‘I Pay To Park Here’: Woman Parks Her Car In Front Of Her Apartment for 1 Minute. Then It Gets Double Booted

It's the kind of thing that happens to everyone from time to time. You forget something inside your home, so you park outside and run in to grab it. This almost never ends with the hassle that one woman says she experienced at her apartment complex.

She claims that she parked outside her apartment for one minute after forgetting her key card for the parking garage. When she returned, her car was already getting booted—twice.

TikTok creator Kristin (@kristinvitt_) posted a video from the scene of the double booting. “If I could tell you anywhere not to live, it’s my apartment complex,” she says to start the video. “I’m fully crashing out in my apartment complex. So obviously they double booted my car.”

Why Did The Apartment Double Boot Her Car?

This isn’t the first time Kristin has experienced the double boot at her apartment complex, she says.

“Just to give you some back story,” she says. “Literally the day I was signing my lease to move here, while I was in the ‘future resident’ parking space? They double booted my car. And I had to wait two hours for them to come take the boots off.”

Now she’s a resident, and apparently she isn’t treated much better. “I should’ve known they are sick [expletives],” she says. “I swear they contract out with this booting company and they, like, hide in the bushes or some [expletive] and just make money off of booting our cars.”

To add insult to injury, she says she pays to park in the garage. So why was her car booted? Apparently because she briefly parked in a no-parking zone outside her apartment.

"Because I have to have this key to get in,” she says. “I forgot this key. I live right here. I ran inside. I’m not even inside for 60 seconds. I come out and someone’s actively putting boots on my car.”

In an update, Kristin says that the next day she went to the leasing office and told them what happened. They agreed she shouldn't have been booted, she says. A man identifying himself as an employee of the booting company subsequently removed the boots from her vehicle; he purportedly also agreed that it shouldn't have happened.

What Should You Do If Your Apartment Boots Your Car?

In her post, Kristin identifies the apartment complex as MAA Brookwood Apartments in Atlanta, Georgia. She says that she plans to leave the car there overnight and deal with management the next day. Several people in the comments agreed that booting, particularly in Atlanta, is out of control.

“In the ‘new resident’ parking is WILD,” wrote one viewer.

“Girl, you’re valid. Regardless, you should be able to run into your apartment for two minutes to grab something,” a second person wrote.

“Booting also makes zero sense,” a third person said. “Give you a ticket? Sure. But booting makes your parking spot permanent.”

Someone else said, “Booting is such a weird Atlanta thing. You’re not allowed to park here. So now you must stay parked here.”

Is Car Booting A Problem in Atlanta?

Booting in Atlanta is such a problem that Vice made a video about a pair of women known as the “Boot Girls,” who decided to take a stand together against booting companies. There are also numerous Reddit threads of people discussing what some view as a predatory industry.

It was such an issue for drivers that the state of Georgia recently passed a law that regulates how these companies can operate. Georgia booting companies can now charge no more than $75 for passenger vehicles and must be licensed by the Georgia Department of Public Safety. Cash-only booting is now prohibited. Not just that, but the two-hour wait Kristin says she experienced when she moved in? That is no longer legal.

Motor1 contacted Kristin via email for comment. We called MAA Brookwood and left a voicemail asking for comment. We'll update this article if either replies.