Drying washing on our balcony

[Emmabryant123]

We private rent in a block of 16 flats
The flats vary from rented to owned .
We put our washing on two airers today on our balcony
No offensive clothing etc on show
We came down to this message on the main front door
Are we being unreasonable!? Or is this person who wrote this note being unreasonable?

Someone should marketa clothes airer that's a wire frame in the shape of a person, with horizontal rails to hang the laundry on.

Then, you wouldn't be drying your washing, you'd have a scarecrow to deter the birds, and there wouldn't be a thing neighbours on these developments with petty rules would be able to do about it.

The fact that so many new properties have clauses in their leases/deeds prohibiting hanging washing up outside means that the world is officially fucking mad. Yes, let's carrying on using tumble driers or filling your home with mould rather then have to look at someone's clothes drying outside for a few hours.

I love to see a line full of washing on a nice day, in my garden and my neighbours & it certainly wouldn't bother me someone hanging washing on a balcony. Have we all really become so precious or snobby that drying washing outside gives us all the vapours FFS? Talk about not having a grip on reality.

Private flats round here have their balconies cluttered with bikes, kiddies toys, fridges etc and that awful bamboo fencing.

IwantedtobeEmmaPeel,
Totally agree with you as people are so petty it’s outrageous .
I live in London and in a cottage were I have a garden in the front of my property and a gate, don’t ask me why ??, some ridiculous planning permission I believe from many years ago .
Anyway I have a shed and a table and chairs out there and also a washing maiden that I hang clothes out to dry on especially in this hot weather.
Why would I use my drier when I can dry my clothes naturally and very quickly in the fresh air and sunlight.??
I am overlooked by 2 other houses and a block of “council “ flats and we all get on very well.

Eugh. Mine would be out constantly from now on- just to piss the raving snob off.

If you're sure there's no covenants forbidding you to dry washing on your balcony then I'd ignore it and carry on drying in the same way.

It's your balcony and therefore what you do on it (within reason) is nothing to do with them.

They're cowards (and probably don't like confrontation either - so take heart in that) because instead of speaking to you, they've left a note.

I would put a note myself on the door next time you hang the washing on the balcony. Something along the lines of "To the note writer, I am allowed to hang my washing on the balcony. If you don't like it then maybe you could put up a screen on your balcony so you don't have to see it. PS. I've installed CCTV at my front door to see who is leaving me anonymous notes." :)

Nothing in contract so you are more than in your right. Non of the neighbours business.

Anonymous note-leaver better not dare holiday in Venice...they'd suffer conniptions.

(Technically, this isn't actually ON a balcony either.
So snobbish laundry moaners can stick that in their pipe and smoke it
Looks rather jaunty, IMO).

Also I just want to add that I have a friend who bought a council flat ( London ) last year for £325,000 with a balcony and she loves it and has one of those “skier” workout machines, lol whatever they are called on her balcony that she works out on .

I was wondering the same thing where I live. But seeing as I have already had a nasty comment to the landlord about something which happened which was an accident, which was backed up with an utter lie. I was also amazed they refused to answer the door and now they are all 'hello, how are you?' when i just think what a horrible person.
It seems disgusting in this day and age that we are NOT allowed to use a balcony for drying washing. It is the environementally friendly answer i would have thought.
I think the note you got is reprehensible.
Just shows you neighbours can be a pain in the ass

Wow - i'm amazed that not allowing washing on balconies is actually a thing.

Ridiculous.

If you buy a flat with these rules and do put your washing out, out of interest, what powers do they have to stop you? (Appreciate tenants are different).

The Management company can warn you but ultimately there is nothing they can do.

If, as the owner of a leasehold property, you do not abide by the terms of your lease, the freeholder can confiscate your property from you. You have broken the terms of the contract, therefore it is null and void, you don't get a refund of the money you paid for your flat.

I first heard of this in the case of a woman on the South Coast who did not pay her flat management charge, despite being given every opportunity to. The outcome of legal proceedings what that the freeholder (who was the original developer) repossessed her property and she lost all of her purchase price, as far as I understand it.

In the development were I live, management committee are currently taking a flat-owner to court in an attempt to take her flat off her. (Her breach is much more severe than aforementioned case, don't want to give details as not sure of implications.) Obviously the court case will costs thousands/tens of thousands, but as the flat is worth several hundred thousand, they will more than get their money back if they win.

I'm not saying that anyone has ever had a flat worth several hundred thousand pounds confiscated as a result of displaying laundry, but it appears that it is a legal possibility, so it is a valid answer to the question "what can they do to you, if you are the owner."

No name noted, why don’t these people just be brave if they have an issue

Add a note on your best writing paper along the lines of, don't write notes on torn out cheap notebooks, it looks looks so council estate...

It will give the rest of the residents a laugh anyway.

The person who wrote that note is unreasonable, it’s needlessly rude. Saying that, everywhere I’ve lived had a rule saying no washing on balconies. Once I questioned it with my landlord because it wasn’t on my tenancy agreement - he apologised and it is a requirement on his leasehold and he just hadn’t passed it on to me. Double check with the property manager and your landlord!

I would go and buy the biggest pair of knickers I could find and write a reply to snobbish neighbour on them and pin that to the door. Note along the lines of Fuck off Cunty McCunt Chops.

I lived in an apartment where nothing was allowed on the balcony except a very specific list of plants in a window box of a specific size and colour No washing line was specially noted as were satellite dishes.

You know what it says in the rules, follow them. I suspect that it is fine. Leave a note stating the rules and that it is environmentally friendly. The scrappy note just made the place look like a council estate.

Bloody hell! I don't think I've ever read such utter bollocks!! Someone is going to have to buy me a copy of this mythical social rules book and point me to the section that states hanging washing outside makes you a scumbag and not doing so means you are naice. My Grandmother, in whose house and on whose visits we would have to dress for dinner, would be turning in her grave. Posh she most definitely was but she, like her daughter and granddaughter after her, relished the ability to hang washing outside. The smell of line-dried washing is one of the pleasures of early spring FFS!

There is no washing allowed on the balconies of the flats where we live. It’s mixed flats and houses and the houses are allowed washing in their courtyards though.

It is all leasehold however, and 90% of the problems we have with covenants being broken are from rental properties. Sometimes because the renters don’t care but mostly because the landlord does not include the covenants in the rental agreement. The tenant then does not know and has not agreed to them but the management company pursue the landlord for breach of covenant. It ends up messy and with everybody unhappy.

Oh, and our management company pursued a house owner for breach of covenant. It got to the point where it would have been repossessed by the freeholder but the owner had scarpered to Spain and the bank foreclosed on it first.

I remember my parent's council house had a ban on laundry which could be seen on the balcony which meant she had a rope which was strung at hip height.
Do you have a low wall like them or could you mount something inoffensive on the railings or glass panels to give you some private space up to waist level? Consider it as "modesty" panels.

I find it bizarre in this day and age where we are expected and encouraged to be more environmentally friendly that putting your washing out to dry can actually be a negative?!?!

Yes you can hang it on an airer in your flat but at this time of the year it will dry so quickly outside and beats putting the drier on! I live in a flat and wished to the heavens I had a balcony as it’s not fun when you have a big load to dry and only so much can go on the airer, the rest I have to put in the dryer and I resent doing so in the summer!

He/she is a cheeky git about the council estate

Thinking it looks trashy or bad to have clothes drying outside is so stupid. It's the sort of opinion people should be furiously denying holding.

This is a rule on my estate so best check (maybe with a neighbour who owns.) it’s not in my tenancy agreement as that’s a standard one from the letting agents but in the deeds of the house.