My Shady Neighbor Rented Out My Parking Spot, So I Ruined Her Life

Without waiting for her to finish, I shoved the plastic bag straight into her hands and turned on my heel up the stairs. She called after me twice, but I never looked back. Back inside my place, I shut the door and stood in the entryway for a moment. Without turning on the living room lights, I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, sat down on the sofa, and took slow sips. I bought that parking spot last year. The first time Brenda asked to borrow it was early this spring. I had just gotten home from work and saw a white SUV parked in my spot. Just as I was about to call the property management office, Brenda came running out of her unit, still wearing an apron with flour smudged on her hands. She claimed a pipe burst in her place and the repair guy needed a quick spot to park. Thinking we were neighbors, I agreed without a second thought. After that, it became "borrowing it once in a while." Then, it turned into "borrowing it all the time." I first noticed something was off about three months ago. Every time I got back from a business trip, a different car was parked in my space. Sometimes it had out-of-state plates; sometimes it had local plates, but cars I'd never seen before in my life. Whenever I called her to move the car, she always answered eagerly, promising she was "on it right away." But each time, it took longer and longer for the car to actually leave. The worst time, I waited forty minutes outside, freezing in the evening wind near the entrance gate. I tried addressing it with her. Last month, I had a three-day conference out of town. The day before returning, I texted her saying I'd be back the day after tomorrow and asked her to clear the spot in advance. She texted back: Sounds good! Yet when I pulled up two days later, a commercial van with out-of-state plates was parked squarely in my spot. I called her, and she claimed it belonged to her brother-in-law and that he'd move it right away. That "right away" left me sitting in my car for half an hour. When I couldn't take it anymore, I called three more times. She finally picked up on the fifth call, claiming her brother-in-law was in the shower and asking for another ten minutes. It was past nine at night. My eyes were burning with exhaustion. In the end, I had to park across the street in a commercial parking garage, which cost me sixty bucks for the night. I thought about putting a lock on the spot. I had even added one of those heavy-duty ground locks to my Amazon cart. I looked at it over and over, but never hit "Place Order." I kept worrying it would burn bridges. After all, we lived across the hall from each other; making things ugly would make daily life miserable. Besides, Brenda was always smiling whenever we ran into each other, and she regularly sent holiday greetings in the building's SnapChat group. I just couldn't bring myself to be that confrontational. Until two days ago. What I saw on the surveillance footage kept me glued to my seat in the building management office for a long, long time. That day, I returned early from a business trip without telling anyone. I arrived at the complex at two in the afternoon, only to find a black sedan sitting in my spot. Instead of calling Brenda, I walked straight to the management office and asked to review the parking lot surveillance footage from the past week. The girl at the desk recognized me and pulled up the recordings. The video was crystal clear. Whenever I was away on a business trip: Every morning around eight or nine, Brenda would guide a stranger to my parking spot, point around, exchange a few words, and watch as the driver scanned her PayPal code to pay. Then, she would walk away smiling, and the stranger would pull into my spot. Sometimes they stayed for half a day, sometimes all day, leaving toward evening. Sitting in front of the monitors, I counted. Over the five days I was out of town, she had rented my spot to at least eight different cars. She was never borrowing it. She had been running a business all along.

The girl behind the desk looked over and asked, "Tori, isn't that your private spot? Why are random people parking there every single day?" "Don't worry about it," I said quietly. "Now I know." In my head, I put together the timeline. I first agreed to let her borrow it back in February. It was May now. Three months. Over those three months, I had gone on thirteen business trips, spending more than forty days away from home. If she rented it out to an average of two cars a day, how much money had she pocketed off my parking space? I couldn't calculate it, and frankly, I didn't even want to. Back in my condo, I opened Amazon and immediately checked out the parking lock in my cart. I chose expedited shipping; it would arrive tomorrow. Right then, Brenda's voice drifted in from outside my door. These older buildings had terrible soundproofing. Her voice on the phone out in the hallway came through loud and clear. I was about to put on my headphones, but a single sentence caught my ear, freezing my hand mid-air. "Yeah, tomorrow at ten in the morning that spot will be open. Just tell your friend to drive straight over. Price is what I told you: ten bucks an hour, eighty flat for the whole day. It's prime location, only a five-minute walk to the park entrance. In peak tourist season, that's a steal." She laughed, sounding thoroughly pleased with herself. "Don't worry, the spot belongs to my neighbor. She travels for work all the time and is barely ever home. I've been doing this for almost a year without a single hitch. The girl's a pushover. Whenever I tell her I'm borrowing it, she never even suspects a thing." Almost a year. I leaned against the door, chewing on those words. I had only agreed to lend it to her three months ago. Yet she told someone she'd been using it for almost a year. Which meant long before I ever said yes, she had already started. Probably starting from the second month after I bought the spot, from the very first time I traveled, from back when I foolishly thought she just needed a one-time favor. Her call continued. "Oh, by the way, there's another empty spot over by the south gate. I've got four spots under my belt right now, so whenever you're driving over this way and need parking, just hit me up..." A laugh bubbled up in my throat, bitter and cold. The call ended. The hallway fell silent for a few seconds. Then came a knock on my door. "Tori? You home?" I pulled the door open. Brenda stood outside, holding a plate of freshly sliced watermelon. The smile on her face was identical to the one in her voice on the phone—warm, friendly, and utterly flawless. "Hey, don't take what happened earlier to heart! I had no idea you couldn't handle cold stuff. See, I didn't even chill this melon for you." "One of these days, dinner is on me. Seriously, I've been saying it forever, but this time I mean it!" Dinner is on me. I had heard that line at least ten times. The first time was when she claimed her brother-in-law was moving his car right away. The second was when she left me waiting outside the gate for forty minutes. Every single time, it was "one of these days," and every single time, she had an excuse to bail. Last time, her kid supposedly had a fever; the time before that, unexpected guests dropped by; the time before that, I couldn't even remember because I never took her seriously anyway. "It's fine, Brenda. I didn't take it to heart," I said, taking the plate with a faint smile. "We'll definitely grab dinner sometime." She nodded eagerly and turned to leave. The slap-slap of her slippers echoed down the hallway, fading into the distance. The next morning, my phone buzzing woke me up. It was Brenda calling. I ignored it. She called several times in a row. I didn't answer a single one. Then came the knocking. "Tori! Tori, are you in there?" I pulled the duvet higher over my shoulders and didn't move. The knocking persisted. Brenda's patience was legendary when she wanted something; she could bang on a door for ten straight minutes without getting tired. "Tori! Your car is still in the spot! Weren't you traveling today? When are you moving it?" I got out of bed, walked over, and swung the door open. Brenda stood outside, and behind her stood a stranger. A middle-aged man wearing sunglasses, twirling a set of car keys, staring down at his phone. When he heard the door open, he looked up at me. "Morning, Brenda," I said evenly. "Oh, you're up! I was worried I'd wake you!" Brenda beamed, stepping slightly to the side. "When are you pulling your car out?" "Oh, my mistake," I said. "I'm not traveling today."