‘I stole my dog’s tennis ball – now I park perfectly every time’

Mike Klimek has developed a simple hack using a tennis ball to ensure that he parks perfectly every time and is now sharing it with the world.

One piece of sports equipment could help you perfect your parking so you never scrape a wall again. Mike Klimek of Call Champion Services shared his ingenious hack to help drivers park their car without bumping or scratching the vehicle’s exterior.

It requires hanging a tennis ball from the ceiling of your garage or above your parking space to act as a ‘sensor’ so you know when to put on the brakes when parking your car. To carry out his ‘parking precision’ trick, all you need are two eye hooks, a tennis ball and some string. First, take one of the eye hooks and screw it into your ceiling in line with where your car bonnet stops.

Then put the other eye hook into the tennis ball and attach the string to this fastening. After this, take the other end of the string and put it through the eye hook in the ceiling making sure the ball hangs far enough down to touch the front of your vehicle’s bonnet.

This will act as a makeshift sensor so you know when to stop your car when you enter your garage or parking space. Mike claims the hack will help you park perfectly every time as it will ensure you tap the brakes before touching the wall so you don’t dent your car.

Mike said: “Tired of guessing how far to pull into the garage? Steal a tennis ball from your dog, grab an eye hook and some string and follow this easy step-by-step DIY parking trick.

“Just hang the ball from the ceiling so it taps your windshield when it’s time to stop. No more dents, just parking precision. So I stole a ball from my dog. She’s not going to miss it as she’s got a ton of them and I’m just going to hang it from the ceiling [in my garage].

“I’m just going to eyeball where I should put this. By the way I’ve got an eye hook, one in the ceiling, one in the tennis ball, a piece of string in between.

“So I made a little indentation and screwed this in. I found some masonry twine, and I’m going to tie this on to the hook and let it fall down to my windshield.

“So I’ve got the tennis ball and another eye hook. The last thing to do is to thread the string through there [the tennis ball eye hook] and see where I want it [the ball] to hit [on my windshield].”