would not be left/weren't left

[Vladv1]

"The residents wish bikes would not be left in the hall."
Is it the correct way to express irritation, instead of "The residents wish the bikes weren't left.."?

 

[emsr2d2]

Both of them work.

 

[5jj]

The first does not work for me. The irritation that can sometime be expressed by will/would does not sit well with the pasive construction. It works with the active, in which the subject of the verb is the causer of the irritation:

The residents wish that people wouldn't leave bikes in the hall.

 

[Vladv1]

The first does not work for me. The irritation that can sometime be expressed by will/would does not sit well with the pasive construction. It works with the active, in which the subject of the verb is the causer of the irritation:

The residents wish that people wouldn't leave bikes in the hall.

But can the would that refers to repeated actions in the past be passive? Examples of mine; I would be helped by my pals when I lived there. My car would be repaired every two weeks when I owned it.

 

[jutfrank]

This use of 'would' is for describing some kind of characteristic behaviour, so the agent (the subject in the active voice) would normally be a person or thing that behaves in a certain way.

My old Fiat Punto would break down almost every week.

This is fine. Here, the car exhibits some kind of behaviour, just like a person or animal.

Since it's the agent that exhibits behaviour, and since passive voice sentences normally omit mentioning the agent, it's likely an odd choice to use the passive voice. Use the active voice instead:

My pals would help me.

Here, it's my pals who are exhibiting helpful behaviour. The sentence is primarily about my pals, not about me, so it would be odd to use 'I' as a subject.