Parking Creeps (You Know Who You Are)

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published July 20, 2026] 2026

A question often arises: who, either by law or etiquette, controls the street space right in front of one's home?

Well, the law is clear: unless signage indicates otherwise, anyone can park on the street in front of your house for up to 72 hours after which the vehicle must be moved at least half a mile to avoid towing or citation.

You would think that this would largely resolve parking issues.

But you would be wrong.

As parking gets tighter and tighter in La Jolla, the etiquette part of the equation gets increasingly problematical. It's not helping that neither residential and commercial new builds are required to provide parking.

Virtually all of us who live in the "flats"  in La Jolla (i.e. not up in the Muirlands or by the university) are going to be in proximity of a beach or retail, or both. There's no beach access near me, but plenty of demand for parking next to my house by employees of local businesses, dog walkers, lunchers, Amazon, the US Postal Service, my lawn and pool services, and visitors to our home. So long as the two spaces in front of my gate have been vacated by the end of the day, I'm good.

The bigger problem, however, is when people decide to store a vehicles - cars, RVs, trailers  - for weeks on end in front of someone else s home despite the 72-hour rule. My assorted neighbors have increasingly had to deal with this issue. The houses on my block are close together and the parking right in front of each house is really limited - usually two spaces at best. I fortunately have a corner lot so there is usually ample room for people to park on the cross street. Which, alas, hasn't kept them from taking up long term residence right in front of my front gate.

There are people who know how to game the system. A homeowner can report a vehicle that has overstayed its welcome on Get It Done but this is not a quick process. The city has to come out and put a notice on the vehicle and mark its tire location on the street, then come back a few weeks later and tow it if it hasn't moved.

I've always preferred cordial human contact in parking resolution wherever possible. No anonymous notes for me. In the many conversations I've had over the years with RV, boat, and trailer owners, the two reasons they all cite as to why they are storing a vehicle in front of or alongside my house are these:

(1) They don't want to use up their own home or business parking.

(2) Their neighbors have complained that the vehicle is an eyesore.

Amazingly, they cite these reasons totally straight-faced. I usually just stand there for a minute hoping against hope for the "Aha!"  moment. "Oh, I get it! You don t want my eyesore vehicle taking up your parking either!"  In my fantasy, he (it's always a he) jumps in his RV and drives off with a jaunty wave and a "I've seen the light! It'll never happen again!"

Years back, I had a totally decrepit 30-foot-long camper take up residence in front of my house for almost a year, the owner citing both inalienable rights and also the desire not to use up his business parking. Determined to thwart the system, he moved his RV precisely every seventy-one hours and fifty-eight minutes in a circuit around my home and the nearby neighbors. (You used to only have to move it a tenth of a mile rather than the half mile now required.) Some months later, Ugly RV s clueless owner approached me and said, "Would you believe, people are vandalizing my RV!"

Since I'd long since asked him nicely to move this vehicle back to his nearby business, it was all I could do not to say "Actually, I'm just curbing my overwhelming urge to put plastique in your tailpipe. I've just been hoping that if I take the high road, you will too. And by 'high road', I m really hoping that you will take this vehicle on a road, any road, that is not in our neighborhood."

In a stroke of divine intervention, his business went under and he disappeared. God really does work in mysterious ways.

More recently, a close friend and neighbor had a high-end vehicle parked for weeks right in front of her house making parking impossible for her family members. It became obvious it was either (a) a stolen and abandoned vehicle or (b) the product of Classic Clueless Guy Syndrome. Queries to other neighbors suggested (b), that it might belong to one of four guys who were renting a house further down the block. As a long-time pro in parking resolution, I knocked on their door and in my signature shy and retiring way, inquired if any of them knew the provenance of this car. One of them acknowledged that yes it was his and yes, he was storing it there since he usually rode his motorcycle (which was parked in front). 

I explained the 72-hour rule and the risk of towing which he quickly dismissed saying that the city wouldn't tow a vehicle that was "registered to this street."   Since part of my parking resolution shtick is to offer solutions, I recommended that he move the vehicle down to my corner where the cross street tended to have a lot of free spots. But he'd still have to move it every 72 hours. I was totally nice about it. He, meanwhile, was just so annoyed. (Also, I think, really hungover because it was the day after July 4.)

But the idea that long-term storage of his vehicle in front of someone else's house was thoughtless obviously didn't register with him at all.

Sometimes you just need the read the room. Or in this case, the neighborhood. News flash: Would you like someone storing their vehicle in one of the two spots in front of your house? Especially if the vehicle is parked right in the middle of the two spots, as this guy was, so no one else can park there at all?

Hopefully he'll clue in the other roommates into (a) local laws and (b) basic etiquette.

But I'm not betting on it.

 

                This RV pretty much lived in front of my house for an entire year.

OK, So I May Actually Be A Hoarder

 ["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published July 13, 2026] 2026

I've always prided myself that I am the only one in my generation on my mother's side of the family who is not a hoarder. But given that I have made my 2026 project going through decades of file cabinet accumulations, I may have to modify that claim ever so slightly.

The good news (besides dispensing with tons of paper) is that I've gotten a number of columns out of these anthropological digs. I did a series of three columns from a folder of memos to team parents when I managed my younger son Henry's traveling soccer team. I recently quoted from a whole file of witty comments my husband Olof has made over the years. Another recent column was about my skills as a documenter of such comments.

In the interests of transparency, I will confess that my sons consider my formerly 67-now-36 albums of family photos to be hoarding. I myself think of photos as "artistic curation."

The kids had long been threatening to cremate me after my untimely death with the photo albums that I had amassed over the years. It would be a two-fer; get rid of Mom and the albums all at once.

But at least my hoard was confined to one (very large) bookcase. OK, and seven file cabinets.

So maybe there's some of that hoarder gene in me too. I may have to cop to being a file hoarder. And those 36 photo albums don't count the 2,000+ digital images on my computer.

Like me, my sibs are specialist hoarders. My (late) sister hoarded books. As in three deep on the book cases that covered every available bit of wall space. The person who bought her home after she passed away was probably thrilled to find that the home actually came with a fire place which was not at all apparent.

My engineer brother boards electronics. Lots and lot of electronics. He built many of them himself. But do not even think of staying at his four-bedroom home because three of those bedrooms are occupied by things with blinky lights.

The cousins, however, are equal opportunity hoarders. Freelancers, if you will. Their houses could probably qualify for one of those hoarder TV shows. One of my cousins says that he is paying more than $8,000 a year in off-site hoarding, er, storage since their home is at capacity.

For me, it helps that we don t have a garage (it was converted in one of the most ill-considered remodels in the history of remodels long before we bought the house). No attic or basement either, and only tiny 1947 closets back when people apparently only owned three sets of clothing. But it does keep one from over-accumulating. We have a hard-core rule that if we buy something, we give something else away.

One of my motivations for dealing with both the filing cabinets and photo albums is that on two occasions in my life, I have been tasked with cleaning out the home of a hoarder relative.

One of them was my aunt's home in Hard-To-Get-There Ohio. We filled up a 35-foot dumpster the first day. My aunt (never married, no kids) literally had magazines dating back to the late 1800s. And yes, the infinitely-hoardable National Geographics. (Why, why, why do people never throw away National Geographics???) The house had been in our family since 1860s. It's amazing how much stuff you can acquire in 150 years.

The second house was fortunately local. For the record, most of the organizations that pick up donations will only take 25 boxes at a time. It took eight months of twice weekly pickups.

So I really don't want to do this to my kids. 

A while back, the New York Times had an article about death cleaning, i.e., going through your possessions long before your demise so that your relatives are not burdened with the truly onerous task of separating the wheat from the trash. One of the subsequent Letters to the Editor really caught my eye. The writer, after noting that she wasn't planning to spend a single moment of her precious time culling her abundance of possessions, including 15 years of New Yorker magazines (the evil twin of National Geographics) rationalized it like this:

Isn't it enough, she queries, that my children will receive whatever is left? Gosh, there's some pretty good stuff in that mess. And isn't it possible that inching their way through it will prove to be an interesting and rewarding treasure hunt? And won't this exercise tell them things about me that could not be learned any other way, adding mortar to their memory, and perhaps even their regard for me?

Note to her kids: MOVE NOW AND LEAVE NO FORWARDING ADDRESS!

Let me assure you, Letter Writer, their regard for you will be in the dumpster (along with most of your stuff) by the time they're done inching through your lifetime's collection of detritus.

"Interesting"  and "rewarding" are not two adjectives I'd ever use in cleaning out the home of a hoarder. It's true that my aunt's house in Ohio produced some wonderful treasures, like stereopticons, gorgeous oil lamps, and some ornate ewers - intermixed, alas, with multiple cases of 40-year-old Jell-O, cartons of ratty underwear preserved in 1952 newspaper (she was a child of the Depression), and a huge freezer that was a veritable biohazard. (I remember showing my (hoarder) cousin a freezer container labeled "raspberries, 1968". (It was 2004.) She said, "Maybe they re still good?")

So, please. Do not do this to your poor children! For every treasure they might find after your demise, there will be 200 moments of fervent praying, "Please don't let this be hereditary."

And now a hot tip: My dear friend Eleanor maintains that she found a cure for her husband s hoarding. "I put my husband s stuff that he wouldn't get rid of in storage, then stopped paying the bill after three months."  This is brilliant in its simplicity.

But in the meantime: only three more filing cabinets to go.

 

These photos from my aunt's attic in 2004 still fill me with despair

The City Makes A Giant Mess Of It Once Again

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published July 6, 2026] 2026

I swore I wasn't going to write about trash fees again but the City just can't seem to stop making a mess of this, which as a writer, I feel compelled to point out. So here is a few feature: Ask Inga: As the trash fee debacle turns.

Dear Inga: So what finally happened with that law suit about the new trash fees?

Answer: Trash fees will be rolled back to $38.75 a month starting in July, 2027 (when they were scheduled to increase to $55) but not rolled back to the $23-$29 range the constituents had been duped into voting for in Measure B ( Bait and Switch ). Of course, if you ordered extra bins, your cost will be higher than $38.75.

Dear Inga: So we should be getting a refund of the inflated fees we were already charged on our property tax bills, right?

Answer: What a sweet question. Of course not.

Dear Inga: As part of Measure B, we were promised that recycling would become weekly instead of bi-weekly, so when we ordered our new sensored pay-in-perpetuity bins, many of us ordered a much smaller recycle bin than we had before or only one recycle bin when we used to have two. But even though the new bins have (mostly) been delivered, recycling is still bi-weekly. So when is the weekly recycling going to start?

Answer: It is one of the best kept secrets in San Diego.

Dear Inga: Surely someone knows the answer to this? Like the Environmental Services (ES) people?

Answer: Sure! Their (human) reply was:

Thank you for contacting the City of San Diego Environmental Services Department.

In the City of San Diego, recycling pickup is still on a bi‑weekly (every other week) schedule. While weekly recycling service had been planned in the past, city officials decided to defer that rollout to a later date. As a result, the every‑other‑week schedule remains in effect for now.

I know this can be inconvenient, especially for households that generate more recycling, but at this time the city has not implemented weekly pickup.

Dear Inga: But isn't this yet another bait and switch?

Answer: Sure sounds like it!

Dear Inga: But it was part of what we voted for and made bin choices on the basis of it! Surely the City Council knows when weekly recycling will start since they were the ones who made the decision to resolve the lawsuit by reducing the fees?

Answer: (Thank you for prompt response from assistant at Joe LaCava s office):

The City approved a settlement that will reduce the waste collection fee in the City to approximately $39 effective July 1st 2027, in one year. My understanding is that to reduce the City's cost of delivering waste collection, options like maintaining the bi-weekly recycling pickup are being explored.

Dear Inga: Uh-oh. Those passive voice replies from both ES and Joe LaCava's office are always suspicious. For example, active voice is: "We made mistakes."   Passive voice: "Mistakes were made."   Seems like a good grammatical ploy not to answer a question.

Answer: Yup!

Dear Inga: Does this mean that the promised curbside bulky item pickup program is going by the wayside too?

Answer (from assistant at Joe LaCava s office): Yes, my understanding is that bulky item pickup is also under consideration not to be implemented.

Dear Inga: Yowsers. That dang passive voice again. So if Joe LaCava's office and ES were to answer in the active voice, what would that sound like?

Answer: There is no way on God s green earth you will ever see weekly recycling or curbside bulky item pickup.

Dear Inga: The City has hired lid lifters at $70,000 a year to open people's trash/greenery/recycle bins to make sure they are not putting the wrong stuff in each bin. They will leave a notice, or even potentially issue a fine. But now ES customers may be forced to put a weeks worth of recyclables in their gray trash bin every week since there is still only bi-weekly recycling.

Answer: Yes, that math would be correct.

Dear Inga: So what are people supposed to do with all the recycling they can't fit into their new smaller bin?

Answer: People on Next Door suggest querying your neighbors to see if they have extra space in their also-now-too-small bin.

Dear Inga: You're kidding, right? I hate my neighbors.

Answer: Life is hard, and then you die.

Dear Inga - It sounds like weekly recycling isn't likely to ever be implemented so there will be a number of people who will need a second (or bigger) recycling bin.  How would they do that? 

Answer: both Joe LaCavas office (6/22/26) and ES say you can call ES at 858-694-7000 or go to this website.

https://wasteportal.sandiego.gov/

Dear Inga: What are the scanner tags on the new bins?

Answer: According to the ES website, these are scannable reader tags known as RFID technology which identify the bins assigned to your household. This prevents your dirtbag neighbors from stealing your bins so they don't have to pay for their own.

Dear Inga: While we're on the subject of Best Kept Secrets, what exactly is happening with the at-least 750,000 plastic bins that were replaced at a cost of $65 million with the new trash and recycle bins? Do we really want to know?

Answer: The official story is: San Diego s retired trash bins are being chipped, cleaned, and repurposed into new bins and other plastic products.

Dear Inga: Do we believe this?

Answer: Not sure. But better than being sent on a slow boat to China. Or incinerated in a distant location with less pricey zip codes and already-bad air quality.

Dear Inga: Should we believe anything the City of San Diego puts on a ballot ever again?

Answer: Inga only answers legitimate questions.