Below-zero temperatures and blizzards are stressful enough, but in Midwest winters, the real danger isn’t the ice—it’s the etiquette. Enter the unwritten rule of “dibs,” a sacred social contract where a lawn chair, a stray orange cone or any random household item marks a shoveler’s hard-earned territory after they dug out their snowed-in cars.
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But not everyone ascribes to that honor system, including one Pittsburgh woman who found out the hard way.
TikTok user @babiimor posted a clip titled “Don’t Steal Parking Spots” Saturday, which morphed into part one of a nine part series. In the first clip, she can be heard recording a bewildered woman, identified as Cydney Cooper by Channel 11 News, confused about her lone parked car completely covered in snow.
“It’s not nice to take people parking spot when they spent two hours digging,” Babiimor said in the clip. “She been here all week,” babiimor added before offering the driver a shovel. The video has since garnered over three million views and plenty of comments that poked fun at the incident.
“bet she won’t take a spot no mo tho,” one user joked. A second person commented, “You forgot to add the adhesive!” alongside a picture of a water bottle. (Petty!)
Follow-up videos showed Cooper and a man wiping off her car with a broom and Babiimor offering hilarious commentary. “Quit talking to me,” Cooper told the TikToker in part three before the latter laughed at her.
Apparently Cooper’s car was covered in snow after Tikisha Johnson had “dug for two hours straight and, every day, my son’s parking spot was getting taken,” Channel 11 News reported.
Cooper eventually had some recourse after she called the police— who helped her shovel out her car.
“I’m so mad they’re helping her,” one TikToker wrote in the comments. Another added, “so the cops really just diggin her car out? where they do that at?” A third user joked, “Not the police helping with the wrong ICE.”
When Channel 11 asked Tikisha, who called herself the “hero” in the situation, whether she would bury another car in snow again, she answered “possibly.” Cooper said, “You know, it depends on who you think is a hero. If that’s what baby girl felt like she had to do, God bless her.”
The #SnowTok parking series ended with a photo of Cooper’s car finally cleaned off. But the snowed-in parker wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of icy revenge.
TikToker @alex50hitcombo posted a video of his car covered in snow. “I don’t blame the city for the snow on the side but the 5 of feet snow that my neighbors piled in front and on top of my car was uncalled for and inconsiderate,” he wrote in the caption with the hashtag #peoplesuck.
Although those incidents didn’t escalate beyond scoops of snow, an argument between a man and a woman over a shoveled parking space turned physical in southwest Baltimore, according to local news station Fox 45 News. In another instance, a driver told police their car was scratched with a shovel after parking in their neighbor’s recently shoveled parking spot.
Now, TikTokers are taking note—literally. @Armaniandme posted a photo of a handwritten message to the person who dug out the space she parked in. “I get off at 5 p.m.,” she penned. “And will be out of your spot by 5:30 p.m.”
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