The context is my apartment has a square to park bikes in, but no other markings so you can theoretically park bikes inside as you please. I used to park perpendicular to the other bikes, because someone else was doing it. That second person’s bike is now gone, and recently I started to wonder if I was blocking other people’s way. So I tried parking alongside the other bikes, but someone always moves my bike back to the original perpendicular position.
If I was stealing someone’s unofficial position, that would be one thing. The strangest thing is, even if I park my bike in the perpendicular position, it has to be a certain direction. If I park it facing inwards, I’ll come down the next day to find someone flipped it around, but otherwise didn’t move it.
Apart from something that happened a while back that might be a coincidence (my waterproof cover for the back basket broke), my bike doesn’t seem damaged in any way so I don’t want to ask my landlord. I’m just so confused and wondering if anyone else has a similar experience.
4 comments
Does your apartment building have caretakers/janitors? They might be rearranging bikes back to a standard setup. Is there a grumpy ojisan or somebody on the spectrum who is obsessed with how they are arranged?
I’ve had my bike moved inches because there was no rack and people needed more space to park their horse alongside. But that’s about it.
Does your apartment require a sticker to be affixed on your bicycle frame that you have not applied for yet. It happened a few times to me before I realized that I have to get the proper sticker to park my cycle in the designated area.
Could it not be that the way you were parking your bike is in fact more convenient : like stop bike from falling, allow some always empty spot for people to discharge, … ? And now, happy or not about it, it become your bike dutyuntil someone else bike took the position.
Ah, the bike parking chess game is very popular in Japan, especially if you live in the apartment.