Jeddah's residents complain that parking lots in front of their residential apartments are usually insufficient. — Okaz photo By Renad Ghanem Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – Residents have been complaining about the increasing difficulty of finding vacant parking spaces around apartment buildings due to the common practice of building owners renting out residential apartments to commercial establishments. Residents who live in such buildings find it nearly impossible to park their cars particularly during business hours. Jeddah-based Ahmed Abdul Malek said a real estate agency was recently allowed to open an office in the building where he lives. The agency has more than 10 employees and gets dozens of visitors every day and yet the building only has one parking space for every tenant. Malek said he and other tenants have repeatedly asked the employees not to park in their spaces but their pleas fall on deaf ears. “The employees have parked in other peoples' parking spaces countless times. We have asked them politely and we have warned them but they don't pay any attention to us. The situation got so bad that one of my neighbors had to call the police and file an official complaint. Things improved slightly after that,” said Malek. The problem of renting out residential apartments to commercial establishments is two-fold: Not only are residential buildings unable to cope with the extra number of cars but people often resort to parking their cars in front of neighboring buildings thus causing further conflict. Muhammed Ja'afar lives in a building in which two companies have recently leased apartments. He said employees park their cars carelessly and often block other people from leaving. “I asked them many times to not block other cars. Once my daughter's forehead was injured and I spent 30 minutes looking for the person who had blocked my car but he was away on his lunch break,” he said. Ja'afar said after failing to get the building's owner to do something, he ended up erecting barriers in front of his parking space, a measure that has worked for the time being. Others resort to paying the building's guard SR100 every month to ensure that no one takes or blocks their parking space. “They (commercial establishments) are unwelcome neighbors as long as they continue to annoy people,” said one resident on condition of anonymity. __
