I have the same exact problem. I live in a college town. On my street there is currently parking on both sides but on the main street around the corner there is no streetside parking. So with over crowded housing, they park in front of my house. Since we demolished and rebuilt, we often find it difficult to park in front of the house, have the outhouse serviced, or have things delivered.
Normally, I would "train" the neighbors every September. We have 2 cars and we would make it difficult for them to get out. The could get out but it would take a couple minutes. That usually did it but we weren't there this September to do that. A few weeks ago someone called the police on me as we had a very brief encounter and disagreement (10 seconds?). I told him that I was going to move my car right up behind his
because I had a contractor with equipment coming. He said he would move
in an hour and a half and I replied back the contractor would be here
in about 15 minute. Contractor was late that morning but it turned out
he had heavy equipment to unload and put in the house. I ended up
moving the car to make room for the contractor.
And this is
where the police came.
Turns out our municipal code allows for a sheet of paper to be between cars. I gave him about a foot (what can I say, Oregonians don't parallel park well). After some exchanges between us and the police officer (parking lady ;), we both ended up moving. Seeing as I was dropping off 2 dogs and 2 sets of laundry, rather than walking down the middle of the street (I only have 30 inch sidewalks), I ended up moving the car back.
I ended up apologizing profusely with the guy but the guy didn't apologize back.
Turns out the guy was homeless and slept in the car the night before. I felt bad for him but noticed he had a really nice toy (4 wheeler?) in the back of his newer custom truck. I drive a new 1997 subaru wagon. I sometimes wonder about civility, respect, and common sense.