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!

If your lease allows you to hang out your laundry and your garden is your garden, then just ignore the nosy neighbour.

Just say "well it is my garden" and "the terms of my lease allow me to hang out my washing" if you have to say anything at all to her.

From classics - knickers on the line

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/2939294-Or-is-my-neighbour-about-my-laundry

What, practically, is your management company going to do about it if you continue doing as you wish with your own laundry?

Have they specified any penalties, or is it just a "it is preferred that ..." kind of rule?

If you can continue with no further penalty than nagging letters & a nosy neighbour you can ignore - just carry on!

@Flatwhitewhiner

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’.

For those who keep telling OP to check her lease, etc.

Take no notice, I think companies are going to have to cut some slack about drying outside because it the environment and climate change

@SweatyBetty20

I’m not in the same boat as I have no restrictions but a neighbour told me not to hang out my knickers as “her husband can see them”.

I told her where to go and save them all up to wash before festooning the whirligig.

JEEZE! So glad you told her where to go. I'd have instructed her to tell her husband to stop perving over his neighbour's pants.

Carry on as normal. If she had access to a garden I'm 100 percent sure she'd be using it! She's jealous. Ignore her.

As long as there's nothing in your lease to say you can't hang your washing ignore her. Maybe she's jealous because you have a garden?

How did she get your email?

[quote Flatwhitewhiner]@Brollypackedforscottishholiday Why didn’t I think of gnomes? They’d be perfect[/quote]
Gnomes with their own washing lines should do the trick OP.

As so many of them seem to be fishermen, maybe you could improvise with some fine wire added to the fishing rods? And some teeny tiny dolls clothes to suspend from them?

I had a relative who had a ground floor balcony/patio.. Her and the people above didn’t get on, so they would over water their plants so that it ran onto her patio and ‘clean’ their balcony with soapy water so that ran down too.
My relative was very elderly, had been a widow for 30 years and had started with dementia. Her only joy was feeding the birds and tending to her potted plants.

I put my washing out on a clothes horse in the front garden of my house, your neighbour would pitch a fit

Now is the time to invest in a large parasol or even a gazebo for your garden.

And on the top of it, an image of a fist with its middle finger extended! 🖕🏼

I'd get a sail shade that goes from your wall and over your patio. Then you can sit underneath it in privacy - while flicking the vs at her.

I'd also get a really long washing line and hang my laundry out every day but forget to take in the t- shirt that says 'fuck you' on it. But I'm a bit pretty.

@Inertia my thoughts exactly

I must admit that I’d be inclined to put more washing lines in and invite the rest of the block to use them 🤣

I love my tumble dryer and I really don't like that outdoorsy smell on my laundry along with bugs and bird poop (seriously birds, every single fucking time??? Really?) but I would make the exception for your busy body neighbour and hang EVERYTHING out. I'd find a reason to wash my younger days clubbing clothes (aka fetish gear looking basques) every week too for extra giggles. The birds will provide the shits to go with the giggles.

Plant bulbs in the grass she likes to look at to make it even prettier. Maybe in the shape of a giant cock and balls.

Just ignore. There is nothing grim about a view of someone's clean washing.

Carry on doing what you are doing in your own garden but perhaps clear a small area towards the rear of your garden that you can lay out some pretty pebbles that smell out -

FUCK OFF NOSY.

Spell

My policy with these whingy snitch people is to lash back very hard from the onset. I dont believe in kowtowing to them because they will take that as weakness. The only way with whining neighbours is to make them scared of you so they are reluctant to open their mouths. I would continue to put out your washing as usual. If she comments tell her

"I dont mind you whining about things that are none of your bloody business so long as you dont mind my ignoring them. Now jog on!"

Just carry on as before and enjoy your garden and patio. Ignore her on all points

@GoodnightGrandma

I had a relative who had a ground floor balcony/patio.. Her and the people above didn’t get on, so they would over water their plants so that it ran onto her patio and ‘clean’ their balcony with soapy water so that ran down too. My relative was very elderly, had been a widow for 30 years and had started with dementia. Her only joy was feeding the birds and tending to her potted plants.

Aren’t people just horrible…

@Bollindger thank you! This list is perfect to hand out to my future landscape gardener 🤣🤣🤣

@memberofthewedding I think you’re on to something here. I did give her a stern talking back to and - fingers crossed - haven’t received any emails from the company since. I’m just reluctant to check my inbox/potter around outside in fear of her scuttling out and being a cock.