Neighbour Garden Room privacy

[goldfishbowl2025]

Hi Mumsnet,
I’m not sure whether this belongs here, but our neighbour’s new garden room sits a lower than our house and he can look up and see into my directly my bedroom. At night when their lights are on, it really feels like I’m in a goldfish bowl—I can see into their office and it makes me wonder if they can see into my room too.

I don’t want to draw my curtains all the time, but it’s starting to affect my sense of home and privacy. Has anyone been through something similar? How did you handle it? did you speak to them, did you ask for a blind, or find another solution? I’ve text but they don’t see how it’s affecting my privacy and to be honest it’s having a massive effect on me as my bedroom is my haven- I like to move around not thinking I’m being watched. He said he doesn’t work late down there but I feel like 3/4 nights last week he worked late and then gone 11pm I saw the lights go off (when they go off I can see the light reduce in my room).

help!!!

Ok this is a terrible pic because I’m in the bath with my phone.
but if you are higher HE is the one exposed. Not you. Unless you are right up against the window he will not be able to see anything other than your ceiling.

you on the other hand can look down into mist of his room.

the sight lines make him exposed not you.

Do you know them well enough to ask to see inside? If you can see exactly what they can see maybe it will put your mind at rest

Yes, she can. Of course she can, how weird that you think someone can’t ask their neighbour something.

You don’t know how bright the light is. Like I said, we had a very bright light coming in from a neighbour and they did stop using it when we mentioned it.

People can be considerate of their neighbours when asked, you know.

You can ask him to get a blind but he isn’t obliged to. And even if he does, he might forget to close it, so you are far better off dealing with it at your end, as your end is all you can control. In my bedroom I have a blackout blind plus a curtain, my neighbours used to have a bright security light which would come on if a fox or cat came past, and it stopped me noticing the light coming on and off.

As others have said if your lights are off he won’t be able to see into your bedroom. If your lights are on, close the curtains.

She does close them, she said the light came round the edges of her curtains.

I’m talking about the light here, not privacy.

Chances are if your bedroom is upstairs and his garden is on the ground floor, he can see the ceiling of your bedroom and nothing else.

we have low windows (old house), and we are on a popular walking route, I got my dh to walk past the house and see if he can see into the bedroom. Unless I stand next to the window he can only see our ceiling light and not a lot else.

thanks everyone - perhaps it’s cos I’m higher I can see him and he can’t see me, yes we’ve been neighbours for 7 years and get on well. Hence me wanting to ask him about the blind. The lights do get around our blackout curtain. Our blackout curtain is higher and wider than our actual window to try blackout as much as possible.

I guess it’s change, is hard to deal with, I feel exposed when looking at the diagram maybe it’s him who is more exposed. Perhaps he can’t see up into our room.

I don’t want to draw the curtains as I like to look out across the sky when I’m lying in bed but I can feel he’s there! I’m not certain of the length of our gardens but our house is also forward to his so his is set back - I need a diagram here! Let me try shortly

Because you are a good neighbour and hoping to come to a sensible compromise?
What other solution do you want? Ban neighbour from using room? Move house?

(Just a point, if you actually work out lines of sight, there is a most no possibility that your neighbour can see any more than your bedroom ceiling, and your forehead when you stand right by your window).

OP no one can see you lying in bed from their garden, the light isn’t relevant to this.

If you want to spend the evening in your room and sleep with no curtains shut then you accept there is a reduction in privacy. It’s on you to create privacy in your own home, not other people.

He's not going to demolish it, is he, so if you're that bothered it's up to you to draw the curtains or put a film over the lower half of your window.

I virtually always draw the curtains if I'm putting lights on anyway - don't you?

No never had to! Have trees behind us and now this garden room. No one can see in / so in all the 16 years I’ve never had to.

He could have been in his garden and seen in at any time though. His garden room doesn’t make it any more likely for him to see in, in fact it makes it less likely. You are just aware he’s in the garden now because he has a light in.

Not quite cos he’s lower down and now he’s in the garden room he’s higher much higher!!

Personally I wouldn’t want someone listening into all my work calls! Cos I work in the back of my house too I often have our doors open and I can hear him.

The floor level wont be significantly higher though, foundations are sunken.
Now you’re complaining you work with the doors open but you don’t want him to hear you?!!

It sounds as though the structure has been placed very close to your boundary OP.
In which case, you might want to check building regulations - if they have for example excavated too close to your house wall, or it might come under the terms of temporary structure.

In situations where your neighbour is probably oblivious to the fact that you can hear /don’t want to hear all his conversations and he probably hasn’t even considered that his noise travels - I was able to solve this (enlighten/reeducate) by having loud random chatty conversations, especially encouraging the postman/friends who call round - talk (loudly) about their car, engine size, holiday, random rubbish - it simply makes the neighbour more mindful and aware that you are here using your space too.

I don’t want to draw the curtains as I like to look out across the sky when I’m lying in bed but I can feel he’s there!

Do you realise how ridiculous that sounds?

So you've got blackout curtains but they're not closed? Which is it? If you want seclusion then don't live in a place with neighbours.

I'm really struggling understand the issue.

When I sit in my back garden on our rattan sofa set I can, if I want to, look straight into my neighbour's bedroom window. How is that different to me having a garden room in that same spot and looking into their bedroom from that?

We do also have a garden room but it goes along one side of our garden so when we look out we are just looking across our garden towards the side fence and not directly at the back of the neighbours house. They can see us in our garden room but only if they hang out of their back window. We have lights but we tend to use low level mood lighting or candles/fairy lights if we are chilling out there in the evening.

They do not use low level lights it’s bright lights very bright and when I have my curtains drawn it lights up around it - makes a big difference.

anyways I’m not on AiBu and tbh I’m getting a few AIBU responses.

yes! Perhaps we move

https://www.dunelm.com/product/luna-brushed-ultra-blackout-eyelet-curtains-1000232527?defaultSkuId=30874245&colour=Dove+%28Grey%29
Try these and over size them.
I've been in a similar situation where I've lived here for 25 years and now the decisions of neighbours have made a major impact. You just have to either suck it up and get on with it or move.

If your moving i suggest buying somewhere in the middle of nowhere if you can't cope with neighbours sitting in their garden

I agree. I used purlfrost.com for my kitchen window that faces out onto the street. Just did the bottom half with the patterned one. It's been up ten years and still looks good.

You mentioned suggesting he gets blinds. Why don’t you get blinds?

It might be worth having a friendly chat. We can angle our light fittings in some rooms and - if this is an option - angling more into the room might make some difference to the brightness around your curtains. Or he might be happy to try and switch to lamplight at 10pm, or whatever.

We turned off our security light as it was bugging DS, but if a neighbour had asked nicely, we probably would have done it for them too, or looked at the angle etc.

@goldfishbowl2025 I know it's not AIBU and I didn't say you were BU.

I was just trying to understand the issue of lack of privacy - especially as I'm currently sitting in my garden and can look up and stare at my neighbours bedroom window if I wanted to. I would just think if you don't want people seeing in you just close the curtains.

Also having a garden room, DH is working in there now and he enjoys looking out across the garden while he is working, I'm worried we may be causing our neighbours the same issue you are having.

Bright lights are annoying I agree so we are considerate and prefer low level lighting anyway. DH may have the full lights on early evening in the winter when he is out working in there until 6pm.

We also have blinds as sometimes my DD likes to have sleepovers out there.