a space in this complex."

The moment that message landed, the chat boiled over.

"Build our own lot? Can that even work?"

"Build it where? Is there any open land around here?"

Alison was the first to jump in.

"I think Caroline's right! Why should we swallow this humiliation?"

"The people next door have been fed up for ages too. I'll pull them into the chat, and we'll all chip in together!"

Watching everyone rally behind it, one corner of my mouth curved into a cold smile.

"As long as we stick together, we build our own lot and never have to take this kind of abuse again."

Just as the funding for the lot was nearly gathered,

a resident from the complex next door raised a question:

"That empty patch of land between the two complexes, the one we just agreed to build the lot on,"

"the owner is a real mystery. Where do we even go to contact him about buying it?"

"I heard Clark Perry's property company wanted to buy it up for an expansion before. They reached out over and over and got turned down every time."

"They never even got a meeting with the owner. Can we really pull this off?"

I leaned back against the couch, fingers tapping lightly at my phone screen.

"Don't worry. The land, I can handle."

I didn't spell it out in the chat, that the land was actually what my grandfather had left me.

I'd wanted to keep it as a keepsake, so in all these years I'd never touched it.

When Clark Perry had reached out before, hoping to buy it cheap, I'd refused without a second thought.

I never imagined this land, meant to be kept for remembrance, would turn out to be the key to breaking us free.

If my grandfather could see it from wherever he was, I think he'd be happy too.

The next morning, I'd barely reached the front gate of the complex when I ran straight into Lucius Armstrong.

The second he saw me, his mouth twisted into a sneer.

"Well, if it isn't the Swanson Good Samaritan."

"I hear you're rounding up that bunch of broke losers to pool your money for a new parking lot."

My stomach dropped, and my heart skipped a beat.

We'd only ever talked about the funding inside our private group chat. How did he know?

Was there a mole in the chat?

Lucius watched my expression shift, and his smile widened.

"What's wrong? Caught you off guard, did I? Scared now?"

"Caroline, take my advice and quit dreaming."

"The owner of that vacant lot is a real ghost. Even my uncle can't get hold of him. And you think you can?"

"You can run around all you want. In the end, the whole lot of you will crawl right back and rent my spaces like good little tenants."

Hearing that, I actually felt myself relax.

So he knew about our plan, but he didn't see it as a threat at all.

He was just waiting for us to fail, enjoying the show.

I gave him one cold look, said nothing, and turned and walked away.

Back home, I went straight through the chat history.

It didn't take long to find the mole feeding information to Clark Perry, and I kicked them out of the group.

To be safe, I built a brand-new, completely private chat.

Only people who'd already paid their share could get in.

"The lot will take about two months to finish."

I posted the message in the new group.

"For these two months, we're going to have to spend a little money."

"Everyone rent Lucius's spaces in batches. Let him think our plan fell apart, so he drops his guard completely."

The next day, I took a few resident representatives to go rent spaces from Lucius.

He looked at us and smiled, ugly to the core.

"Want to rent a space now? Too late."

"Caroline, aren't you the capable one? Weren't you going to build your new parking lot?"

"You want to rent my spaces? Fine."

"You, as the resident representative, get down on your knees and kowtow three times and apologize."

"If it puts me in a good enough mood, maybe I'll rent to you."

The whole thing turned my stomach, and I spun around to leave.

"I don't want a space like this!"

I'd barely turned when two of Lucius's thugs rushed me.

They clamped down on my shoulders from both sides and forced me down onto my knees.

My knees cracked against the hard floor, and pain shot through them.

Lucius walked over and slapped me hard across the face.

"You little bitch, you want to rent my spaces and you still dare to look at me like that?"

"Let me tell you, five thousand won't get you anything now!"

"You want to rent today, it's seven thousand a month. One cent short and you don't park at all!"

Alison Ball's eyes went red with fury and she started to charge forward on my behalf, but I stopped her cold with a look.

I bit through my lip and tasted blood.

Swallowing my anger, I lifted my head and looked at him.

"Fine. Seven thousand it is."

We paid two months' rent and left the property office with Lucius's wild laughter following us out.

Two months later, our new parking lot was finished without a hitch.

Lucius came to find me, renewal contract in hand.

"Caroline, the two months are up. Time to renew your space."

"Don't renew on time this round, and next month it's eight thousand."

I looked at him, and suddenly I smiled.

"No need. We won't be parking at your place anymore."

Lucius froze for a second, then burst into a grating laugh.

"Not with me? And where exactly would you go? Don't tell me you're still dreaming about that new parking lot?"

I pulled out the photos of the finished lot and smiled as I said to him:

"You guessed right. Our new parking lot is already built!"