Washing woes - it’s a neighbour one…

[Flatwhitewhiner]

I live in a ground floor apartment in a block that’s popular with holiday makers and second home-owners. It’s my first property (exchanged only a year ago) and it has a little garden and patio area - both of which are part of my boundary lines according to my lease. This is important!

Recently I had a run-in with my neighbour who is directly upstairs from my flat. She uses her properly maybe for half of the week, if that, incase this is useful info. It’s not the first time she has leaned over her balcony to impart wisdom to me but her complaints are as follows:

1. She doesn’t like the fact that I hang my laundry outside on my patio area to dry because it spoils her view from her balcony (and others). She believed that I was breaking the terms of the lease and threatened to tell the management company. I have received a series of round robin emails from said company that inform people not to use their balconies for hanging washing etc. Now I believe I know the source! My flat is directly below hers so I don’t quite understand what view it is that I’m blocking, only that she doesn’t like looking at wet clothes…

2. She commented that I would need to be careful if I wanted to do anything in my garden because ‘some of the residents like to look out over grass’. Last time I checked, though, it’s definitely my bloody garden. In the same conversation she informed me that I ‘wasn’t a natural gardener’.

Needless to say I put her in her box about the terms of my lease and did tell her that I was wise to her mean comments and emails. I told her that I wasn’t prepared to be bullied. Since then no emails but I have been on holiday!

Anyway, it’s a warm day and I’d like to hang out all my holiday attire in the fresh air but I feel totally sheepish doing so. I’m also angry that I’ve been picked up in for something so petty as it would never occur to me to be remotely bothered by someone else’s bedsheets hanging in the breeze! I’m also annoyed that she’s literally and figuratively looking down at my space that I’ve paid for.

What should I do, ignore her? Continue my washing war? Get the landscape gardener in? Or kill her with kindness?

Wisdom welcome!

Get a t-shirt printed saying "I will hang my laundry out when I bloody well like" and pop it out.
Laundry out is the best way to dry it.

Lol, she should try living in the teeny tiny streets of Europe with everybody's bed sheets/rugs/underwear hanging down for 10 months of the year!
I would be tempted to fill my line with erotic club fetishwear if it wasn't for the chance children would see it ( yes I have plenty, gathering dust 😉 )

Put a whirly in your garden

This is what my landlord/lease holder said when I challenged the clause - and mentioned environmental reasons!

^^
‘Attached is a copy of the lease and you will on see on the final page the demise highlighted in red. As long as it is in the demise of the property you can have washing lines etc’.

Grateful to my fellow pant flutterers and @mineofuselessinformation that is CLASS

Tempting as it would be to cover the garden with washing lines (and have them permanently full!), I'd probably just ignore her. You've checked that you aren't doing anything wrong, so just leave it.

It's slightly odd that a woman who thinks that hanging washing out is terrible behaviour is fine with leaning over balconies to berate her neighbour though.

I find it odd that any flats have a clause you can't hang washing outside that's how you're meant to dry washing and helps prevent mould issues inside.

Do you hang it on an airer? If so can you put it below her balcony floor?! Still outside but not in view.

But so also cannot believe someone is offended by the view of clothes drying.

Maybe instead give her a view of you sunbathing in your most attractive bra and pants and if she complains say you have no clean and dry clothes so choose her view!

Oh I have one of those neighbours too
Sadly I also have a garden and am not allowed to dry washing in it and said neighbour would happily report me
Instead I can lift my airer into my neighbours garden, as they are allowed washing because it's a house and dry it there
He also tried to claim the garden (only access is via my patio doors) is a communal garden...

You could make a large circular bed in the middle of your garden. Plant it with bedding plants in the shape of a pair of pants flapping in the breeze. You might have to wait until Spring for the planting, but you could star ton the bed whenever you want.

We had a lovely block and it really spoiled the pleasant view if anyone put out all their knickers/bras etc out for all to see.

Knickers & Bras are unpleasant but not boxers or socks, obviously.

[grin]@dworky, I was just thinking the same thing!

It's your garden, it seems there are no restrictions on hanging out washing so crack on some people are very strange

As for gardening, again, it's your garden so get one of those gnomes posted earlier so just ignore

I have known this in a rented house. The agents told the renter that she should not hang her underwear out on the line because it upset the next door neighbour and gave her (neighbour's) husband funny turns (honestly) the only way he could have seen it would have been to hang out the bedroom window!

I love seeing washing drying in the breeze. I can't understand why people get so riled by it.

@Flatwhitewhiner, I take it you don't need any advice about which way round to point it?

If you have a rotary dryer, you can get green laundry protectors for them which will 'shield' your undies from view (and the rain!)

www.amazon.co.uk/Chimney-Sheep-Laundry-rotary-dryers/dp/B07MK3MJY1?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Sort of like Victorian table leg covers .

Give her a big patronising smile and nod next time she gives you lip about the washing and the garden.

I don’t even dry washing outside but I don’t see the problem with it in the slightest. Unless you’re hanging out fetish gear or something what is the problem?

Does the lease demise specifically mention the garden?

You defo need a gnome and point it so it’s staring right at her flat window. Or a cherub doing a wee or something.

If your neighbour wanted the benefit of looking out over a beautifully maintained garden, she should have bought a property which had its own.

OP, check very carefully what your lease says. The management company has to adhere to this too I imagine. As long as you're not breaking the lease or doing anything that the council would consider antisocial behaviour (call their environmental health department to check) you're fine. NB: your neighbour might disagree and be a right pain about it. I would suggest not escalating things any further than strictly necessary: don't deliberately goad or antagonise your neighbour, even if it is within the law/ rules, but equally don't change how you live your life because she disapproves. You have my sympathy, insisting other people change their behaviour to suit you even though they're not doing anything wrong is a sure sign that someone is very entitled. It's funny how it's often the people who complain who are causing the actual nuisance! Seriously, I'd find someone leaning over their balcony and making it clear that other people will be looking into my garden often enough to care what it looks like way worse than someone drying their clothes on the line...

This might do the trick...

www.startunoo.com/Zombie-Holding-Lantern-Solar-Powered-Garden-Light-Lamp-p2631782.html

Right in the middle of the grass looking up at her flat.

"Grim"? "Unpleasant"?!
OP if your neighbour knows how to use Google translate you might point her to the following three stanzas by a 1920s German poet dedicated to the sanctity of underwear on the line ("Heilig ist due Unterhose").
www.zgedichte.de/gedichte/christian-morgenstern/die-unterhose.html

A list of plants to use

1. Stiffcock

Latin name: Diospyros Crassenevis Coincidentally, this strong-smelling plant has strong-smelling leathering leaves that are used to make tea that is claimed to be a herbal form of Viagra.

1. Shagbark

Latin name: Cary Ovata A large tree found in the east of the United States and Canada that can grow over 100ft tall. They can also live for up to 350 years.

1. Cockhold Herb

Latin name: Bidens Connata This plant boasts yellow daisy-like flowers and tufted seeds which attach to fellow plants, fur and clothing to spread.

1. Sausage Tree

Latin name: Kigelia Africana The easily recognisable Sausage Tree is sacred to many African communities and commonly has large sausage-shaped fruits hanging from its branches. It is often used in herbal remedies as well as for skin treatments.

1. Family Jewels Milkweed

Latin name: Asclepias Physocarpus This is a tree-like milkweed from South Africa that grows quickly during the warmer months. It forms small mauve and white star-shaped flowers that grow in clusters, which then make way for hairy green round-shaped seedpods.

1. Knobweed

Latin name: Hyptis Capitata This is a type of shrub which has a sap used as a powerful antiseptic. It grows in Australia and can grow up to a height of 1.5metres.

1. Shaggy Soldier

Latin name: Galinsoga Quadriradiata This flower is frequently found growing around cities in the UK and has stems and leaves that take on a hairy look.

1. Sticky Willy

Latin name: Galium Aparine This plant has creeping straggling stems that grow along the ground and over other plants. They attach themselves with small hooked hairs which grow out of the stems and leaves.

1. Nipplewort

Latin name: Lapsana Communis An edible plant with a yellow flower that is used as a herbal remedy for nursing mothers, nanny goats and dairy cows.

10. Virgin Thistle Latin name: Cirsium Virginense This is a spiky species of thistle that is native to the southwestern parts of the United States, where it grows in dry habitats.

Genuinely don't see how hanging your washing out on a balcony or otherwise would cause such offense to people, but hey ho. I'd continue to do so, but be wary of the fact that she's in the flat above you and things can be 'accidentally' knocked off balconies.

Just keep doing what you want if you aren’t violating any of the rules.