AIBU to love looking in people’s windows!

[LittleRa]

I’m on maternity leave and my baby loves the pram (was a surprise as older DD hated it!) and naps well it, but wakes up when I stop walking. I also do the school run twice a day for older DD. So I find myself wandering around the streets, exploring parts of the neighbourhood I haven’t been to before. I love looking into people’s front windows! It feels so nosy What they have on their walls; art work, photos etc, how their furniture is arranged, where their TV is positioned (and how big it is!) have all become a source of fascination to me. Has my baby brain turned to mush and I need to get out (of the nearby streets) more? Is is terribly bad manners? Anyone else like a good nose into front windows?
Disclaimer- from the street! Not entering gardens/yards and pressing my nose up against the glass! And also not stopping and gawping- always moving along (aforementioned sleeping baby!)

It's rude as fuck. Why should people have to draw curtains etc during the day because some nosey fucker is having a good gawp?

@echt
“When we lived in London, the Eurostar used to occasionally stop at the bottom of the garden and the passengers waved at us doing the washing up. We never minded, and waved back.”

@UrAWizHarry

It's rude as fuck. Why should people have to draw curtains etc during the day because some nosey fucker is having a good gawp?

They're not having a good gawp, they're just walking past or on the bus / train which passes your window.

YANBU to love it

that's exactly why I have blinds, shutters and a tall hedge so people can't see in my home from the street. If the windows are bare, it means people don't mind.

@UrAWizHarry

It's rude as fuck. Why should people have to draw curtains etc during the day because some nosey fucker is having a good gawp?

This. I already resent having to have nets up, as I've got a horrible dark living room, would love to let more light in not less.

I live in Scotland where lots of people don't seem to close their curtains at night. I often used to run in the evenings and in winter looking into all the houses kept me going through crappy runs.

I love when you have a few houses the same in a row and hoe fascinating the different decor and furniture placement is.

I am amazed that so many people think this is normal. I think it is extremely rude and would have no desire to be like that.

Oh, I love it at Christmas time, it's so lovely to go for a walk and see everyone's decorations, and see people enjoying themselves.

I did a lot of walking with babies in prams, and you do get to know the houses with nice curtains, good bookshelves, nice planters etc

I resist the temptation to do it as I really dislike it when people do it to us!

I find it so rude. My living room is the front window and I feel like I’m on display when every single person walking past glances in. I keep the blinds shut but also why should I everytime I’m home?

It may seem like a fleeting moment for you but when you get people walking past every 5 minutes or so and glancing in it’s awful.

Oh I think it’s rude as would say please don’t do this

During the pandemic a persons home is even more so their safe place. It’s creepy (yes even as a female, maybe more so I’d males were doing this kind of thing too)

No doubt I’ll be shouted down, always am on these types of threads but as I say, it could be unnerving to some.

This is why nets/blinds are needed. I hate the thought of a stranger peering into my home, feels so intrusive!

Have to say I love people watching and it's natural to glance about as we're walking....I'm glad you said you don't stop walking, I had an image of you pressed up against the glass having a real good nose..there's a name for people like that

I live alone. If you did this it would freak me out and spike my anxiety.

I have vertical blinds and keep them over all the time.

Creepy as fuck, and rude.

The school run alone means you are walking past someone’s house 4 times a day alone!

My grandma used to love doing the opposite- ie sitting in her front window “gawping” at who was passing.
“There goes Mr Jones, he always goes to the shop at this time on a Wednesday, here’s Miss Smith, she’s had her baby now, she’s pushing it in the pram, the postman is late today, he usually passes around now, here come the Andrews children home from school, oh look Mr Peters is washing his car…” etc.
It’s one of the things she really missed when she moved to a care home, keeping an eye on the neighbourhood goings on, and, as she described it, seeing people of all ages living their lives.

A glance is natural, but if you’re registering people’s bookshelves, musical instruments, pets or paint colours, that’s definitely not a glance.

@StacysMomMandyJessiesEx

The school run alone means you are walking past someone’s house 4 times a day alone!

I go different routes all the time, there are multiple different ways I can get to and from school and if baby is asleep I’ll go yet more different ways by walking further long loops. I don’t have an agenda to look in the same windows over and over- more the variety of different ones!

Also to clarify it’s not about seeing people inside their houses! Someone unthread likened it to nosing on houses on rightmove or zoopla.

It’s not the same as zoopla.

My house isn’t for sale. And if it was, those are staged photos.

@StacysMomMandyJessiesEx

The school run alone means you are walking past someone’s house 4 times a day alone!

Also, don’t really do it on the leg of the school run where I have DD, as I’m keeping an eye on her scooting ahead, or walking with her chatting about her day etc. I have something else to occupy me then! It’s when I’m on my own, just pushing the baby in the pram.

YANBU but it is really rude - i do the same though! I love walking the dog when the evenings are getting darker and people leave their curtains open and lights on inside...makes it easier to see in! If people don't like you looking in then they should get blinds. I have blinds because of nosy people like me.

I do this, but I also expect other people to do it. I often check what my living room looks like from the street 😁 especially if I’ve put the Xmas decs up or moved furniture round or put up a new picture or something. My house looks lovely from the outside looking in!

I have nets, I don't like people looking in.

Especially one nosy neighbour in particular. She was in my year at school, many years ago, and was one of the bullies. I had a few confrontations with her then, and not interested in a friendship now.

@Myxisaprat

It’s not the same as zoopla.

My house isn’t for sale. And if it was, those are staged photos.

On Zoopla they have the historic photos from when houses have previously sold (obviously not all, if the house hasn’t sold since 1997 for example). When I bought my house, I bought it from someone who’d only owned it 4 months and had done it up, new kitchen, bathroom, windows, plaster and paint, carpets etc. On zoopla I could see what it looked like when they bought it- a total wreck empty shell, and what it looked like the time before that. Very interesting.

Yea I love this, as PP have said, especially at Christmas! Obviously never stop and look, just a passing glance as I’m walking by.

I purposefully don’t have nets on my windows for this exact reason 😂 I don’t mind people glancing in (and we have a decent hedge out front so they really can only glance while going past). I love watching people passing by too (we live on a busy A road)

My nan also used to sit in the front window and comment on the goings on she could see. There was always one old chap who would go past and she’d say “and there he is - GOBSHITE!” never found out why she thought he was a gobshite 😂

Oh yes post Christmas lunch walk is mostly designed to go being nosey in other people's houses!