A 29-year-old New Yorker has turned the city’s notoriously complex parking regulations into a profitable business venture. Sydney Charlet, who relocated to Manhattan from Seattle after losing her marketing job, has created what many call the “ultimate side hustle”: sitting in strangers’ cars during alternate side parking hours to help them avoid costly tickets.
Charlet’s service is as simple as it is ingenious. For $30 to $50, she offers a 90-minute car-sitting session during New York City’s designated street cleaning hours, significantly less than the $65 fine drivers face for violating alternate side parking rules. Launched in late June 2025, the business gained traction after a TikTok video she posted went viral, amassing nearly 600,000 views. Within three weeks, she received over 500 inquiries and served 10 repeat clients.
The process is streamlined: customers text her business number, coordinate key handoffs—often through doormen—and Charlet documents the vehicle before and after her session. While sitting in the car, she ensures it remains “attended,” police officers typically wave rather than issue tickets.
Charlet’s business exploits a legal sweet spot between two key New York City regulations: alternate side parking rules and anti-idling laws.
In place since the 1950s, alternate side parking requires drivers to move their vehicles during street cleaning hours across nearly 2,300 miles of NYC streets. Typically, these 90-minute windows occur twice weekly on residential streets. Violating the rules incurs a $65 fine. In 2024, the city issued 16.1 million parking and camera tickets, with street cleaning violations being the most frequent, accounting for nearly 4 million of 19 million summonses over two recent years.
Under Section 1210 of the NYS Vehicle and Traffic Law, New York’s anti-idling regulations prohibit leaving a vehicle running unattended—drivers must stop the engine, lock the ignition, and remove the key. City-specific idling limits are strict:
- No more than 3 minutes anywhere in NYC.
- No more than 1 minute near schools.
Even curbside idling with the driver present is illegal, and fines start at $115 for passenger vehicles and escalate to $275–$2,000 for commercial vehicles.
A tweet from X.
Charlet’s service bridges these regulations. While drivers cannot leave their cars running unattended, they can legally occupy their vehicles during alternate side parking hours. By sitting in the car, Charlet makes it “attended,” dodging the unattended vehicle violation and the parking ticket. This addresses a common NYC dilemma: the near-impossible task of finding parking when half a street’s cars must relocate simultaneously, often leading to double parking or drivers waiting out the cleaning window themselves.
The demand for Charlet’s service underscores NYC’s parking woes. Over 37% of alternate side parking tickets target repeat offenders with six or more violations, reflecting a reliance on fines as a cheaper alternative to garage fees, which can exceed $1,000 monthly in Manhattan. Her business has struck a chord—Charlet has received more résumés from potential employees than customer inquiries and plans to expand by hiring additional car sitters to form a citywide network.
New York City’s parking enforcement is a financial powerhouse:
- $624 million in parking fines during Mayor Bloomberg’s administration.
- Nearly $260 million from parking tickets between October 2020 and September 2021.
- Average ticket cost: $65.
The city is intensifying efforts, with plans to equip street sweepers with cameras for automated ticketing. Meanwhile, the Citizens Air Complaint Program incentivizes residents to report idling vehicles, offering 25% of collected fines; some individuals have earned over $100,000 annually through this initiative.
Sydney Charlet’s car-sitting venture exemplifies entrepreneurial ingenuity amid urban complexity. By positioning herself as a legal attendant, she provides drivers a cost-effective way to skirt tickets while building a thriving business. As Manhattan’s parking pressures mount and enforcement grows more sophisticated, her model could inspire similar innovations elsewhere. For now, Charlet’s success highlights the creative solutions that can emerge from the intersection of regulation and necessity.