Just how bad is it to not open your curtains first thing?

[Serendipetty]

..Because apparently I am a heathen.
I live quite near my Mum, she comes over for a coffee several times a week, I work from home and this is absolutely fine however she came over one morning last week at around 08:30 am and my curtains were still drawn.

Most weekdays I get up around 06:00, walk the dog go to the gym, get home shower and start work at 09:00. It was still dark when I got up but obviously not by the time I got home.

My friend owns a nightclub in the nearest city. I used to work there on a weekend while studying. Some Saturday nights if I am free, I go to see friend, have a few drinks and help tidy up, look after the staff (he has acts on often)do anything that needs doing. He doesn't close until 04:00-05:00 so sometimes I get home and It's early hours of the morning-I don't open my curtains when I get home and am generally still asleep at daybreak-again my Mum had driven to my house around 10:00 and I was just getting up, my curtains still drawn.

This is very unacceptable apparently, 'people will think It's a dosshouse' etc etc.

I live in a very quiet private road, next to no foot traffic, not sure if this makes a difference but I am damned if I am getting home at 04:00 and getting up again at 07:00 (ish) just to open my bloody curtains-and should I just open them while It's still dark if I am heading off to walk my dog/gym before daybreak?

I am not the most observant with house situations-if a neighbour of mine didn't open their curtains I doubt I'd notice unless it had been days on end.

Oh! Yes I always open the windows in the morning. Doesn’t relate to curtains in my book 😄 curtains are for sunlight and eyes in and out. Windows are for air in and out 😁

Yes, I used to commute very early from Oxford to London on a double-decker coach years ago, and would be coming in along the Westway on winter mornings around 6.45 or 7 am when everyone was getting dressed in their bedrooms. A lot of people had their curtains open and the lights on, and I lost track of how many times I got a quick vision of someone standing naked at their wardrobe trying to decide what to wear, or using hair straighteners while putting on mascara dressed only in their knickers. I mean, I’d have been keeping my curtains shut in those people’s shoes. Mostly the buses were zooming past, but sometimes traffic meant you were stopped long enough to admire someone’s tattoos or wonder where they got their pillowcases!

@Serendipetty do you air your bed and air all your rooms??

I work shifts and sometime I don’t open my blinds until 1300 if I’m nightshift! Your mum would be outraged 😂
I open them when I’m going to be sitting in the room, that varies anytime between 0500 and 1300 or sometimes even later and I live on a busy main road that’s a school route.

Why would it be bad? Our blinds are never fully opened as our living room window is right on the street and I don’t want people staring at me 🤣

I can’t believe anyone cares about anyone else’s curtains.. each to their own.

I dont have curtains.
I have very funky nets.
I change them once a month from funky to black ones or blue ones.
I also tint my window with colourful tint.

Another heathen here. I'm retired now and after over 70 years of getting up early (as an infant, for school, work, my own children, more work) I'm now enjoying my freedom to get up when I want to. My curtains are often still closed until 10 or 11 in the morning - I've earned my lie-ins. Your mum has very old fashioned ideas OP.

Depending on the age of your neighbours and the extend to which you speak with them, might they think you have some form of ill-health, or that you are not an early riser because you drink in the evening?

Yes, my Mum's almost 80-my windows are open a lot too! I like fresh air and can't bear the 'stuffy' feel of a house where the windows aren't ever opened. I have friends like that.

I guess they could do! It has only ever occurred to me what they think, when my Mum has brought things like this up! Once it were that I hadn't hung my washing out tidily enough.
As it is, I quite often have a couple of drinks in the evening but I go to bed early when I do so it has no bearing on whether my curtains are to be opened or not-and when I help my friend at the club I will have drank alcohol but it is the getting home in the early hours hence not being awake at a 'normal' time, rather than the alcohol I may have drank that is the reason for my curtains not being opened first thing.

I used to work nights, from home on a MH helpline. I did find that one neighbour I got chatting to had assumed I didn't work at all. He didn't ask in a judgmental way, he just had come to collect a parcel and said something like 'I apologise, I know if you don't work you probably get a lot of these!' and I had to tell him that I did work. I guess that's an easy assumption to make, he'd have never seen me leave the house other than to do errands or walk the dog, during the day.

Yes! It's cold here today but my windows are open in the sitting room, and I often have the back door open while I work (mainly so the dog can come in and out as she pleases without bothering me). I don't like stuffy houses. But this morning was like many others, I walked the dog, went to the gym, opened curtains & windows when I came back-NOT as soon as I got up.

I always want to have a look out,see what the weather is like..we live on the edge of a quiet village, not overlooked,my nextdoor neighbours garden is 200ft long same as ours, nothing behind us,no houses, she said she keeps her bedroom curtains closed because of someone might see in! They've not been opened in 15 years.

My grandmother used to open the curtains when she went to bed so no one knew what time she got up!

I couldn’t tell you if my bedroom blinds are still shut. They probably are, I can’t see why I would have opened them at 7am. I probably won’t set foot in my bedroom again until late this evening so it makes no difference to me anyway.

I live in a 1930s house prone to condensation and damp, so dh opens the bedroom window an inch or so every morning but he puts his hand under the blind to do it. It just stays open all day (someone is always in the house, we only shut it if we are all going out).

I suspect this is a bit of a generational thing as my mum is pretty scandalised we keep ours closed too. However, she learned a long time ago that we live how we like in our own house! And if she disagrees with something she generally keeps it to herself these days. My neighbours are about our age and also often keep theirs closed… until either set of parents come round! 😁

I open curtains when I get up and have dressed. Because that's when I open the windows to air the room.

And the timing depends on when I get up, under the week it's 6.30am, at the weekend - whenever.

Curtains then stay open until I go to bed. In the living room I may close them in the late afternoon - in summer to stop the sun coming in, in winter to keep the heat in.

We used to have a neighbour opposite who didn't have much going on in her life and would sit in her window being nosy. She once commented that I must have had a lie in because the curtains weren't open early.

I had great fun confusing her by opening and shutting them at random times, especially being out doing some gardening at 8.00 am while the curtains were closed.

But I don't think most people notice other people's curtains.

I open mine because of pineal gland/wanting to see what the day's doing/not falling over stuff in the dark...

But thank you for reminding me of the old phrase 'a dosshouse'! I expect it's 'like the black hole of Calcutta' if you don't open them! On the other hand, if you put all the lights on, it would be 'like Blackpool'. Honestly, 'it's Bedlam in here...' 😁

Nooo! What on earth will the neighbours think?! It’s a slipppery slope - you’ll be going out to the bin in a dressing gown unless you get this under control. Please tell me your washing is out on the line by now (and pegged correctly).

Honestly, your neighbours have enough going on without you offending their sensibilities. How embarrassing for your mother - everyone will know and think she dragged you up!

I do wonder at anyone giving second thought to anyone even their mother saying this. Your house, your life, your rules.
The fact that she can wind you up over nothing is your problem, not closed curtains.

My living room windows are lower than the road outside so I don’t open mine as soon as get up. I’m retired so usually have a lazy breakfast watching TV and I don’t want all the school traffic noseying in as they walk past. I also have up and down blinds so I can block out the road traffic and just see my garden and the trees

I open the blinds on the back as they face the garden and it’s private

I thought you were going to ask about circadian rhythm. I have adrenal insufficiency and my cortisol is affected by it and also a parrot in my bedroom so I religiously open them at sunrise even on days like today when im staying in bed all day. I am now very tempted to close them in defiance of your mum!

Well my mum and Gran would have definitely agreed with your mum!
I do think curtains should be opened in the morning but 8.30 is still early, it's not like it's midday and you haven't opened them.
Mind you I can imagine turning into my mum and Gran - I often go into teens bedroom and open the curtains and even a window when they are still in bed ( may not get up much before lunchtime if left to own devices😂)
I do give it til 10am though which I think is very reasonable!

I had mine closed practically all summer (at the front of the house anyway) because it's south-facing, and it was too overwhelmingly hot for me.

I'm also self-employed and frequently watch a film or two early morning before I start work for the day because I can do so in peace, so I frequently have them closed if I'm doing that too.

I didn't know it was a thing people still cared about!