To wish shops would consider their lighting

[ShouldIworryornothelp]

After another shopping trip ending in a thumping head due to horrendous strip lighting in virtually all shops I'm now of a mind to get angry and start doing what only is Brits can do well and write an angry letter of complaint

Aibu to wish shops would consider the comfort (and no doubt their staff too) with this issue?

I can't imagine many people have a problem with it.

Wear shades and pretend you're famous.

Agree. My slightly autistic daughter can barely enter some shops without getting a headache akin to a migraine attack - sensory issues?

River Island are an offender and some New Look branches.

Nobody has ever complained in our store.... You won't get far if it's not a MASSIVE problem. Can't see stores going to the expense of changing all the lighting Due to a handful of complaints tbh

I really hate strip lighting. People don't realize it's a pain. Like those flickering computer screens we all used to have - most people thought they were normal. I wonder if painkiller sales went down as we stopped having constant minor headaches!

I do all my shopping online to avoid this. YANBU.

You can complain by all means, and if others who find it a problem do as well, then they might change, but strip lighting is efficient and easy so it would take a significant number for them to consider it I imagine.

If you are referring to fluorescent lighting, no, yanbu. It has well known effects on many people with epilepsy and some people on the AS.

I am NT, but a very few times, fortunately, these shop lights have made me spontaneously vomit.

And I cannot shop in a supermarket without a loo becuse after ten minutes the lights make me need to shit urgently even if I have already been.

I have been told, but I don't know if it true, that the pulsations of light can effect the pulsations that move waste through the bowels.

I believe that in some places attended by people with special needs, the adverse effects of these lights have been recognised.

It has never bothered me. I think you are in a minority. I have sympathy but I don't think you'll get very far with this.

Tbh I think more of a people have an issue than dont. Part of our health and safety checks at work are don't stick a headache or migraine prone person under the lights or near a flickering one

Really? I've never ever met anybody who has an issue with strip lights.

Yanbu! I suffer with visual migraines and strip lighting in shops is one of the worst offenders.

Even the sun reflecting on water can start me off ??.
Yabu to complain though. I guess we are in the minority and the shops won't go to that expense for us!

Me neither, BertieBotts

I ventured into the local WHSmiths last week, could barely see anything it was so dark.

I got to do my exams in a special room cos my university had these in the exam room.

It's a pity they're efficient - I'd idly wondered why they were so common, but I suppose that's it.

I don't get why she'd be unreasonable to complain, though?

Unreasonable to expect the shop must do something, but they can't know about it if no one mentions it, and if there's not much in the decision next time they buy lights, they might remember it.

why are shops still using this? These lights guzzle electricity!

that said, I think shops must get it free, judging by the number that won't shut their doors and so are heating or airconditioning the outside. Those are the ones I avoid.

Yanbu. Hate strip lighting. Hate it.

Complaining won't do anything though. Alas.

Most shops are chains, so won't have much say over the fixtures and fittings, and small shops change their lighting fixtures... when? When they open a new branch, probably, if that.

I don't think it's unreasonable to complain but I think it's pointless.

And they don't "guzzle" at all. They are the same as energy saving bulbs except stretched out in a line.

They make me feel really ill in certain shops. Ive never written a letter of complaint but it does stop me going in many shops.

It took me a few years to click that it was that that was the problem, but I start feeling faint and if theyre particularly bad ones (old/flickery/too numerous/not shaded) then I feel like im going to pass out and I cant concentrate

Mmm, dunno. Shops do make accommodations, and generally they sound like bizarre minority interests until they happen. I mean, if you'd told me a big supermarket chain would bring in Mother and Baby spaces, I would have laughed at the idea and said I'd never met anyone who needed extra space to get a baby out of a car.

And that's not even a disability example.

I wouldn't be wildly surprised if eventually tesco or someone did a big proud 'ooh, look, how nice we are in our disability-friendly police (oh, and by the way, something cheaper came along anyway ...)'.

police? policy!

Happens to me too. I have to remember to keep my head down. One catch of the big hot lights and I have tunnel vision and can't drive home. Feels nice to know I'm not alone in this - thanks for the post!

Happens to me too, but mainly shopping in big malls where they have shiny floors in the corridor bits between shops, so you end up with light reflecting back up as well as from above. Apparently blue water were aware of the issue and changed their lightening so people would stay longer (although they can't really do much about the lightening in the actual stores). Bluewater isn't that bad to walk round now.