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You’ve read about my issues with parking on the street in neighborhoods before.
Same with kicking perfectly good stuff to the curb on garbage collection day.
Perhaps I’m building my case for wanting to move into a log home that’s in a slightly more remote setting than the subdivision we currently live in?
Alas, next on my list of “subdivision pet peeves” is this:
I even found a few stats that support my claim…
In the UK:
While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars. Source
In the U.S.:
82% of homes have two-car garages or larger, but only 15% use them to park the car inside. Source
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
It has always amazed me that so many people would rather get in and out of their cars in the rain, snow, sleet, and heat out in their driveways (or parked along the curb) than to enjoy the overhead protection, shade, and convenience of getting in and out of the car in the garage!
And lately, I’ve been noticing that it’s getting worse. More and more people (at least in the neighborhoods around me!) are choosing to not take advantage of their garages and use them for the purpose for which they were intended: to park cars in!
Why?
My guess is when people move into a new home (that’s equipped with a 1- or 2-car garage) their intentions are good… and practical… and normal:
“We’ll just use the garage as “extra storage space” until we get fully moved in. Then, we can look forward to parking inside the garage, rather than near it!”
The problem (in my opinion): Too much stuff!
Either it becomes easier and easier to keep adding to the “stuff” inside the garage every time they buy more stuff… Or, they simply have no other place inside the house itself to keep all this extra “stuff” that has accumulated in their lives.
You Better Check Yourself
C’mon…
Aside from the bikes and the lawn mowers, and the tools, and such (which most garages are large enough to accommodate (even with cars parked inside!)… if you don’t need to use something regularly (and inside your home), then it’s probably not worth keeping around anyway, right?
Besides, once you decide that the garage is the best place for an item (that’s not normally kept in the garage), then in your own mind you’re really just coming to grips with the fact that “the garage is actually the best place for that item before it makes its way to the trash or the donation center“. Don’t you think?
That’s my theory anyway.
If you have access to a garage, use it. Clear out all the junk and use your garage for the purpose it was intended. This would prevent a large number of offenses and also make it more comfortable on these icy mornings. — West Yorkshire Police
Have A Look Around…
Drive around your neighborhood and have a look inside the garages whose doors happen to be open. More times than not, you’ll probably see lots of “stuff” taking up the entire garage area which is intended for cars.
I think it’s just a sign of the times.
We Americans keep buying more and more stuff. Especially families with kids, those with expendable incomes, and people like me who think they’ve just gotta try everything that’s “new”… just once!
It’s happening everywhere…
No basements, indeed. Yuma, it seems, makes up for it by building huge garages. A lot of people have 2-car garages, yet park on the street because the garage is used for storage. Smart, I guess, but doesn’t do much for looks… LOL! Ya, people will lock all the junk they should have gotten rid of in their garage and then park their $25,000+ vehicle in the driveway. Smart indeed!
This is a younger, middle-aged neighborhood, so every family has three or four cars. No one uses their garage, so you have cars all over the place, some of them blocking parts of the driveways… Homes don’t have basements, which is why many residents end up using their garages for storage.
My Own Dirty Little Secret
Don’t get me wrong… I’m right there with ya, because I’m a pack-rat of sorts myself! And yes, we often buy more than we really need, as well. So I definitely know about keeping too much “stuff” around for silly reasons.
As one example, I keep every single cardboard box (neatly broken down and stored away in the attic inside our home) just so I have boxes when I need to mail or ship things and so I’ll have all the boxes I need if & when we move again. (Jim and I have moved a lot, so I do this more by habit than anything. Each time, I’ve saved a lot of time & energy though, and the fact of the matter is: those boxes will come in handy again one more time. Then, I’m vowing to throw them out!)
But on the flip side… I also love to “purge” stuff from my home on a regular basis — especially from closets, and junk drawers — and I make frequent trips to the local Goodwill store.
My “give” vs “buy” rates at that store are probably 5 to 1. I only shop for clothes & household stuff a couple of times each year. However, I donate stuff — either there or through Freecycle — quite regularly.
I used to subscribe to the “every time you buy something new, you should give one thing away” theory. But that’s easier said than done…
Check out this incredible list of fun facts and tips for getting the most out of your garage!
I like to help people find unique ways to do things that will save time & money — so I write about “outside the box” Household Tips and Life Hacks that most wouldn’t think of. I’m super-organized. And I LOVE to clean! I even enjoy doing laundry (but not ironing). I’m also a lifelong dog owner — so I often share my favorite tips for living with dogs inside your home (like smart home design choices and dog-friendly cleaning & decorating ideas). Career-wise, I’ve been sharing my best ideas with others by blogging full-time since 1998 (the same year that Google started… and before the days of Facebook and YouTube). Prior to that, I worked in Higher Ed over 10 years before switching gears to pursue activities that I’m truly passionate about instead. For example, I’ve worked at a vet, in a photo lab, and at a zoo — to name a few. I enjoy the outdoors via bicycle, motorcycle, Jeep, or RV. When I’m not cleaning, organizing, decorating, or fixing something… you’ll find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites). To date, I’ve personally written over 200 articles about cleaning, organization, DIY repairs, and household hacks on this site! A few have over 2M shares; many others have over 100K shares.
Our garage can barely fit 2 cars when empty. Cars are much wider today than in the 1960s.
Poem Garages are Gifts
Stuff sits, cars cruise
Garages are bays
And bands play
The metal doors lift
To see our gifts
That is the purpose of a garage
To hold anything in our barrage!
Oh yes you must park your car in the garage — right? You drive 50 miles a day to commute, you park in the lot next to the office (open air) but for some reason you just MUST park your car in an enclosed dwelling so it can sleep at night.
Do you like rust? Yes this is a discussion that came up on a Jaguar forum. But when you park over that car overnight inside of an enclosure guess what — rust never sleeps. Unless you have a well heated, totally dry garage, the garage is a little incubator, it is cold and damp. Sometimes a garage may be colder and damper than the outside air.
When we lived in San Jose our garage was so small that it was almost impossible to fit a car, so we didn’t. Before owning a house we had to —- dare I even say it……we had to park on the street. Plus sometimes it was a block from the apartment. Brrrrr how did we survive??? 🙂
Ninety percent of the people I know that have a garage have an extra refrigerator in the garage, the garage is used more often as the room to do things (such a spray painting an item) that you wouldn’t do inside the home. Of those 90% the people who do use their garage can only fit one car in the two car garage.
I’ve been asking this question, which is how I ended up on this page. One person told me that the traffic is so intense on her street, she doesn’t feel safe backing out of her driveway, and therefore has to park on the street.
Good point. My neighbor has the same concern about backing out of the driveway. He finds it easier to back INTO the driveway each time instead — because it’s a little easier, even with heavy traffic, when you’re already on the road.